Sunday, November 10, 2019

Keeping busy!

 We began the week with us still in Trinidad. We were getting the apartment ready for the two sister missionaries arriving this Tuesday. The plumber came on Monday and worked all day even into the early evening. It was quite the job as he had to break out the tile, replace the shower valve and replace the tile. When he turned the water back on as he left we were happy that the leak was no more. The next morning we excitedly turned on the faucet and to our astonishment, water was leaking out of the new valve that had been replaced. We showed the landlord who then called the plumber back and he began again to break out the tile and so on. Happily, the next day all was well. During our time waiting for the bathroom to be repaired, we painted the elders kitchen. You see, a few companions back had gotten a scented candle and we aren't sure exactly what happened because we never talked to the actual occupants of the apartment at the time, but apparently the kitchen window curtains caught on fire and caused quite a bit of smoke damage. They tried to clean it up but only spread the black stain on the ceiling and walls. Of course the curtain had been burned beyond repair and they needed some new ones. We took one of the very long curtains in the main room down and I cut them in half and I hemmed the one half and made new kitchen curtains from the other half. Anyway, Dave got a chip of paint color off the wall and we got a can of white paint and light yellow paint and a roller and tray and went to work. Dave did most of the work since we only bought one roller and it wasn't too big of a job. We were please to get to take care of that for the now occupant elders since they had nothing to do with it but were just left with the damage.
We got the old office room set up for the bedroom and everything cleaned again since we had been sleeping, eating and bathing there since last Thursday. Our 3 days planned turned into 9 days. We are excited to have these sisters come and help the mission in Trinidad.
We got back "home" to Tobago on Thursday. Before we left, we had arranged to start teaching a little nine year old girl in our branch named Aedyn. The rest of her family are members but they stopped coming to church for a time and she turned 8 and then 9. They own a pastry shop in the mall down town Scarborough and we would stop in and say "hi" on a pretty regular basis. One day she asked if we could come and give her daughter Aedyn a blessing. She had been in and out of the hospital with some stomach issues. After the dad and Dave gave her a blessing we asked if she was wanting to be baptized and if we could come and teach her. The mom said she had been thinking about that. We gave her the first discussion Friday and the second one yesterday. The mom sits in with us and it's a joyful time. We are planning on setting a date if they keep coming to church. They have been there for the last 3 weeks of church, except Conference. Cecile, the mom shared a beautiful testimony in RS today. It makes us so happy to have this family come back to church!
We are busy getting our two missionaries ready to go. Christian received his call six weeks before he is scheduled to report to the South Africa Mission Training Center on Dec. 5th so there is a boat load of stuff to do. We are hoping to get his visa application done in the next few days. We have a little more time with Leana since she doesn't leave until Jan. 28th.
It's good to be busy! 
 Here we are with Christian and his call to Botswana, Namibia, South Africa 
 The mysterious candle incident 
 When we're helping we're happy...
 All spiffed up!
 Making new curtains. Luckily there was a sewing machine in Trinidad that we brought to Tobago.
 Dave took in three pairs of slacks that he didn't need to give to Christian.
 Our two beautiful, wonderful missionaries. Leana and Christian. We are so happy to get to be part of the process of getting them ready. We love them as our own.

Dave brought this Bosch and makes his mom's wheat bread recipe.  

Honestly, this man can do everything!

 Look at all that yummy goodness! 
 We taught Aedyn about prayer and challenge her to make a prayer rock to put on her pillow so it will remind her to say her prayers before she goes to bed and then put the rock on the floor so then when she gets up, she stubs her toe on the rock to remind her to say her prayers. 
Isn't this one of the cutest faces you have ever seen?! Cadell. Christian's little brother.

Tender Mercies

This will be the last tale I will be recording of our Trinidad Port of Spain Mission. I will begin with the 34 hour travel time to get back ...