Tales of Trinidad: Miracle on Marli Street

This week we spent some time with the future missionaries getting their second dose of Hepatitis vaccine. It's usually a fairly long wait. We had the AC serviced in our condo. We went to Trinidad to get all the new missionary smart phones on a new data plan. We flew in on Wednesday and located the Digicel corporate offices. We didn't know if there was parking real close so we found a place just up the street from Digicel on Marli Street. It took a few hours to get things moving toward the new data plan and we left knowing we would have to return tomorrow. We needed to get a signed letter from a past Senior Missionary that set up the phones to take him off as the authorized account manager and allow Dave to have control over the account since he is taking over the handling of the phones since the Williams are going home in a few weeks.

We walked back to where we parked the car and were puzzled when we couldn't see it. We looked around and decided that we were at the right place but the car was no where in sight. It was gone! There was a police car parked in the place where our car had been. I rapped on the window to get the attention of the officer sitting in the driving seat. He rolled down his window. " We parked our car here and now it's gone!" I said. "Oh, well, you can't park here, it's too close to the corner" "Really, we don't see anything that says we can't park here, would you know what happened to our car?" It probably got wrecked." WRECKED!" I said. thinking as an American that it meant, crushed, mashed up, ruined. "you'll need to go to the wrecking yard and pay $500TT to pick it up." Without a pause I asked "Would you please be able to take us there?" He gives me a questioning look and then says " Sure, no problem" So we get in the car and wait for his partner who was in the store across from the car buying lunch. The officer then drives us to the wrecking yard which is several miles away using his lights and sirens to get passed all the other cars on the road. It probably took about 20 minutes. We thanked them and immediately saw our car and the tow truck. It had probably just unhooked our car minutes before. Another officer came and asked us which car was ours and we told her. She said she would need registration and a driver's license and $500TT which is $75US. I went and sat in the car while Dave went to the booth to pay. Before he paid, Dave asked "Why is it ok for a policeman to park where our car was but not ok for us to?" They didn't answer and just asked for the money. So, he asked again and they said " Do you want us to call him?" "Yes" Dave said. So they did and the policeman said he was there on official business. Which caused us to smile cause we knew they were parked there to get their lunch and maybe even had our car towed away so they would have a parking place...

I titled this post "Miracle on Marli Street because: Even though our car had essentially been stolen, neither Dave or I were freaked out. We were calm and peaceful. The police car was still there for us to ask and find out what happened and then for them to help us get where we needed to go. If it had been a few minutes later, we would have been upset, worried and so confused to know what to do. It's like the Lord said "yeah, this thing is going to happen but I'll make it as easy on you as I can." and He did! We were still out $75 bucks but we learned we need to be pretty careful where we park a car in Trinidad.

Between Digicel days in Trinidad we drove up to St Bennedicts church. You can see it high up on the mountain from the main highway by the coast and we wondered what it was. It would be a perfect place to put a temple except for the crazy drive and roads to get up to it.

Friday, we sat at immigration with Leana because there is an issue with her passport and she can't receive her call, which is sitting at Church Headquarters, until she gets a renewed Trinidad stamp on her passport. We got the process rolling and will return on Monday with all the documents we need and hopefully it will work out just great! The official made it feel like it would be ok.

Taking a quick trip to Trinidad. We may be doing this more often because our wonderful Senior couple the Williams are going home at the end of October and there isn't anyone to replace them. We can fly over in 20 minutes and spend a couple days to help with the young Elders there and whatever else that needs attention. We can't ever replace the Williams because they were involved in so many things but we can be there for all the transfers, airport runs etc.

Waiting at the clinic to get immunized for their missions...that sounds funny, immunized for their missions...I guess it should be get immunizations so they can serve missions.

The reason for the AC serviced. We had quite a bit of water running down the walls

The view from St Bennedict's church

The mountain where St Bennedict's sits. Very dense foliage.

The steeple of the monastery of St Benns

I think it looks very cool nestled in the mountain. Can't you just imagine a temple here?

Here you see the church and the monastery, founded in 1912

Inside the church

Full moon on Friday the 13th.

We see these little guys in our condo all the time. They are pretty easy to catch and let outside.

I came across this huge monstrosity just outside our condo door. It's at least 6 inches long and about a penny size in diameter. They are fascinating to watch.