The process of the new chapel has been slower than molasses......we are hoping the gentleman that owns the property where the partial building is, will be patient or we will lose this site. We are hoping that it will get under contract soon.
Monday was kind of a regular day. It's been nice to have water to use whenever we want so I don't have to time showers, dishes or washing clothes. We went to seminary with the new teacher Sally.
Tuesday was a special day because one of our Seminary students got baptized! Rockley Joseph. He is 13 years old and I love him! He is a very quiet and shy guy but you can tell his heart is so good! We had seminary and then his baptism after that. Dave was blessed to be able to baptize Rockly.
Wednesday, we went to Haniff and Molly's and got all their temple clothes ordered on the internet. We asked President Baird if he would allow us to escort them to the temple and he said yes! So now we will be making all the arrangements to get us to the Manaus Brazil temple. The church has a program called TPAF (Temple Patron Assistants Fund) where members can donate to help get other members to the temple for the first time. You can apply and the church will pay for all the transportation, clothing, meals and lodging. Can I tell you how much I love this church! Can I tell you how much I love it's members who are so willing to give of their abundance so that their brothers and sisters in poorer situations can have the necessary opportunities to receive all of the blessings our Father in Heaven has to offer each one of us. Anyway, we have filled out the application and now we will hope and pray that it goes through for them. They will be traveling with their 11 year old daughter Sarah to be sealed together. We will of course pay our own way but truly, this would never happen for this family without the TPAF program.
After we finished with Haniff and Molly we headed to Georgetown for the night because we had an early flight (we thought) to Trinidad the next morning. We needed to give the office couple the car to have fixed because Dave was hit a few weeks prior, when I wasn't with him, or surely I would have yelled "stop or slow down" or something to prevent it from happening.....I am being snarky of course. So, without a car we had our first taxi ride to the airport at 5am! Our taxi driver happens to be a member of the church and he told us some pretty horriffic stories of his adventures on the road. He told us that his wife keeps telling him "Honey, if you love me, you won't drive fast." So he doesn't and I was so grateful! He will be picking us up when we return on Tuesday.
Thursday, we were up at 4am and out the door at 5am to get to the airport by 6am. We were there even before any of the ticket attendants. As we were checking in, we were told that our 8:15 flight was delayed until 1:30pm. Unfortunately, they do not notify you if there is a change of flights or times so we had nothing to do but wait in this very small airport for the next 6 and a half hours....we were trying to get to a special zone conference in Trinidad with Elder Soares of the twelve apostles. We thought it was at 2 and then told it was at 5pm. When we finally got in the air at 2pm, we thought we would be able to make the meeting. Well. it happens to be Carnival time here in the Caribbean and the airport immigration and customs was C R A Z Y!!! We waited two hours to get through immigration and having 7 large bags for two people for only 6 days looked very suspicious to the custom agent so we had to go through the xray machines and they didn't like what they saw so then we had to go and open every suitcase. We were bringing as much of our stuff here that we could to keep at the mission office in Trinidad until we moved completely in a couple of weeks. When the x-ray lady told us to get in the "red line" which is the searching line, which was very long, but you have to go passed the out doors, I tried to signal Dave that we could just slip out with our bags cause everyone was pretty busy and wasn't really paying attention to what one person was doing...so I actually went out the doors with out any issue but Dave didn't follow me and was being a good citizen or something....so, then I had to make a big scene and come back in the doors you are NOT supposed to come through...yikes! Apparently, I momentarily forgot the badge I was wearing and just wanted to be out of there and couldn't stand the thought of standing in another long line knowing that the Williams', the senior couple in Trinidad, had been waiting to pick us up at the airport and wanting to get to the meeting with the Apostle for 3 hours! Finally at 5:30 we are in the William's car and learned that the meeting had been postponed until tomorrow and there was an adult meeting at 7pm that we were headed to right then. Sweet Sister Williams had prepared some sandwiches and sliced apples for us to eat on the way. We arrived at the chapel in Trinidad at 6:30 and waited for the Apostle to arrived. The Chapel was packed! Elder Soares and his beautiful wife and Elder and Sister Gonzalez and President and Sister Baird came and we all rose and they passed by shaking hands. It was a wonderful meeting and a blessing to end a very trying day. We slept at the mission office that night.
The next morning, Friday, we went to what used to be the Mission home, a beautiful home with mango and avocado trees in the yard, and waited for the Authorities to come. There were only 20 of us total in the room and we just sat around in a circle and Elder Soares and Elder Gonzalez answered the questions from the young Elders for 2 hours! I was filled by the Spirit and feel so grateful to have had such a unique and powerful experience to sit with and be taught by an Apostle of Jesus Christ! He told how he had been to Israel and what the roads were like and how far the people in Jesus' time had to walk to get to be with Him. It brought to my mind what the people here in Guyana have to do in their lives, and the thought came " How far would you walk to get to spend time with your Savior, Jesus Christ?" You probably wouldn't care how far you had to walk, you would just do whatever it takes to get there. I believe that's how we need to think about the Sacrament. Partaking of the Sacrament is spending time with our Savior and it shouldn't matter what we have to do to get there. It's a blessing and a privilege to renew our covenants and spend "time" with our Savior. That really could apply to how often we get to the temple as well. People here really don't have the opportunity to do that like we do, but those of us who are close to a temple may want to rethink "how far would you walk to spend time with your Savior?"
Elder Soares shared a story of when he was a young missionary. He served as the branch president on his mission and was given the task of finding the next branch president. He said he worked as hard and as diligently as he could but after 8 months time he was transferred and had not been successful in finding the next leader. He begged to stay to make it happen but was told it was time for him to be elsewhere. Years went by and he always felt a disappointment and guilt when he would think about his failure. One day at the temple he was approached by a young man who remembered him as his branch president as a youth. Elder Soares had taught and baptized he and his family. This young man did serve as the branch president in later years and he was now serving as the Stake President in the same area. Dave felt like that was an answer to prayer for him in trusting in the Lord's timing of our leaving Guyana. We feel like we could do a lot more but we may not realize for years how the Lord always magnifies our efforts to strengthen this precious branch of Saints in Linden, Guyana.
Our flight to Tobago left at 2 pm so we left right after lunch of pizza hut pizza!!! I try not to eat things that come from animals but that pizza tasted pretty good after months of "cook up" which is rice and beans and chow mien noodles or fried rice and roti. The flight to Tobago was only 15 minutes and left right on time! Tobago is gorgeous! It's a tiny island with beautiful bright blue water. We rented a car, went to Digicel to get a chip so our phones worked then drove around the island a while and went to our hotel. Dave had reserved a resort place that has it's own private cove beach and canopy beds! Haven't you always wanted a canopy bed? Be honest....I know I have! anyway, it's a lovely place and I keep thinking about when our children will be coming for a week to visit. This may be a good spot to do that...dinner at the hotel was delicious, roasted vegetables and spinach soup! That may not sound delicious to you but after the same food for three months any change is delicious!
Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast at the hotel and went to the beach. They have a wooden rope swing that I sat on while Dave made calls to see if we could check out some apartments. There are some large black volcanic rocks that I walked on and they started moving and I was startled to see "plenty plenty" (that's what the Guyanese people say for a lot of something) black crabs of all sizes scurrying here and there, hanging on for dear life as the waves crashed on the rocks. It was a little creepy at first cause they looked like large spiders that had infested the rocks but they sensed our presence and always tried to go away from us so no worries there. (that's for Amy) After setting up meetings to see the apartments we were able to check out 9 different sites. It was fun to drive around the island and feel the difference of being in Guyana. Don't get me wrong, I love the Guyanese people and even most of the country but it is challenging to live there. Here in Tobago the roads are all paved with very few potholes. There are traffic lights at most if not all intersections which people observe. There is relatively fewer traffic as well and the speed is much slower and non-aggressive. There isn't garbage on the streets or in the yards, very few abandoned or unfinished structures. Too be fair, we haven't seen the whole island but at first glance, it's seems to be more developed and structured than our lovely Guyana. There are not all the little shops all over the streets and the animals for the most part are fenced although they do have cow crossing signs at places on the highways. It's the dry season here so it definitely is not as green as Guyana. The people are not as friendly or as beautiful in general as our lovely Guyanese. I am probably a little biased and will love the people here just as much as we have in Guyana in just a few days time.
We were gone until dusk looking at places and feel like we have some very good choices.
Sunday, we were up and at the Church, which is only 5 minutes from the hotel, by 8:30am with not a soul there. We sat in the car for a few minutes then we saw an elderly man walking with a cane headed for the church. When he went to the front door we figured he must be there for church. We got out of the car to go meet and visit with him. His name is brother Randolph Murray and he is the 2nd Counselor in the Branch Presidency. He is 91 years old and is a member of two years. He didn't have a key to unlock the door so we waited some more. Soon another lady shows up and she is the Relief Society Pres. and she has a key. By now it's 8:50 and we are the only ones there. After a few more minutes, a few more people show up and Dave helps brother Murray prepare the Sacrament table. At 9:10 the Branch Pres. comes and five minutes later His other counselor starts the meeting. The organ doesn't work so the Pres. has a blue tooth speaker he links to his phone to play music for the hymns. Dave is asked to say the opening prayer. By the time the Sacrament is passed we have 19 total people in the room. There are 109 members on the record. All the room is filled with women and three children, no Deacons, Teachers or Priest, no Young women and no other Elders except for the three men on the stand and Dave in the congregation and one other older brother at the Sacrament table. Sweet brother Murray passes the Sacrament as slowly and gently as you can imagine a 91 year old man with a cane would do. Of Course you can't compare him with Pres. Nelson because that's just not a fair comparison. Dave whispered to me before the opening hymn that we were asked to speak...As I basked in the Spirit which can always be felt if you are seeking it, I thought about what I would say....After the Sacrament the counselor announced for Elder Weeks to speak. It was 9:25. He gave a lovely 25 minute talk. It was 9:55. The counselor got up and announced the rest hymn and then said I would be speaking. I kind of shook my head and said "the time is up" so then the Branch Pres. said just sing the closing hymn. and then the counselor said "well, we will have you speak next time" which is just fine by me. We had an enjoyable discussion with the Sisters. all 8 of us and then church was over. It was wonderful to meet these valiant saints here in Tobago and we are very excited to meet all the other members who were not there.
Out first sighting of the ocean
Baptism of Rockly Joseph with missionaries and Dave
Branch members at the baptism ( I was taking the picture)left to right:
Romeo, Elder Bigelow, Romario, Elder Holman, Keioma Dover, Dave, Elder Leitch (kneeling) Rockly, Dawn (Rockly's mom) Elder Moracca, Molly, Sunita, Haniff, Sally
Joy!
Our blessing and privilege of being in this company
Sister Atkins, Sister Williams, Elder Williams, Dave, Me, Sister and Pres. Baird,
Elder and Sister Soares, Sister and Elder Gonzalez.
I don't know all the Elders in the back because this isn't our normal area. But they are all great!
Not just one canopy bed but two canopy beds!
The swimming pool at the hotel and the view
The lovely rock of plenty plenty crabs
panorama of the private cove beach and swing
The Tobago branch building. Chapel in the main floor and classrooms on the second floor
One possible Senior apartment, the second floor area
Another possible Senior apartment, the lower right quadrant
One of the many crabs on the rocks
