Our flight was supposed to leave at 8:30 am the next day, Tuesday, but as we were checking in that evening we discovered that it had been delayed until 8:30 pm and then delayed again until 11:45 pm. The mission home needed to be vacated for other missionaries arriving so we decided to get a hotel in town and wait for the flight and have a place to sleep in case it was delayed again, which is a frequent occurrence in the Caribbean.
Since we had several hours before the flight, we went shopping in town and had dinner payed for by the airline since they delayed us. We left the hotel at 7:30 for the airport and fortunately we did get on the flight to Trinidad at 11:30. Since we had missed our connecting flight, we spent the night in a hotel in Trinidad. There were no flights available back to Tobago until Saturday so the next morning Dave and I determined we would go to the airport and get on stand by. It took us 4 tries to get a seat but it was worth it. We had to go back to the ticket counter every hour until two seats opened up.
We rested up the next day and did laundry and grocery shopping. A member had called us when we were waiting in the airport on our way to Curacao. He was sobbing and wanted us to come to his home. We told him we would when we got back. We arranged to meet at his home and he shared with us that his wife had a miscarriage and the twins she was carrying were lost but she didn't tell him. She thought he would leave her. They were due the end of April. Rockie, the husband couldn't figure out why she hadn't had the babies and why she wouldn't go to the hospital. He was very hurt. He said there was good news though, that she was 5 months pregnant. She lost the babies, couldn't tell him and then figured since she got pregnant again, all would be ok. We had been planning on starting the missionaries discussions when the babies came and were settled but we just asked if she was willing to hear the lessons now and she was. We taught the first one tonight, Sunday. I think it went well. Rockie is a returned missionary but hasn't come to church for a while because of his divorce etc. He is very excited for his wife to get baptized and then go to the temple.
Saturday, we went to three homes to visit and no one was there so we decided to drive around the island. It was very fun.
Dave has been trying to change the Church building location on the site since we got here and found out it was not correct. He finally got the right people at Church headquarters to make the change. That made him super happy. Another wonderful thing is, we finally heard back from TPAF (Temple Patron Assistants Fund) that Molly and Hannif Emamudin from Guyana have been approved to go to the Manaus, Brazil temple so we will be planning a trip to go with them hopefully in June! Super excited about that too!
Fun statue in Curacao
Place of many turtles
Ready to go!
Dave found a pearl.....earring
Such great, fun people!
Eldrer Vermeeren, The Haakes, The Jones, The Bohnes and us
not too bad of a picture without an under water camera.
We bought an underwater camera after doing this so we can get some good shots
Blow hole. The island breathing...
Always beautiful scenery to pose with
This is a cairn beach. People stack rocks on top of each other to make a balanced tower.
They are used to mark trails or as memorials.
Dave of course had to make one
Here he has left his mark
The Curacao flag
These fist markers are many places in Curacao. They represent slave lives that
were lost fighting for their freedom
Curacao is really a desert island
One of the beaches we went to has lots of pigs living there
This is the famous skyline of Curacao
This is the country's license plate. Pretty cool
The deck you see is the restaurant we ate dinner. It's by the port where all the cruise ships dock
The group enjoying our last dinner together
Some cute posing....I think it's cute...The Vermeerens
Dave and I
The Bohnes
The Bairds
The Haakes
More cute posing
Dave suggested we use the A for April
Waiting for the airport to open so we can change our delayed tickets
Off to the hotel to wait for the flight at midnight
the court yard of the hotel
Enjoying dinner at the hotel
Yep.....delayed
It's been a long day and it's not over yet
Back in Tobago driving around the island. This tree is humongous! Can you see me?
The road is very curvy and up and down. Then these beautiful scenes appear!
So many different kinds of palm trees
The houses are built is amazing places
One of the beaches was having a cook off competition for the youth.
Who ever won would get a scholarship to the culinary school here in Tobago
Love this!
Another gorgeous cove beach...in fact most of the beaches are in coves cause a great deal
of the coast line is rocky and full of thick trees.
Love this too!
This house can only be reached by foot
The houses are usually built one level at a time as they get the money to finish it.
It can takes years to do so
All the coves are different little towns
It's an amazing engineering feat to build these homes on these steep hills
Lots of colors. It gives the island a very happy feel
Another beautiful cove beach
As we drove around the island we came across this ruined sugar plantation.
This was a small plantation. In the history of Tobago at one point there were 2,000 white folk and 10,000 black slaves. The original people of Tobago were Amerindians.
This water wheel and crank thing to the right of the sign were used to process sugar cane
As I walked around the remaining walls and rock stairs and cobblestone walk ways I could just imagine how many slaves and how many years it must have taken to build all of it.
This bush was full of these caterpillars. A mamma and her babies
This is little Tobago on the east end of the big island and is a Bird paradise.
We will go there one of these days
The sweet girl in the middle is Naomi and her son Malachi. He was blessed today.
She asked us to be the godparents. Not sure what that means but we said yes.
