September 29, 2014

September is quickly closing.  Wednesday is the first of October.  Hard to believe that we have been on our mission for a month.  Life is Utah seems like forever ago.  We Face Time with every one of our kids but Elizabeth and we called and talked with her, last night.  It is fun to hear how everyone’s week went.  We just need to learn not to all talk at once!

We had a typical missionary week, we had two of our lessons a “no show”.  One wouldn’t commit to our coming over again.  So that makes us sad L. But we taught 3 lessons and challenged another for baptism and she said yes.  So we will see how that goes.  She has lots of questions.

Today is our P-day, so it is laundry, vacuuming, cleaning, gosh if I didn’t know better I would think I was home.  Steve is vacuuming the car, we get a lot of sand from riding home from the beach. But I think the water exercise is helping my knee a little.

The weather seems a little cooler.  We aren’t sitting in front of the fans anymore and we even ate breakfast outside this morning.  We have little breeze which we usually don’t get where our apartment is, so that cools things down a little.

We have been invited to two member’s homes for dinner.  That really made us feel good.  We asked them to help with the missionary work and pray for missionary experiences.  The youth are starting to give us back the Book of Mormons we asked them to write their testimonies in.  Some amazing testimonies!

We are getting to know the members of the branch.  We have some West Indians that have been members since 1980’s.  They are such stalwarts.  We have a group of ladies that only speak Spanish.  Elder Berger always has fun with them as he tries to learn some Spanish.  One lady just smiles and him. I wonder how much they get out of sacrament meeting…but they have a special Sunday school class that is taught in Spanish, they are truly Gods daughters. Our core leadership is all whites from the states that are working here. We are praying that we can baptized locals who will be able to be in leadership roles.

That is our news for this week.  We need to get groceries today. We found that it is a shopping event, since there is no one store that is generally cheaper.  Each store seems to have some things that are way cheaper than the others.  So it makes it worth the going from store to store.  We found some wheat free cookies for Steve - $8.00 for 12 small cookies.  Only for special days!

Driving here has not gotten any easier.  Seems like everything on the island is slow until they get behind the steering wheel of a car!  Then it is the Indianapolis speedway!

 

On the point of Megan's Bay

 

 

 

Our landlords

Yummy banana's outside our apartment

 

 

 

This is our first P-day.  Last Monday we went with the Relief Society President to visit some of the inactives.  It is hard here because they don’t have addresses.  The streets are sometimes named but no one goes by their address name.  We have a lot of poor people here.  They come to St Thomas because there is more opportunity to get work here.  So they come from Tortola, Santa Dominica, Dominic, and other little islands or keys.  Most of the poor are West Indians.  They talk like Jamaicans, whatever it is they talk very fast, very, very fast.  We have spent a lot of time visiting the inactives and now we are going to start visiting the actives.  We want the actives to help us find contacts so we can teach.  We gave 4 first discussions last week and are following them up this week. 

Our last contact we talked to on Saturday night; he couldn’t believe that we would have a prophet today and he wouldn’t have known about it.  He had to talk to his minister about that.  So I am sure his minister will give him a lot about the church.

We do have a small group of LDS sisters that are Spanish speaking.  They come to Sacrament meeting – not sure how much they get out of that, but then they have their own Sunday school lesson.  Sometimes they stay for Relief Society and sometimes they don’t.

It is expensive to have automobiles here.  So many walk or ride what they call safaris.  They are a flat bed pickup truck that they modify so people can get on and off.  They have about 4 rows with about 4 people sitting on a row.  That is expensive as well - $2 one way, so if a family is coming that could add up fast.

My companions says I need to say something so here it is something. I have told my Mission president that I know that we are to work here in St Thomas.  Last week our President said that he bears witness that we are to be here.  One of my worries is for me to make a mistake and not help people come unto the Savior.

 The people here are wonderful just getting along and living.  Most are always smiling and seem to be enjoying life.  I am not sure how they can live here.  Food, gas, water and much more are so expensive.   We have a lady in the branch that lives as far away from the chapel as possible, her faith is wonderful. She never misses Sacrament, I think we all can learn I know that I have by her example

Here are some more pictures of our beautiful island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sept 14th
What a wonderful day.
         Our first sacrament services in St Thomas Branch.  Lots of different types of people.  We had about 50 from the ward. There was a ship in port today that had about 50 people attend our sacrament.  So  we had to talk in Sacrament for the first time in our branch to about 100 people.  Took every chair in the building.  Lots of people from Utah, it was fun to talk to them. Interrupted the Gospel doctrine class.  All of the priesthood  were together for  class all 10 of us.  Kathy was in RS and there were about 20 sisters
Our date book has someone to see every day this week.  It is going to be a great week

August 18th.
We may need to catch everyone one up with what is happening.  Yesterday we talked in Church.  It was so good to see family, friends, old students, and both our old bosses were there.  It was so amazing to look out and see those wonderful people who have meant so much in our lives.  We hope that something we said would touch their lives. . 

Last Thursday we Skyped with our Zone Leaders, he happens to be the 2^nd Councilor in the Mission Presidency, and his wife.  They will be picking us up at the airport on Saturday evening September 6^th in Puerto Rico.  We will be staying the weekend there and then on Monday, fly to St Thomas where our new apartment awaits us.  He told us that our apartment has a beautiful view of the bay. He explained our duties and responsibilities.  We will be the only missionaries on the island and so we will be doing everything.  Not tracking, but teaching, training, and supporting the branch.  They have about 170 members, with about 70 attending every Sunday, unless there is a cruise ship in port and then we may have 150.  

We are so excited to get started.  In 14 days we will be in the MTC.

Today we are starting the packing.  We still need one more large suitcase.  We are allowed to have  2 large suitcases each, as well as a carry on and personal case.  Steve is getting the garage ready for us to move our things out so that Victoria can move her things in.   We have lived here 23 years, it is amazing what we have accumulated!!  After the kids got what they wanted, we have made several runs to the DI and the dump!!! There might be room for a car once we are done! (It is an oversized 2 car garage! and some things will be staying inside the house) :)

Here is the picture of inside of the plane from Puerto Rico to St Thomas

We have been so busy that we have not taken the time to update our blog.  Saturday, September 6, 2014, we flew out of the Salt Lake airport to Dallas TX, and then onto San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The mission president, President Boucher, his 2^nd Councilor in the Presidency and his wife (Elder and Sister Larsen) and 2 young elders picked us up at the airport.  The young elders took our luggage in a van and we went with the President and the Larsens.  They took us to a Steak House very similar to what we would have found in the states and Sister Boucher joined us for a meal.  We then went to the mission home and everyone went to bed.  We felt like we had the master suite, but the master suite was much much larger.  Sunday morning we went to the English speaking ward and then went back to the mission home where we sat at the dining room table for the next 3 ½ hours as the Larsen’s trained us on the island and our duties (they had been on St Thomas for 4 months before they were moved to St Croix.) At 4:00 we had some senior missionaries that serve in San Juan come and we went over the Perpetual Education Fund.  At 5:00 all the other senior missionaries came to dinner.  We ate dinner and visited and took pictures.  And it was then bedtime.  We got up Monday morning and headed to the Mission Office where we had an interview with the President.  He told us he thought we would spend our whole mission here in St Thomas, unless the Lord told him differently.  We were so impressed with the Boucher’s and the time they took to spend with us.  And the council that he gave us.  One of the Elders that had been an assistant to the President was leaving so President Boucher took us all out to lunch at the Panda Express.  And then off to airport.  I have never flown on such a small plane.  We will try to get pictures posted.  The pilot lined us up per our weight!! So each side of the plane had the same weight.  I wasn’t sure they would get our luggage on, put it all got on and we arrived without any problems. 

The Larsen’s had the branch clerk and his wife pick us up.  Because we needed 2 vehicles to get all of us and our luggage to our apartment.  Such nice people!  The Larsen’s spent the next 2 days showing us the island and introducing us to people.  We met the branch president on Tuesday and he asked if we would be the speakers in sacrament this Sunday. We took the Larsen’s to the airport on Wednesday afternoon and we are now on our own. 

We have been trying to get used to the weather. The humidity really drains me, so although it really isn’t hot, to me it feels very warm.  We have an a/c unit in the bedroom, but the electricity cost so much that we only run it at night.  We have lots of fans, but I feel sticky all the time..  They say that August and September are the worst months that soon it will be very nice.

We have tried our first mango from a stand alongside of the road.  It was very good.  Steve was not thrilled with it, but it taste so much better than the ones I have eaten before.  The tomatoes were $4.00 a pound, cucumbers were $3.00 a pound.  We bought a plantain, they look like bananas, but we are supposed to cut the top and bottom off and boil it…so we will see if that is good.

Going to the grocery store was something of a shock.  I thought I was prepared for high costs, but it just blows me away.  $1.89 for a head of lettuce.  $6.89 for milk and it will only last a couple of days before it spoils.  We ended up buying the milk in a box.  It last longer.  Jello for the small box was $1.89!  We have to watch the expirations dates on things and if you all know me, I was never one to do that!  We did find some ground turkey that was a good deal!

Everything has to be kept in a sealed container.  Even the salt is not in a salt shaker, but in a small container. I think the driving is the hardest to get used to.  Steve is doing very good at driving on the left side of the road.  If that was the only problem we would have it made, but the roads are either going straight up or going straight down!  And in some places there is no room for two cars, but they go anyway!  They just dig a spot on the side of the mountain and build a house.  The owners usually have one layer, and they keep building down the mountain, putting in rentals underneath them.  I really don’t know how people who live here afford it.

            Today was AWESOME