One Year Gone

November 5th marks 365 days on our mission! Amazing! It has gone by quickly and slowly at the same time. Truly, a life changing experience. When we planned our life together as we got married, we both wanted to serve multiple missions and so we worked hard to have Dave retire early so we would still be young and mostly healthy to go. Africa was at the top of the list to help with clean water for the villages with Dave's engineering background. That didn't happen, but we got a taste of scarcity and hardship in Guyana so that satisfied us wanting to experience that and allowed us to  meet and love people who are happy and grateful regardless of their circumstances. We realize we have way too much stuff and seeing what we have seen has helped us be more aware of how very blessed we are. Being out of the US has been challenging but very worthwhile in building our characters. I can't say I have enjoyed the journey 100% but that in itself is a worthwhile and valuable endeavor. I think our next mission will be shorter and not so far from home.

We did have quite a busy week though.

Here in Tobago they have what they call "Sunday School" every Sunday evening. A steel pan group plays outdoors for free. We worried about it being on Sunday but decided since we didn't have to pay it was like an evening concert so we went. It's begins at 9 pm and it's wonderful! We enjoyed it very much!
The rest of the week we spent in Trinidad. The mission was hosting a movie night in each country showing the film "The Other side of Heaven 2" Our mission President is friends with the film's director/producer. They rented out a movie theater in each country and invited all the youth and young adults to watch it for free. We met Mitch Davis and his wife in Trinidad and we had time before the movie to go watch the Scarlet Ibises come home to roost. The tour consists of getting in a boat and going through a swamp at dusk until you reach a small island in the middle of the swamp. Suddenly, hundreds and thousands of birds come flying to roost on the one little island for the night. You see all these pink Ibises flying in and landing on the trees. They are born grey but as they eat shrimp and crabs their feathers turn bright reddish pink. It takes about three years to get to full color. so as the birds are flying you'll can see the young grey ones along with the bright pink adults. Pretty soon the green island is covered in Scarlet birds. They estimate about 30,000 birds fly in every night. Nature is AMAZING!

We have been working on getting two young adults in our branch ready to serve missions. Leana has received her call to serve in SLC, Utah and leaves Jan. 28th. Christian received his call to serve in Botswana, Nambia, South Africa, leaving on Dec. 5th. The Stake flew them over for the movie night and we took them shopping to get luggage and clothing. We got Christian's suit and several outfits for Leana. They are so grateful for the generosity of the people who have contributed to helping them with their missions. The movie was fabulous! The next morning we had a meeting with all the missionaries and a member of the Area Presidency and a 70. It was wonderful!

We are getting two senior sister missionaries in Trinidad to replace the Williams'. They arrive the middle of Nov. We spent the rest of the week getting the apartment ready for them to come. We needed to clean out the one bedroom that the William's used as an office and make it into a bedroom. The second bathroom has had a "drippy" faucet for months that the landlord wasn't able to get to, but now it is critical that it be fixed for the sister to use the bathroom. The drip isn't really a drip but more like a steady stream. Dave, being an engineer did an analysis on the flow of water and discovered that it puts out 45 gallons of water per hour! That is quite the leak! They are fixing it tomorrow!
 We have the most wonderful event ahead of us! We get to go to the Santo Domingo temple with the Emamudin family from Guyana! They received approval for the TPAF so the Church flies Haniff, Molly and daughter Sarah to the DR and pays for their housing too. We'll be there for a week. They are working on getting their family names to take with them when we go. We are so very excited and grateful for this opportunity to share this sweet event with them. I'm excited to see the changes that happened a while ago that we have missed out on. There are a few sacrifices that happen on missions and some are greater than others...missing family is the biggest one and for me, not being able to go to the temple is another one. It's kind of been a vexation of my soul not being able to be in the temple, so this will be very good for Dave and I.

 Taking Leana and Christian to the airport to fly back to Tobago we found this stranded Elder Fronk transferring from Aruba. He'd been there since 9 am and it was now 4 pm and his flight to Guyana didn't leave until 9 pm. We fed him dinner and had a nice visit to break up his wait.

 The name of the Steel pan band

 The pans or drums come in all sizes for the different tones

 The indentations are what create the different notes

 These are the bass drums. The players would twirl there sticks as they played. 

It was great fun to watch and wonderful to hear.

 Amazing hair

 My very most favorite food in Trinidad Tobago. Doubles! My mouth is just watering seeing them! They are sort of like soft tortia or really light fry bread placed together and then they put channa and sweet or peppery sauces on them and you fold them and enjoy. 

 They are very messy to eat but so so yummy! 

I even dream about them....not really but I do crave them. 

I'm excited to share them when our visitors get here!

 The Bairds, Davis' and us on the Scarlet Ibis tour

 cool bird....can't remember the name now...it's a rare sight

 Huge snake in a tree along the swamp

 The swamp

 Here they come....we sat there for probably 40 minutes watching group after group fly in

 Very pretty birds

 Filling up the trees. White egrets fly in also but they disappear into the trees

 They only roost on the one little island even though there are many other trees close by

 I caught this feather as it floated down from the sky! 

 The lady next to Dave is Sister Weekes!  Michelle and Mitch Davis. They were the nicest couple.

 Leana with Mitch and Christian. He was so excited to meet the first missionaries from Tobago.

 All the missionaries in Trinidad with the Bairds and the Davis'

 Training with Elder Brown and Elder Gavarret,from the Seventy and Brothers Brough and Newman from the General Sunday School and Young Men and their lovely wives.

 Stake President Rupa and three soon to be missionaries with Elder Kevin Brown of the Seventy.

Christian and Leana are making Church history being the first ever missionaries from Tobago!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...well, in the stores anyway. 

It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this will be our second Christmas in the Caribbean...