We finished all the discussions with Aeyden and she will be baptized this coming Saturday!
Sister Cupid told us her 18 year old granddaughter wants to have the lessons and get baptized!
We started up our teaching reading time again with Girlie. She travels a lot.
Christian is almost completely ready to leave on his mission on Dec. 5th. We spent nearly every day with him this week getting the things he needs for his visa. Police report...which takes two weeks to process. High school diploma, check. New medical forms filled out on their (the South African visa) forms, meaning another trip to the doctor, lung x-ray, TB test. We can check that off Tuesday when we do the follow up. It's been a pleasure hanging out with this wonderful young man.
We get to go to Trinidad to have Thanksgiving with the other missionaries there!
We have our temple trip coming up the first week of December.!
And then we'll plan for Christmas with the branch!
We continue to do our on going member visits each week. Our Relief Society Pres. Sister Dookran had a heart attack and now needs to have oxygen. She may need to live in Trinidad with her brother to take care of her. She is the one that is an hour from the church.
On Thursday, Dave took a quick trip to Trinidad to help with the transfers of Elders from one zone to another. He left in the morning and came back in the evening, kind of like when he was working. There used to be around 40 Elders in Trinidad Tobago and now we are down to 8. The government is not giving the visas that are needed to let our missionaries come into the country. When missionaries get their calls to Trinidad they usually have to end up "visa waiting" in another part of the mission, like we did in Guyana, until the visas are granted.
Dave is methodically getting the car fleet organized and running smoothly.
We are still in process of opening up a couple of new apartments in Trinidad. We systematically renew each apartment every year and found an apartment that we were going to renew to a deceased person from three years ago, so we had to do some investigating to find the legal owners and Dave is working with the area legal team to redo the contract, so the housing assignment has been a little more involved of late.
We will still need to work with Leana to get her completely ready to leave for her mission at the end of January. We had to put her on the back burner for a while because Christian leaves before she does. She isn't too far off though.
I think that is pretty much "it" for this week. Oh, wait. I need to record this: A few months ago we were visiting Sister Henry and the first thing she said to me with a big smile was "you're getting fat?" I was shocked and taken a back because she thought it was a compliment. I laughed it off pretty well. I have noticed a change in my waistline....then today at church when I saw Mary, she looked at me and said "you're gaining weight. That's good!" Yikes! not something I really want to hear! I really don't understand it because I eat oatmeal or cereal for breakfast. Homemade veggie or bean soup, or a green salad or baked potato with nothing on it but a little bit of Ranch dressing for lunch and dinner. Sometimes we eat those yummy "doubles" or have some local food which is macaroni pie, rice, beans but not often. I do think it's the cortisol of the stress that I have felt so often. Living on an island as a missionary is not a relaxing experience. Perhaps these last 6 months I won't feel as stressed and the added pounds will just melt away....one can hope! Otherwise, you all will just have more of me to love when I get home! :)
Trinidad airport with some of the most amazing Elders in the world!
KFC is a favorite lunch! We love to treat the missionaries when we can.
These guys had to sample the "doubles" from Trinidad.
