Pressing forward on Caribbean Island

Start of missionary work leads to first branch in Turks and Caicos Islands

20 June 2009, 12:00 a.m. MDT

By Church News Archives

PROVIDENCIALES, TURKS & CAICOS

Almost six months after the Church sent missionaries to begin work in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a branch was created on the island of Providenciales on May 24, 2009.

The Church gave permission to send the first missionaries to begin the work in the Turks and Caicos Islands in December 2008. The country is located along the southernmost portion of the Bahamas Island chain, just north of Haiti. It consists of six islands. Providenciales Island is the most populated with approximately 25,000 people. Providenciales, one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean, has many resort hotels along its shores. Many people immigrate from other areas to take advantage of jobs at the construction projects that are under way.

Eucal Delancey, with his wife, Dorell, is the first president of the first branch on the Turks and Caicos Islands. | Photo courtesy Jamaica Kingston Mission

Senior missionaries Robert and Rosemary Pack landed on the island to begin work on December 16, 2008. There was a small group of 17 Church members living on the island at that time. Elder and Sister Pack began tracting door to door. They were introduced to a man who knew of a member of the Church. The member, Lemorine Frisner, a Haitian immigrant, did not know the Church was organized on the island and was elated to know that the work had begun. He told Elder and Sister Pack that he had been talking to all of his friends about the Church and wanted to introduce them to the missionaries. Within a few weeks, a teaching pool of several dozen investigators was found. Sacrament meetings grew in size from the original 17 to more than 40.

A group of Church members and others gather to witness the first baptisms on Provedenciales Island on March 15, 2009. The baptisms were performed in a canal near the home of the missionaries who opened the work on the island. | Photo courtesy Jamaica Kingston Mission

The first four members were baptized on March 15 in a canal behind Elder and Sister Pack's home. Since that time, five were baptized on March 29, four on April 19, two on May 10 and seven on May 31. There are 10 more investigators with baptismal dates on June 21 and 28. All of the baptisms have been adult males who now hold the priesthood.

Those attending Church on the day the Provedenciales Branch was organized gather around the missionaries' home, which has been serving as a meeting place. Attendance at Church meetings on the island has steadily increased. | Photo courtesy Jamaica Kingston Mission

Sacrament meeting attendance has swollen to more than 70 with an average of 25 investigators attending. The work has grown beyond the abilities of Elder and Sister Pack as their duties now shift to the building and maintaining of the branch and the retaining of those who have accepted the gospel. A companionship of elders will be sent as soon as their immigration paperwork is completed, according to Jamaica Kingston Mission President David W. Gingery.

Miracles are happening everyday in the Turks and Caicos Islands, he added. The restored gospel of Jesus Christ is finding its way to many who wish to know the truth.