Dominican Republic

Temple Trip

 

On Wednesday, April 10^th we flew to Puerto Rico. We were picked up at the airport by one of the San Juan couple missionaries and taken to the mission office. Of course we checked our mailbox first and found some mail and 2 boxes of goodies from our daughters. Aah – missionaries love to receive mail and packages!! We ran some errands in San Juan (have we mentioned that everyone speaks Spanish there)? Ha Ha! We stayed over-night with Elder and Sister Pietz again, they are so good to us!

Early Thursday morning, Elder Pietz drove the large mission van packed with senior couple missionaries to the airport for our trip to the Santa Domingo temple in the Dominican Republic. The flight took about an hour and then a pre-arranged driver drove all of us and our luggage to the temple “patron” housing on the temple lot, about a 30 minute drive. The Santa Domingo Temple was absolutely gorgeous! The temple grounds were so beautiful and well manicured. There was a cute lady standing by the door as all the senior couples got out of the van and she said, ”Oh, mucho misioneros!”

At the temple, we were so happy to meet up with the beautiful Persaud family from St. Kitts that we have been privileged to teach the temple preparation classes and help them to come to the temple. The next day, Bro. and Sister Persaud were sealed to each other first and then Theodore (11) and Tiffany (15) were brought in and sealed to them. It filled our hearts with joy to witness this event and they were so happy they were just shining. Our suggestion to our children, in an email, was to enjoy your temples that are close at hand because people here have to save up for years to be able to go because the airfare is so expensive. This temple trip will be one of the high-lights of our mission. We are so thankful that we were able to go.

St Kitts

YW 'New Beginnings'

The St. Kitts Young Women enjoyed a great evening on Tuesday, April 2^nd.presenting “Once Upon a Time, a Night of New Beginnings”.  Before the evening began, the girls (and guests who desired) each created a royal crown. Sister Kristin Larsen, the YW President started the evening off with a talk about the importance of each woman to her Heavenly Father. This was followed by a very clever power point presentation entitled “Snow White and the Seven Values”. The girls were each featured as a YW value. Sister Costley gave a talk on the importance of the Personal Progress program. A special part of the night was the video of Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf entitled “Your Once Upon a Time Story”. The girls sang “Happily Ever After” as a closing song. After the closing prayer, yummy refreshments were enjoyed by all.

It was really a lovely evening. St. Kitts has wonderful Young Women and great leaders!

From St Kitts

Easter Sunday

We had a lovely Easter Sunday here on St. Kitts.  We stopped to pick up Bro. Hodge from the Cardin “nursing home”.  Bro. Hodge is blind and enjoys it when Elder Costley reads to him from the Book of Mormon. It was Fast Sunday and Elder Costley asked him if he wanted to bear his testimony, he said yes and that he wanted to sing a song. He did a very good job and a few of the members even joined in the chorus.

In the evening, the R.S. sisters had organized an Easter musical fireside entitled, “He is Risen”. All the organizations presented musical numbers. The YW sang two songs. The R.S. chorus sang “All Creatures of Our God and King”, the Priesthood chorus sang “Redeemer of Israel”. Sister Avery Young (the Branch Seminary teacher) and I sang “If the Savior Stood Beside Me”. Bro. Hodge sang another great song, “Were You There”, and the evening finished up with several other solos and duets. It was a very spiritual and wonderful Easter Sunday. The St. Kitts branch loves to sing!

“For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads”    (D&C 25:12).