Surroundings

Our days stay busy with teaching seminary daily. We added two new students this week! We will be taking a two week break after tomorrow for the holidays, which to be totally honest we have no feeling of Christmas here. I guess that's kind of sad but we're doing alright. I bought one of those paper nativities with the three tiers before we left and we have that displayed on our washing machine, which is in the kitchen because there is no where else to put it. We don't have end tables or the like so I am determined let Him in and make Him room. I'm sure He doesn't mind how we do it, just that we do.
That makes me think of the way the church is here. It isn't at all traditional the way we are used to it. We have had to let go of a lot of our standard procedures here and just smile, love and hopefully teach the gospel and church practices with example. The building we are in is not conducive to organized or peaceful gospel learning. There is much going in and out of the rooms to get drinks, buy snacks at the store next door or whatever. The Branch President's office is at the front of the building with two rooms outside of it that you have to go through each one to get in or out. It's a hallway that are rooms. Then the Priesthood meets in the foyer of the building so they get all the traffic of people getting drinks or buying snacks. This little branch needs a new place to meet so badly!  We will soldier on though until that happens and be happy to do so!
We spend a lot of our time trying to find out who owns the properties that we have looked at as potential sites for the new chapel. We have been to Lands and Development, Town Council, talked with the Mayor, talked with the CEO of some other Land department, been sent two hours away to Georgetown to talk with the CEO of the Guyana Land department, sent back by him to Linden to another Land department, then sent by them back to Town Council who sent us back to Mr. Alves  the CEO that we had talked to previously. We haven't talked with him again because he hasn't been in his office the last two days but we will try again tomorrow. Hopefully we can find out who owns what and if they are available to purchase. Such is life in a developing country.
Since this is the only record I am making of our mission, I am not sugar coating much. I hope you don't find me too negative. This is a culturally stressful country for us because of what we are accustomed to.We are becoming less and less stressed as we get used to things though. There is much good and beautiful here and we feel very grateful to be here, so I hope that is coming through as well.

All kinds of animals just roam around the town.

 These birds are so beautiful!

 Sheep out walking around

 These leaves are as big or bigger than Dave!

 Cool cement work with moss

 We took a walk down this path and found a home in the middle of this beautiful valley

 This is a piece of land we hope we may be able to purchase for the site of the church

 It rained really hard in the morning so we had lots of large puddles to drive through.

 This is a home on the way to visit some members. It is so beautiful!

 How cute is this!?

 They have lots of vultures here

 This is a typical lunch meal. Graham asked me about the food so I had to take a picture of it. It's chow mein. Fried rice is also common here. I haven't had any Roti because I'm a chicken and I can't see what I'm eating since it's all wrapped up. I will be brave soon.

 More cows in the busy part of town

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 Look at that face!  Well, both faces are pretty cute!

                      Some of the sweetest children on the planet, not counting my grand children!

            This is their home. Six people live in this home.  No electricity, or running water. 

This is where one of the other seminary teacher lives.