Catching up

Merry Christmas!
We hope all of you are enjoying a wonderful day!
Now that we have our computer back, we want to catch up on some of our mission experiences....so here goes.
Brother Malcolm (pictured with daughter LaShea) was a less-active member we began visiting shortly after we arrived. He is now attending regularly, because, as he says, he knows someone cares about him. We wish all our less-actives were as easy to activate! That homemade bread sometimes can work wonders!


Pictured with Sis. Bingham is Princess and her husband Tarzan. Don't you love those names? Princess hadn't been to church for about 13 years, and her records were in another branch, so we didn't even know she existed until she walked into the branch building in Falmouth, asking if this was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She found us! Her husband runs rafts down a local river. It sure looks like fun! If you come to visit, we'll take you on one of these bamboo rafts.
Below, the son of another less-active sister, Jeannie. Isn't he a doll?
And next to him, Sis. B with Brother Grant, one of our favorites. He's the one we would like to pick up and take home with us and take care of him.



This is a house we wanted to show the missionaries who are coming to Falmouth to live. We were going to tell them this was the home we found for them, just a little fixer-upper, something they could work on in their spare time... But actually, we found a great apartment for them.

Our Falmouth Branch Halloween party. They don't celebrate Halloween in Jamaica, but one of the teens knew a little about the holiday, and begged to have a party. So we complied. It was quite a success, even though we had it in November. Not a problem. One picture shows the group at the beginning of the party, but several more people arrived later.
Bottom left, Jerina and friend are trying to eat marshmallows off a string with no hands. I was surprised they even knew what a marshmallow was! Then there's Dad helping the little ones decorate Halloween cookies. Quite a popular activity, even for the adults! That's President Smith, the Branch President, helping the children eat marshmallows.

This is Dad's favorite picture of a house with a stairway to nowhere. Cool, huh?

The Evans kids, Rasheed, Jerome, and Celina. We helped reactivate the family. Here they are at our home after dinner one night. They live about 3 miles from us, but it took 2 1/2 hours to drive them home, due to the heavy traffic. We sang songs, talked, and listened to CDs. They know lots of our old favorites, like Willy Nelson and Creedence Clearwater. Their Mom was just called as 1st Counselor in the Young Women's organization.

One of the beautiful little Jamaicans at the Montego Bay Branch Christmas party.
Now that's a happy baby!

Dad wanted the men of the family to see this electrician's tools. He was putting in our air conditioning when Elder B. saw this....Notice the plug, or lack thereof.

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Mission Home. President Gingery playing the Grand Poo-Bah. Notice the yummy spread...turkey and all the trimmings!

The four pictures above are from the Mission Christmas party. President with his Assistants, with Sis. B., and the missionaries waiting for their packages from home to be thrown out to them by the brethren on the stage. And oh, yes, the happy elder who received about 30 new ties from home.

This last picture is of Brother Hunter dancing at the Branch Christmas party. It was hilarious. He's about 75, and had some pretty good moves!

(I notice that some of my captions don't exactly match the picture, but I am having a tough time working this blog tonight. Hopefully you can figure it all out, and I'll try to do better next time.)

We arrived here in Montego Bay a little while ago from Kingston, where we attended the Mission Christmas party. It was great fun, especially since it kept our minds off our beloved family and their activities on this first Christmas away from them. Tomorrow we get right back to work.

We did receive the Huskey letters and pictures. Thank you thank you thank you. It definitely brightened our day. We know some of the rest of you also sent letters, and we will probably get them next week. It's always nice to have something to look forward to!

Know that you are always in our hearts.

Love,

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Elder and Sis. B.

Strictly for the grandkids....

Hi Kids!

Thought you might like to see our pets. So here they are!

Actually, they are more like the wildlife we find around here. They aren't OUR pets.

The bird is a yellow-crowned night heron. The chickens are chickens. Pretty tricky, huh?

Cluck, chickens, cluck.

These baby goats are very cute. They are all over the island. There are some so small they are the size of cats. I think your parents should get you one or two. They wouldn't be any trouble at all. Beg, grandchildren, beg.

This lovely pig was strolling down the main street in Montego Bay, and no one paid any attention to him. He is just looking for some garbage. He found the garbage. He is a happy pig. Chew, pig, chew.

You now are looking at Ferdinand the bull. He is a happy bull because he is surrounded by lots of yummy stuff to stuff himself with. He made menacing noises at us as we photographed him. I think he was afraid we would take away his yummy stuff. Chill, bull, chill.

Another little herd of frolicking goats, kicking up their heels in happiness because they have no worries. Or they are hurrying away from our car in fear we will run over them. Yes, I think that is what they are doing. Run, goats, run.

Here is a tiny moth on our gate. It looked bigger in real life. It was in the sun and was too fried to fly away. Fly, moth, fly!

I bet you can't see who lives here, can you? It is a land crab. He didn't want his picture taken. He lives in our back yard, but only comes out at night. Sorry we didn't stay up to get his photo. We were sleeping. Wake up, crab, wake up.

That's all for now. Sure does take a lot of time to do this, but I'll get faster, I'm sure.

Just remember that each of you are our favorite pets! Love you lots! Grandma and Grandpa

Home Sweet Home

Just thought you'd like to see what we now call home. It's really comfy and luxurious, and we often feel guilty having so much. We are so blessed to be here!

Our little home. Our lot is raised above the street level. That's our little purple plum car. Notice the iron grill on the front of the house, and on every window. Although Jamaicans are very friendly and helpful, they have a tendency to help themselves to anything that isn't locked us. Thus the locks and grills. See the jungle on the hill behind the house?

Our fancy soft chairs. We'd rather have a couch to stretch out on, but these are pretty classy, don't you think? The pix on the wall are from a Greg Olsen calendar that I brought to Jamaica. Love them!

This is the view you will get as you come through the front door. That's Dad in the kitchen at the sink. And yes, that's our propane cooking stove right there in the living room. It used to be in the kitchen next to the sink, but when the washer was put in, the only place for it was....in the living room. Notice the ever-present fan.

Our computer desk and tv. We don't ever watch the tv, but we love to use it to look at the pictures we've taken on the digital camera. The maps on the wall were here when we moved in, and are a great help to learn our way around the island.

Our bedroom (yes, twin beds, but it's too hot to sleep together anyway) with the fan, and our little bathroom. The black thing in the left foreground is ....the fan!

Inside our kitchen. Cookies freshly baked. Sticky fly strip hanging from cupboard. It has caught many flies --and arms, heads, and even legs of the occupants of the house. Microwave with toaster on top, frig in corner with some grandkids' pix on front, and oh, yes, the fan.

This is the view out our back door. Wish this was our house, but it's one that used to be the size of our house, then added on, up up up til it looks like a small hotel. If you look closely, you can see our clothes line. It is cleverly propped up with some very tall poles. Those are banana trees in our back yard! We may get some bananas by next year. Hope so. There is also sugar cane growing there, plus some sour and sweet sop (fruit that makes good drinks) and also some orange tree bushes.

My pride and joy. The $1500 Jamaican plant. It sits on our front porch for the whole world to see, and for me to water often. I really like it, and we planted two different kinds of ferns in the pot, too. Those were free from our walks on Jungle Hill.

So what do you think of our home? I didn't show you the spare bedroom, because it's mostly just the laundry room, with ironing board, two beds and a clothes rack. But I can make it quite beautiful if you will come and stay there!

This is just an afterthought. Here's 6 of the 8 missionaries on the way to Burger King in Negril in the back seat of our little purple plum. The other two elders had their bikes so they rode, and beat us there, as usual. This is tradition after district meeting.

Shorts + sandals = Jamaican Whitey

Here is what you have been waiting for....the awesome picture of this hunk with his brand-new sandals and shorts. He wears his shorts every morning on our walk now. The picture of him sitting down outside our back door is a sun-bathing session to brown those whitey's legs. The second is just to show off the Rasta-car, and Elder Bingham as well.

Also, here is our Zone before transfers. Last day all of us will ever be together. I know they don't mean anything to you all, but to us they are pretty important.

The last two are of hard-working Elder Foss in our living room (check out those cool chairs)the day before he left, just after our "last supper" with him--roast beef, mashed potatoes, brownies, etc.

Then there is Elder Fisher, the companion, working very hard, which is what Elder Foss should have been doing.

To be honest, though, Elder Foss was the hardest working Elder we have ever worked with.

Love to you all!!

A bad evening gone good

Tonight we had an appointment to teach the second discussion to Lagery, our young man who showed up at Church two Sundays ago. But when we called him to tell him we were on our way to meet him, he said he wouldn't be able to meet with us tonight, and that he would call us back in a few days. That sounded pretty much like he was no longer interested. We were "devastated", as Elder Holland described how a missionary should feel whose message is rejected. It was probably the worst few minutes we've had on this mission. But as long as we were already headed for Falmouth, we decided to drop by the Fraziers and see if Sis. Frazier could tell us where some of the less-actives live who are on our list to visit. We had the most amazing experience there. Brother Frazier actively participated in our visit, telling us who the people were on the list and where they live and why they don't come to Church, etc. He and Sis. Frazier were acting very cute and happy. Then Brother Frazier, the man who is so quiet and shy and hard to read, brought out his wedding photo album for us to look at. We feel he has finally accepted our friendship, and we have made some significant inroads into his heart. A man who isn't interested in the Church or its missionaries wouldn't act the way he acted tonight. It was the encouragement we needed. We are elated.
After the Frazier visit, we had an appointment to meet with Sis. Stubbs, another less-active sister who actually came out to Conference yesterday. We wanted to get to know her better, so we asked her then if we could come to her home today. She agreed, so we went, planning to read with her 3 Nephi 17, because we know that the Book of Mormon converts/reactivates better than anything else we could do. When we finally found her house (small, two rooms with the beds in the living room, no electricity, wooden, no road or even good path to the door which you have to climb up cinder blocks to enter) we had the nicest visit in the dark with only a kerosene lantern for light. We couldn't read, and Dad went back down to the car to get a flashlight so we could find our way back when the visit was over. As we visited, a man named George Williams popped his head in the door, was invited in, and became part of the visit, ending with him asking Dad if he could go with Dad 'ministering' . Although Dad had to tell him no, that it was against mission rules to have others ride in our car, he then asked if he could be present next time we came to visit Sis. Stubbs. We all readily agreed. It was a delightful visit, and Sis. Stubbs has a 5 yr-old son and a 5 yr-old granddaughter living with her, so I had fun visiting with them. Dad tried to take pictures of them, but we couldn't figure out how to take a picture in the dark. Next time we visit, it will be daylight, and we can read and take pictures both.
All in all, the evening turned out better than we thought it would. We are now home, planning our day tomorrow, printing out some of the Conference talks for the less-actives. And we will continue to call Lagery to see if we can see him again. Life is good!

Conference Weekend

Welcome!

Conference weekend was great! We had some technical difficulties, and didn't get the whole conference, but thank goodness for the internet. We came home twice to view it, and we look forward to watching tonight the parts we missed. Sadly, Pres. Hinckley's talk this morning was the one we missed because of a wonderfully loud and close thunder, lightning and rain storm.

In between sessions we had a baptism at the chapel of a 9-year-old girl. Her mom is a very recent convert who was tracted into by the missionaries when she had just about given up her children (3) because she couldn't feed them, and couldn't afford to send them to school, which is the law. She was going to simply abandon them, probably hoping that someone would take them in and give them a better life that she could give them. But the gospel saved her (and their) lives, though she struggles daily. She has no income, and I don't think she eats much. She looks ill all the time. Of course there is no father in the home.

Something interesting takes place at Priesthood session. The women go to it! I didn't know that, so I stayed home to bake and cook for this morning's breakfast for the Elders. Had I gone, I would have seen Bro. and Sis. McKenzie, whom we've been visiting and encouraging to come back to church. And they did!! Sadly, they didn't make it today. But we are encouraged. We'll continue to visit and leave gospel messages with them. And Sis. Smith, the Falmouth Branch President's wife, came with him today for the first time in a long time. She is such a sweet sister, and really enjoyed seeing us and being there.

The members here certainly do sacrifice to get to Conference. They either walk, take the bus, or the taxi. Plus once they get to the Church, they stay all day, so they have to bring food. It was fun to watch how they all got together in the kitchen and fixed and distributed their rice and peas and chicken and fish. It's like a big party. After Conference, we were asked to take some members from out of town down to the bus/taxi park to catch their taxis. We had 11 people in our little car. It beats walking, though, especially in the rain. But they really don't want to rush home. They really enjoy visiting with each other.

The pictures are first, a little boy named Nokia at Gen Conference today.

Next, the baptism in the Sea of Keith Fagan by Elder Foss.

Next, the same baptism.

Last, a group of school children in uniforms lined up on the side of the road waiting for bus? taxi? mom?

I haven't figured out how to label each picture. maybe this is more trouble than it's worth. I don't know....

We love you all. Don't forget to comment on this blog.