We see this fellow and his friends when we
walk on the sea wall in the mornings .This is a church in Suriname.This is a members house in Suriname.

21 May 2010

This is a brick road in Suriname it is about 15 miles long
This bug is for Reagan
This is how they deliver building material and other things in Guyana

Today is Sharon's birthday so we are going out to dinner to celebrate ( if we can find the restaurant we want to go to) we had two locations and could not find it at either one. We have been in Guyana almost amonth now and we can find a few things and we don't get lost much any more. We haven't mastered the streets yet, there are a lot of one way streets but no signs. We found one sign indicating one way. I'm not sure why a street is designated one way or two way, they are about the same size ( about 18' wide) and people park on both sides of all the streets. We are learning our responsibilities and it is getting better. We had a handing over ceremony on one of the Whiteheads projects this week and another next week. We will be going over to Trinidad on the 27th and we have a handing over ceremony over there the following week. We have a few more projects to finish up for them. We went to Suriname last weekend with President and Sister Ricks. We drove all day. It took us 12 hours including the ferry over the river. We are starting a wheelchair project here in Guyana, a Neonatal Resuscitation training, possibly books for the library at Georgetown University, furnishing prosthesis' for a group here in Georgetown and President Gould wants to talk to us on Saturday the 29th about projects he want us to do in Trinidad. There is so much need down here that the challenge is going to be which projects to do, not finding projects. The members of the branches are great people, the have a sweet spirit about them and strong testimonies. Many of them don't have very much and it is a challenge for them to fulfill their responsibilities because they have to take a taxi to get to church or do their VT or HT and every phone call cost money. The church is growing fast in Guyana, it is outgrowing the Priesthood necessary to run the branches. Sometimes the Branch President will only have a clerk and no counselors. Sometimes the Branch President has only been in the church 6 months or a year. They have a real problem with young adults going inactive. It is a great work an we are grateful for the opportunity to be part of it.

08 May 2010

This is the compound where we live. The couple who first rented this house got robbed several times so the landlord put the razor wire around the top. All of the homes in this area have the iron fences. We have place for two padlocks on the gate and two padlocks on the metal door on the front and two on the back door. The front door also has a dead bolt. The back door has two barrel bolts. You would think that we lived in a terrible neighborhood but is very nice by local standards. We never hear the neighbors, just their dogs. There are a lot of dogs here and they are very noisy. When we went to church this morning we attended the Diamond branch. They are such friendly people and they have such strong testimonies. The church is very young in Guyana but the people are very committed to the gospel. They had a primary Mothers Day program and the children are so cute. They did a great job.

02 May 2010

Hello from Trinidad,
We left the MTC on the 26th of April at the early hour of 2:00am and spent all day on planes or in airports. We arrived in the DR about 9:30 and by the time we made it through immigrations and to our Hotel it was late. The next day we had more training, our brains were saturated before but they gave us the fire hose training method. The next day we spent with E/S Francom and had some OJT. It was very informative and enjoyable. That night we went to the Santo Domingo Temple. The next day we were off to Trinidad We arrived about 10:00 and it took us over an hour to clear immigrations. They didn't want to let us in because our paperwork was not complete but they finally gave us 30 days to complete it. The next day we met with President Gamiette, he is a great man full of enthusiasm. The rest of that day and yesterday we spent cleaning our apartment. Today we went to the branch for church and it was so great. The members shared great testimonies and the Stake President taught the Priesthood lesson. After the meetings they served lunch and we were able to sample the local food, it was quite spicy but very good. In the morning we fly to Guyana and start all over again. I guess we need to get use to Immigrations and customs because we have eleven countries that we will be working in and all of them will have them. Our biggest challenge in our lack of computer skills and dirty apartments, Sharon about worked me to death in Trinidad and Guyana will be at least as bad. I know that with the Lord's help we will be able to accomplish what he has sent us over here to do. We are very excited to start our adventure in Guyana and all the other islands of the West Indies. We appreciate all of your prayers and support. We miss all of you.
Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Lynn and Sharon