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.