Halloween - October 31, 2016

Tut Tim. What we ride for short trips

Dear Family,

Tonight we had a ward social for Halloween.  It was pretty loose, with people mostly visiting and children running around.  Many dressed up.  A table to carve 4 pumpkins was set up outside.  We took cookies and a fruit salad for the potluck.  Everyone ate with their fingers - even us.  Dinner included a delicious broth soup that we ate out of cups,  potato salad, a juicy vegetable salad, pudding, etc.  I did not see any flatware in the kitchen although someone said the RS had some in their closet.  They told us branch socials seldom happen during the week so everyone stayed for a long time even though some have a 2 hour commute to work in the morning.  This branch is really spread out.

There is part of a Pakistani family here temporarily applying for relocation.  One brother was beaten, another one in jail for months and their older brother currently has a 6 year sentence in Pakistan.  The one in jail said his two cell partners received a death sentence right after he left and were killed.  One wife is here and the other wife is still in Pakistan.  Their crime is they were successful, educated Christians.  Even lawyers, Muslems, and judges are afraid to help them because they and their families can receive reprisals if they stand up and help. 

Two girls are here from Jordan, waiting for mission calls.  They hoped there would be more opportunity in SL but decided they like Jordan better.  Although Sri Lankan, they have lived in Jordan their entire lives.  Their parents are LDS, but their father has passed away.  Their mother feels like Jordan is her home so she remains there. Many have interesting stories of life events and conversion.  One man was a Christian in Iraq but due to persecution is in SL  His mother is part SL and Dutch.  These people are happy, hard working and friendly.  Beautiful smiles.  I am surprised how many have served missions; women and men - to Australia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, England, Singapore, etc.  The Buddist faith is very strong here and some are estranged from their families after having joined the church.

It is thundering, lightning and raining as I write.  I am headed to bed.

Love to all,

Mom/Becky/Grandma

Names are Very Unusual - Nov 1, 2016

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Our current address is 92 Layard's Road Apt 1/2, Colombo 5, Sri Lanka. If we stay in Colombo we will keep this address.  Hopefully we will know sometime this week.

We just had our first district meeting with the one set of elders in Sri Lanka, Eder Gunerathne, baptized in 2014 and Elder Wijethunge, baptized at eight.  We go out with them this evening to visit a newly baptized family.  They said it is so hard to locate places that we should probably go with them first to find out where people live.  Tomorrow we visit another new family. Some members travel two hours by car to get to the church building so the branch is spread out.

One of my biggest problems is pronunciation of names and understanding what is being said.  Some of the accents are difficult for me to understand, especially when they speak quickly, and most of the names are very unusual and several syllables.  I am sure I will catch on and I hope it happens quickly.

Thank you for your prayers in behalf of our obtaining the gift of tongues.  I have a tough time distinguishing sounds when the people speak.  They speak so fast.  We were saying some words to Aubrey on FaceTime and she immediately picked it up.  But I am studying words every day.  The driver told me a phrase to say at peoples' homes when we are ready to leave.  It is said like one word and means, "We are going, and we will come back."  It is "Gihin ennam" - gi hin en nam.  The vowels are all short.  My tongue gets all twisted but I am grateful for the exercise of learning another language.  There are 50+ characters in the Sinhala language and they all look like curly cues to me.  I have not tried to read.

The couple before us is so loved.  One convert even named his new restaurant after them, called, Steve and Lauri Restaurant.  Everyone talks about them and it is wonderful to see how they loved the people and were loved in return.

On a walk around Colombo

We visited two families last night with the missionaries.  One moved further out of town where they could afford land and build.  Their two story cement block house is partially finished and will be lovely.  They joined the church in July and it is tough to travel the hour distance to church and they have a motorcycle for four people.  He is a track, discus, javelin coach.  She was in the Army and her name is Pretty which means happy.  The people here are gorgeous.  Beautiful women and men with lovey dark skin and exotic looks.  There exists the age old problem of sin.  Like everywhere families are hurt by infidelity, alcohol, and physical and mental abuse.  We have some beautiful single women in the church raising their families alone.  It is nice to hear that the predominant religion of Buddhism encourages and teaches kind family ties and fidelity.  I look forward to leaning more about Buddhism and how they live their beliefs.  One sister shared that she recently joined her family for a celebration to honor her father.  He has been dead 22 years and every year they gather to honor him on the anniversary of his death.  School uniforms are mostly all white and to enter the Buddhist temple, everyone wears white.  

We are grateful not to drive.  It is somewhat organized chaos with few lights.  Cars, buses, motorcycles, tut tuts, going everywhere and people walking along the road mostly with no sidewalks or shoulder.  The roads turn and curve with heavy traffic. ( I hope I am not writing things I have already written.  Everything is running together.)

Sleep well.  

Love to all.

Love you all.

Sri Lanka Arrival - Oct 30, 2016

Dear Family,

We arrived about midnight in Colombo after almost 30 hours in the air and waiting in airports.  Got settled about 2:00am.  Ann and her husband, President Anton, picked us up at the airport, had food in our kitchen apartment, took us to church and brought us dinner today.  The seem like a young couple but must be older.  I think he served a  mission in the 80's and they have been unable to have children.  He is in the mission presidency and spends many hours helping make the church effort here work.  He is working on us obtaining a working visa so we can teach English.  We hope to find out this week what university we will be teaching at so depending on our assignment we could move to Kandy or Ngombo.  

It is hot and humid, about 88 with high humidity.  Our apartment is 2 bedroom, three bath and nice with individual air conditioners in three rooms and fans in four rooms.  I will take photos and send them.  

The members were over the top friendly and talked about how much they loved the previous couple, Elder and Sister Condie.  They made us feel very good.  Learning names is what we are working on and I can tell it may be a slow process.  It was the Primary Program today and wow!, their singing was amazing.  I counted 26 children and it sounded like many more. Tomorrow we go to the grocery store to stock up.

It is 10:20pm here so I am headed to bed.  Bill went to sleep about 1 1/2 hours ago.Please know we love you and will keep you updated.  We will try to figure out phone connections but everyone her says to use WhatsApp.  If we get the magic jack connection to work, we will let you know.  We should be able to skype or facetime and hope to set up times that may work for each of you.  We realize that things come up so times may change.

I am headed to bed.Love to all.Mom/Becky/Grandma

A follow up letter from Elder Lathen to work colleagues, family & friends:

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope to send emails to you this way, but if you want off, just tell me and I can delete.  Also, I have several emails with no actual names attached, so you could reply and tell me who you are.  I included the weslathen group email so someone reply if you were able to get this.

Sister Lathen and I entered the Mission Training Center October 17th.  We were to be there for one week, but the last minute things changed.  The Church was able to get permission for a missionary couple to teach English at the University as a community service, and we were chosen to do this.  It is the first time it has ever been allowed in Sri Lanka, but Mongolia has been doing this for 5 years and the mission there has had great success, as some learners want to know more about the Savior.  So, we were selected, but rejected because we had no ESL training.  Thus the Church had us take a 40-hour certificate course, half the first week we were there, an online portion, then stay a second week for actual teaching ESL students.  I guess we passed and are now allowed to teach ESL to the Sri Lankan university kids.  We think and hope it will be team teaching.  They may have me also teach an accounting course, which would be a lot easier than ESL.

The day before we left the MTC I had a dream and in it I was told to get the address where we will be staying in Colombo, SriLanka.  The next day we emailed the previous Missionary couple who lived here and they gave it to us.  We think this was a tender mercy of the Savior, as we had to have this to be permitted to enter the country.

The flight took 30 hours, 22 of which were in the air.  Good news is that I got to watch 6 movies, more than I saw the whole year.  We arrived in Colombo at midnight and got to bed after 2.  We are 11 1/2 hours in the future for those of you in Mountain time.  Sunday was wonderful, but we did get really tired at the end.  The members have dark skin, very beautiful women and handsome men. they have the warmest smiles we have ever seen.  They treated us like we were Apostles or Angels - very humbling but nice.  Somehow we need to get to know them and pronounce their names - a huge task.  We are praying that we can do this, as their names are mostly different and a much different accent.  Please include us in your prayers that we can learn their names.

We hope to visit each family, but even that is difficult as the names we get from them are usually different than from the Branch list of names, and we cannot tell who is who.  Hopefully we will learn.

Many of the members have recently been baptized.  One family we visited last night only knew broken English, though they could mostly understand us.  He is to receive the Priesthood this Sunday, his wife's name is pretty, which means happy.  They have two young children.  The second family wife is Molly, her son Shashsrika, daughter Metasha.  they were baptized just a year ago and Shashsrika is anxious to serve a mission.  He reads well, speaks English well and is very good young man.  Their husband is a Buddhist who left the family six years ago, was abusive to Molly, but is sending them money to live on as he lives and works in Madagascar.

We love you all.  

Elder and Sister Lathen

The Mission Call - Aug 7, 2016

Sister and Brother Lathen just opened their mission envelope from 47 East South Temple.  It reads:

You are assigned to labor in the India Benaluru Mission in the Sri Lanka Mission Region.  Your primary assignment is to labor as member and leader support missionaries.

We report to the MTC in Provo Monday October 17th.

Wow, what a call!  We are excited to serve the Lord in Sri Lanka.  Becky and I visited there for one week in 2012.  We loved the country as it is beautiful and green.  We look forward to serving and loving the people.

No suits are required, so it is a short sleeve shirt mission.  I know it is humid.

We love all of our family, immediate and extended.

Elder and Sister Lathen