Always Trying to Serve in All Ways

What happened this week? Sometimes as I sit down to record our mission on this blog on Sunday afternoon, my mind is a blank as I think over the week wondering how did it pass. Then I look at our calendar and the pictures and I remember.
We helped out two families with "needs assessments" for them to get groceries and pay rent. Both are very deserving of this blessing and it makes me grateful for the privilege of paying tithes and fast offerings. The Lord truly blesses us in every way possible! We had made an appointment with Jessie, the young man with questions, and drove out to visit but when we got there we could see he didn't know anything about us coming and it wasn't a good time so we will have to check back later with him. We may have answered all of his questions....we also had a teaching appointment with Irma but she was not feeling well when we got there. She was facing a court hearing with a tenant in the apartment complex that she owns so Dave gave her a beautiful blessing to help her get through that. Unfortunately, when we called to check on how it went we found out it has been rescheduled until September. Pretty frustrating stuff!
The Relief Society President in the branch has designated the third Saturday of every month to be a Sister's Activity. Along with that, we had planned to have a Linger Longer pot luck after the meeting on Sunday. So, in preparation for that, I made some flyers for both events and Dave drove me around to most of the sisters in the branch. We delivered 24 flyers which is no easy feat here in Tobago with the distance, crazy roads and drivers. It took us two days of driving for 3 hours each. Some places we found the sisters home and visited for a minute with one sister asking Dave to give her a blessing, others we just taped to the doors. They usually always say "yes, I'll be there." but sadly, we only had 7 of us there. The great thing was that our two investigating sisters were there! I taught the sisters how to make dish "scrubbies" out of netting and I think everyone had a good time.
We worked with our two prospective missionaries with their dental and medical appointments. We will hopefully get those all finished and ready to submit this next week. We have two sisters in the hospital, one, threatening a miscarriage and the other with TB, so we visited with them this week and then took them the Sacrament today.
Both Irma and Angie passed their baptismal interviews today and are set to be baptized this coming Saturday!
Dave spoke again today at church along with the branch President and then we had the Linger Longer after the block. I can't help feeling a little discouraged at the attendance (only 20) when we made such an effort to notify nearly every branch member. I just need to remember that at least they knew they were thought about.
That was our week.

 Sisters chatting and crocheting. Angie is on my right and Irma is on my left. 

Two wonderful sisters who will be baptized on July 27th

 Preparing for the activity. The red scrubbie I made probably 10 to fifteen years ago. 

They last forever. 

 Rocky helping Sis. Cupid with her computer

 Rocky's daughter Aubrey

 Sisters showing off their scrubbies

 Dave decided he wanted to make a collapsible portable changing room

 to take to the beach for baptisms. 

First you measure...

 Then you cut...

 Then you assemble. We found some mattress covers that we will be wrapping and 

clamping to the frame

 More scenes of the rainy season. This is nearly every day now.....remember my post about it always being sunny and beautiful and I may or may not have been tired of it? 

Funny how life gives you want you think you want....

 Those black spots you see on the concrete are moving...

 and they look like this!

 New fruit experience. Star or five fingers fruit. It tastes like a really juicy apple. I am just totally amazed at the variety of different fruits and vegetables The Lord created for us to enjoy! 

Isn't it so pretty!

 Another new fruit. Chennette or "skin ups" You pop it open with your teeth and then suck the juicy layer off the seed. Very yummy! 

 Dave has been collecting pieces of coral off the beaches. This is quarter size.

 It's so interesting to be able to see them magnified. This is quarter size

 This is a little larger than a straw

 Cool tree

Woke up one morning and saw this moving along the back porch frame. 

We watched it for a while and it kept going in and out of the lattice squares. 

Senior missions, not what you think.

This has been another fine week. We have been here in Tobago for four months now. When we first arrived, there were 11 people coming to Church so we set out to find the other 91 on the branch roster. After many hours, days, weeks and now months, we have been able to meet, visit with and pin in LDS tools all but 9 member households. That's how we have spent most of our time and now with that accomplished we find ourselves wondering what else we can do. Other Senior couples have young missionaries to watch over and "do" for and perhaps seminary or other classes to teach, we don't have that here. Fortunately, we have had a few teaching opportunities along the way with Elizabeth, Angie, Girley and now Irma to keep us busy and occupied. We are excited to have a second and third baptism in a few weeks. Hopefully, we will get more.

We are in charge of all of the mission housing. and that takes up some time. Since Dave is much more tech savvy than me, he has been going through all 59 contracts with a "fine tooth comb" identifying duplicates and problems such as no signatures etc that go back several years. I can do the tasks needed like get renewal, termination or amended documents created and processed but the other "housekeeping" or organizing of the files is something that Dave is very knowledgeable and thorough, so we make a good team and will leave this assignment, when the time comes, in much better shape.

We have used some of our time with building maintenance. Termite clean up, piano repairs, and AC repairs. With Dave acting as branch clerk, he keeps up on all the ordering of teaching and branch materials. He does all the finances and membership.

Since we got here, we have been assisting in getting two young adults ready for their missions. We are almost ready to submit Sister Leana's papers. We have taken her to the doctor and dentist and waited for many hours as she gets things taken care off. This week she had an extraction that I was able to hold her hand as she got the horrible numbing injections. She is an orphan so we feel so grateful to be able to step in where we can to help.

We have also spent many hours in immigration getting that all figured out as well.

So, with all that said and done, we are finding that we have time on our hands, looking for things to do, so we find things to do that you wouldn't think sound much like a mission, but since it's a Senior mission, almost anything goes, and everywhere we go we are meeting and talking with people about the Church and why we are here in Tobago.

We hiked to the Argyle Falls this week. There are four levels and I could only make it to the third (yeah for me!) and Dave hiked to the top. Another day, we walked along the beach for a 3 mile round trip and I even body surfed in my clothes cause I couldn't resist it. Another day, we took Irma out driving to find the perfect beach spot for her baptism and she treated us to ice cream. We went to the Opening Ceremonies of the Heritage Festival in Tobago and were the only white folks in the auditorium and no one else sat on our row. Not sure how to think about that. We are so intrigued and curious to learn all about this little island and were thrilled when we got to hear the National Anthem of Tobago and see the different dances and traditions of each village portrayed. It was supposed to start at 8 pm but didn't start until 8:40 Caribbean time and finished at nearly 11 pm.

Today, Sunday, the Branch President did not show up or call again. The first counselor was not there either. The second counselor is Brother Murray who is 91 years young and can barely walk but is there every. single. week. It got to be 9:15  so Dave figured he'd better do something so he assigned the prayers and invited the only youth, a brother and sister, in our branch to speak, and gave them "For the Strength of Youth" booklets for them to use. Then he asked me to speak (again) and he spoke (again) Everything was spur of the moment but it went really quite well.  It was also Branch Council Sunday, so Dave conducted that too. Not sure what to do about our AWOL Branch President. On the way home I asked Dave "What would they have done if we had not been there?" We are not here to take over but sometimes it has to be done. What made it an even more joyful Sunday was that Irma was there again and...... Rocky and Angie finally came!  Hallelujah!

 A lovely way to spend a long lunch hour

 The trail head to the Argyle Falls

 For all you chocolate lovers

 They are ripe when they are red

 A lot of the forests are bamboo

 The base of the Falls

 starting the climb up

 pretty rugged trail

 more trail

 Cool flower bud

 and then the bloom

 one of the four different fall levels

 huffing and puffing up the trail

 third level spot

 I decided to get wet

 another view on the way down

 looking down from the third level

 so refreshing!

 second level pool

 not sure of the level....can't keep track

 look at all the fish I swam with! I tried to catch them in my shirt but they are too smart. 

Some of them were at least a foot long

 Leaving the falls

 This is Shawn and he crafts these plaques out of the plentiful bamboo

 This is a sugar cane bowl. They boiled down the cane to get sugar syrup in the slave days.

 Sweet Leana. Almost all ready for her mission

 One of the dances of the villages of Tobago

 another one

 and another

 This is called a "speech band" they stop the music and say a speech and then dance 

and do it again and again.

 This one was my favorite

 tamarind drum band

 The master of ceremonies

 They pass out these meals free of charge for every person after the performances. I've never seen anything like it. There were hundreds of people there. It's a fish sandwich, fruit cake, creamed potatoes, a fruit turnover and some kind of ginger drink.

Captured a double rainbow on our walk around our place

 These are the "bully birds"  Frigate birds. Their wing span is around two feet.  

 Dave loves to make bread

 He added sunflower seeds this time. It was yummy!

 The piano got damaged in the flood they had a little over a year ago.

 Dave asked a member to make the supports and then he put them on

 Particle board does not take kindly to water

 reinforced and repaired

 Palm trees just my size

 cool shells stuck on the log

 Lots of drift wood on the beach on the Atlantic side

 Couldn't resist the waves any longer. Had to get in dress and all

riding waves is one of my favorite things to do. So grateful I can partake as often as I can.