Lessons to Learn

I hesitate to post everything that I'm feeling but since this is basically my journal, I'm going to. Those of you who read will get a very real sense of what our experience on this mission has been. Although, to be honest, I do tend to write from my perspective rather than David's, so his blog would read much differently than this. The events are the same but how we view them and what we are learning from them are quite different. Makes sense though, right. People can experience the very same event and have totally different perspectives on it, depending on your nationality, gender, faith, education and so on.
Here goes...

I am struggling....don't get me wrong, I am very glad to be on a mission! I love the Lord and I want to do anything I can to build the Kingdom and spread the good word but it has not been an easy journey for me. Today in church, only 8 other people came besides Dave and I. The Branch Pres. nor the other counselor ever came. Fortunately, Dave was called to serve as a counselor in the branch a couple weeks ago so he did have the authority to preside and conduct the meeting. He waited until 9:10 am to begin and we sang an extra hymn before the Sacrament to allow late comers to get there.

Then he asked me to speak.

The day prior, the branch had a family sports day at the church. The young adults were in charge and they had been planning it for a couple of months but no date was announced officially. We got a call from one of them that it was this Saturday. We asked what we could do to help and they needed the food and supplies taken to the church because they all have to travel by taxi.  It was supposed to begin at 10 am so we go to pick up the food at 9:30 and by 10 we were on our way to the church which is a 20 minute drive from where we were. They had tons of food which sister George had prepared. Two meals worth! Fried chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, salad, drinks and chips. We get there at 10:30 and find three young people waiting for us. We wondered how they got the word out and if anybody else would be there. At 11:30 brother and sister George and the incredible young adult planners came. These two young men are brothers, 19 and 17. Christian and Ronaldo. Christian is preparing to serve a mission. I admire and love them both. They acquired a large tarp for a slip and slide, they had water balloons, we played soccer, musical chairs (which I almost won!) and tug-o-war. (which Dave's team won!)  We eventually had 22 people there, mostly youth and we had a great time! Dave and I got sunburned. We finished up and closed up the church at 5 pm. We were pretty much exhausted!  Now, back to the above sentence: He asked me to speak.

I was very tired and was having a hard time breathing....I have been so surprised with my breathing. I really thought I would be so well and not have a bit of trouble because of the constant heavy humidity, but I have discovered it hasn't been as I expected. I tire easily because of my limited breathing capacity and after a very long active day playing the day before, I was really dragging and didn't have much energy to speak. I go up to the pulpit and start to say a few words of testimony and I can see that no one is looking at me or paying attention. Remember there are only 7 people in the congregation cause Dave is on the stand. I may have a bit of a problem because if I feel like no one is interested in what I have to say I usually won't speak especially if I don't have the energy. Perhaps Dave or my children would disagree with me but I am easily shut down. Not that I don't have a testimony to share but as I looked out at these lovely people whom I have grown to love very much, I felt like it was more important for one of them to speak then to hear from this white American. So, I said, " My voice is really tired and I wondered if Brother George would be able to speak?" Everyone of course looks up then, and Dave says in a whisper from the stand "You can't do that.." so then there is this awkward space as I say, "my voice is very tired" so then Brother George says he will say a few words. He gives a beautiful testimony and then Dave had asked the RS Pres. to speak and she gives a lovely talk as well. Dave then takes up the rest of the 15 minutes remaining.

I wondered if we shouldn't just cancel the next hour and all go home but Dave carried on normally and I'm so glad because I had a lovely lesson with the sisters. They all said how grateful they were that they came to be able to take the Sacrament and feel the Spirit. Our lesson was from the talk by Elder Uchdorf about Missionary work. After which I was able to ask them for their help with our weekly missionary lesson at the church. I told them that we as foreigners could not be successful in our invitations and that they needed to come from them. I handed them a bunch of flyers and hope they will give them out.

My prayer each day, several times a day is asking for direction from  the Spirit for us to know how best to serve. My prayer each day several times a day is to bless this little branch and it's leaders to be strong and bright lights to others, and my prayer each day several times a day is to bless my children and grandchildren. It is a sacrifice to be away from them but we know it is a powerful way to show our love and gratitude to our Heavenly Father and our Savior for all they have and continue to do for us. It's really a pretty small sacrifice in comparison and we feel it's an honor to be here.

My thoughts about the things I am learning are:

It is difficult and sometimes a struggle but if we can look at what we are becoming knowing that some lessons cannot be learned any other way, it makes it so we don't give up.
If we were to give up, there would only be disappointment and a lost opportunity to change into a better, stronger creature. We have chosen to become "new creatures" and put off the natural man/woman and that is quite the process and the Lord offers us tons of different opportunities which allows us to accomplish that. There has been tears, sorrow and discouragement more than I had anticipated or even prepared for but there has also been much love, joy and sweetness which is always more lasting.

So we Soldier on! Carry on! and Keep the Faith! 

 All of us at family sports day! 

 Dave showing the kids some rocket videos before every one else came

 Playing a little football "soccer" while we wait

 Pleasant visit

 Setting up the slip and slide

 The plan was just to dump buckets of water on the tarp 

but the Lord provided a leaky pipe for us to use.

 Enjoying so yummy food before we start to play

 Hot-dogs with coleslaw and watermelon

 Musical chairs. I was one of the last two!

 More musical chairs

 Football game. They had fun in spite of the not so great field to play on

 Spectators

 We put dish soap all over to make a fun slippery mess

 Occasionally we added a large container of water

 Lots of suds

 This little guy really got into it!

 tug of war over the tarp

Sister George  hosing the kids down after all the fun

 That was fun too!

 more food, fried chicken, potato and pasta salad

 Tug of war

 Future missionaries on the left, Leadership- Dave and Pres. George on the right

Future missionaries won!  The future Church leadership is in good hands!

One of "those" weeks

Some times plans don't come together and the week unfolds into something else. This was one of those weeks. The AC at the church stopped working so Dave spent several hours there with the repairmen. I developed an inner ear issue that had me pretty much in bed for a couple days with pain, pressure and dizziness. Thankfully, a Priesthood blessing, decongestant and hot oil in the ear made me well. Dave was woken up by a woman's voice that said "put warm olive oil in her ear". I was amazed at how quickly relief came when he did that. We prepared for our Thursday meeting and by 7:30 no one was there so we closed up and went home. We made more posters and taped them up around Scarborough. We had a great Stake Conference today with video broadcast from Trinidad. So, this is short and we have very few pictures...We appreciate your prayers. We appreciate your interest in reading about our mission. We send our love to you all!

 A fisherman repairing his net

 AC getting repaired

 Dave made some potato curry

 and tried his hand at Roti

 With it being the rainy season the mushrooms are plentiful

 Cute young boy enjoying the water

 Thought we'd try a different approach on a poster

   We place 20 posters all over Scarborough

Amazing!

I always struggle to get these postings started and then things just come to me....I'm still waiting at this point.....Monday, Dave took the two prospective missionaries to get some immunizations. Leana is now ready to submit and Christian is waiting for his passport still. They both have their temple recommends too. This is another part of the mission that will mean the most to us. Being able to help prepare and send two missionaries out is amazingly joyful!
Tuesday, We had a teaching appointment with Irma that got cancelled so we headed to the mall to hand out Project Truth flyers. I hate to say it but I'm a little hesitant with this endeavor. I'm super excited to organize and then present the meeting but talking to people about it has been a little bit of a challenge for me. I am hindered by the fact that I am white in a dark skinned world. We have been told several times that people think that this is a "white man's" church and so that troubles me. I want these handed out by the members because I think they would respond better and think about it more than if we give it to them. Dave has no problem and invited many passersby with the flyer. I managed to talk to around 7 to his 20. Last week we had put up larger flyers at ATM's and the mall and they had all been removed. The ones at the Bus Stops were still there though. We decided to go to large parking lots and put them on the cars always with a prayer in our hearts that the Lord would help us to be able to reach whoever was searching for the Truth.

Tobago is the nesting place of the leather back turtles. They weigh on average around 800 lbs and are around 5 feet in length. In other words, HUGE! It is the largest of all sea turtles. It doesn't have a bony shell but it's body is covered by a leathery skin and oily flesh. The female turtle comes back to the beach where it was born to lay her eggs. She may have traveled hundreds of miles away but always returns to the same beach. We asked a tour guy to let us know when we could see this event which usually happens late into the night. He called us one night at 11 pm and said "Do you want to see the turtle?" We just happened to have barely crawled in bed so we threw on some clothes and he came and got us and drove us out to the beach. At first we couldn't see anything, it being so dark and the moon was just a sliver and bright lights are not permitted so as not to disturb the mother but soon our eyes got adjusted and we could see that she had dug a three foot deep hole with her back flippers and was dropping eggs into it. They don't have feet or claws like other sea turtles so they can swim better and farther. Keno, the tour guy lifted up her flipper to show us the bright white round turtle eggs she had laid. We didn't count but she can lay up from 80 to 100 eggs. Then she started to bury them with her back flippers. She would scoop some sand and then pack it down on the eggs. After she did that she would use her front flippers to scoop more and more sand on top of the hole. It was fascinating and we felt so reverent watching this amazing thing happen before our eyes. After she finished burying the eggs and packing down the sand, which took her nearly two hours, she slowly dragged herself back into the ocean. The eggs take about 60 days to hatch so we'll have to go back and see if we can see them as they do that. What an unforgettable experience!
Thursday came. It was hard to wait for 7 pm to get here. We went to the church early to set up and then waited. It got to be be 7 and then 7:15 and not a soul was there. At 7:20 here comes Irma and two other people, Irma's neighbor and her 14 year old grand daughter from Trinidad. We were excited to see them and got started right away. We showed two short videos and then talked a little bit. Irma's neighbor, Alison, said "I want to be baptized in March for my birthday" That's quite a ways away but we can work with that. Then she asked for a blessing for her grand daughter and so Dave gave her a back to school Priesthood blessing. The evening was good. Irma said " I don't mean to be negative but these flyers really don't have any incentive on them. There's no party or band or food mentioned" She said people aren't much interested in religion. She will still be inviting others for sure but it may be slow in getting the numbers up. We will keep offering the meeting for the members to have something to share with others and maybe we'll do cookies every once in a while. We are not quitting and will continue to do all that we can to share this message and pray that the members catch the vision and those that are searching will see the flyers.
Our teaching appointment on Saturday didn't show so we drove around to do more exploring. We found a sign for an Adventure Farm and drove to it. We walked through the paths and had a lovely time. We ended up at the beginning and found out we needed to pay, which we did. It claims to be the largest gathering of Hummingbirds in the world. Not sure about the world but we did see "plenty, plenty" of hummingbirds. It was fabulous!

 The first picture I enter becomes the title page so this is out of order. 

This is the turtle going back to the ocean. 

 Here she is digging the hole and laying the eggs

 The eggs

 Here she is back filling the hole with her front flippers

 Almost done filling the hole

 Moving out to the ocean

 We could finally use a flash to see better. She went pretty fast out to sea. 

Those are the tour guys and they do a really good job of protecting this event

 We went back the next day to see where she buried her eggs

 Can you say gorgeous?

 We get some jaw dropping sunsets

 We have three baby girls due in our branch so in the evening and down time 

I have made these dresses.

 We found another member home and I loved the scenery

 The homes come in all shapes, sizes and on hills and valleys

 Found a cool crab on the beach. They run sideways and are super fast!

 Showing the size relative to my hand

I cannot resist the water and end up swimming, floating in my clothes. The sea was so calm...

 This is the abandoned hotel I wrote about last week. We went back to get pictures

 rusty anchor

 I bet it was an amazing place in it's day

 The beach cove by the hotel

 another view

 Of course we have more flowers

 I love how the plant is growing up the coconut tree

 This is a fish pond at the Adventure Farm we discovered

 Plenty, plenty fish 

 candle flowers in the lush garden of the farm

 This the beginning of the Adventure farm that we came upon last. 

Lots of bird feeders and birds

 Sitting here the birds just fly around and there are so many you can't count them. 

I would guess at least 50 or so 

 They are hard to capture though

Weather station at Pigeon Point Beach