Puerto Rico

Good-by Song

Hello Puerto Rico

Good-bye to Tortola – we bid a fond farewell to you from the bottom of our hearts. We have spent five months on this beautiful island helping the members and the branch leadership. They helped us in return with their love and strong testimonies of the gospel. There are so many choice families here and we will miss them so much! They are just about ready to send their 7^th missionary out, that is just a fabulous record for a small island branch.

Good-by Poem

The night before we left we were called over to the chapel for a mysterious meeting. SURPRISE!  They threw a very sweet going away party for us. It was so fun to see everyone for the last time. There was lots to eat and a little program of appreciation. They had the Primary children sing to us and all our piano students played a piece. The Seminary students had all made cards and two of them read a poem they had written for us. Needless to say that our hearts were really touched with their love and kindness.

 

 

We have been transferred to Puerto Rico – assigned to the office but will see very little of it. The elders and sisters of our mission live in about sixty (60) apartments throughout the island and the first thing we have been asked to do is visit and inspect each one, each month. Yes, a big task – the island is 110 miles long by 40 miles wide - but we like to drive, see new places, and love meeting all the wonderful missionaries!

We live in the town of Caguas, PR, which is south of San Juan (depending on traffic) 20 minutes to an hour. Fortunately, we do not have to drive to San Juan very often and if we do, we leave early to try to miss some of the rush hour traffic to make sure we arrive on time.

The second thing we are to do is check and report the status of the Companion Language Study for the missionaries who are learning English as a second language. Page 128 in Preach My Gospel states that every missionary (wherever they are serving in the world) should learn English. This formal program helps the Latin missionaries learn English with the help of their English speaking companion during their daily study time. We are encouraging all of them to take advantage of this time – it will make a big difference in their lives when they return home.

We look forward to being with each missionary on Puerto Rico on a regular basis and are thankful for this new challenge.

Tortola

Halloween




Cupcake Walk

The Young Men and Young Women of the Tortola Branch were looking for a service project – it was suggested that they throw a Halloween Party for the primary-age children. With a lot of planning and hard work by MB it was a FABULOUS Halloween party in a country that doesn’t celebrate Halloween!! Everyone loves a good party, right?

Magic Tricks

The YM/YW manned the cupcake walk, face painting, magic tricks, decorate your own paper jack-o-lantern, Halloween memory game, skeleton scavenger hunt, and some other misc. games like musical chairs. The sister missionaries did a “mummy” wrap game using TP that was a lot of fun. The evening drew to a close with a presentation from a little drama group composed of half members and half non-members directed by a member of the branch. They presented “Little Red Riding Hood” with a Halloween twist. The play was great and concluded the evening’s activities.

Zip Zap

We had 51 people in attendance including adults and they had a great time. Every child received a “Trick or Treat” bag to take home which included goodies and (of course) fake Dracula fangs and a spider ring. We noticed that the adults on hand had just as much fun as the children in fact; one almost won the musical chairs. We love these fabulous members of the Tortola Branch.


Musical Chairs



Tortola

Primary Program

Sunday, October 20^th, the Tortola Branch primary children presented the sacrament meeting presentation entitled “I am a Child of God”. It was a delightful program and we believe that these children are the most darling ever! Sister Costley has been assisting by teaching them the songs for the program over the past few months and they have done a great job learning them. One hurdle to overcome is that their attendance at church is kind of sketchy, here one week and not the next (not their fault but their parents). On the day of the program four “new” children came for the first time but they just joined in and seemed to enjoy being in the program! One of their favorite songs and the one they sang the best was “If the Savior Stood Beside Me” which they sang with gusto. It brought tears to our eyes as we thought – here is the future of this sweet Branch – a second generation of strong and beautiful sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. The future will be in good hands.

The church picture we use that shows the Savior and his love and care for children is perfect for the Caribbean because the children in the picture are all different races. It has been so fun and a special privilege to teach the little children here and to tell them how much their Heavenly Father loves them and wants each of them to return to him some day.

Tortola

Safe Harbor

June 2013

You may remember the first picture from our apartment’s view here in Tortola of Sir Francis Drake Channel and other BVI islands. To the right is a safe harbor that can be seen on the right hand side of the picture – it is called Paraquita Bay. This is a harbor used only during the hurricane season to keep the fleets of sail boats out of harm’s way when the serious winds and rain come. The series of pictures show, over time, how the number of boats increase as the hurricane season approaches.



July 2013

Most of these boats are used in the charter fleets and there are a bunch – we do not know how many charter companies there are but it is said that Tortola is the sailing capital of the Caribbean. As the summer gets hotter and the threat of bad weather increases, the charter services move their boats into our harbor. It is fun to watch from our balcony as they have to negotiate a shallow, narrow entry point into the bay. Some of the sail boats have to wait until a competent sailor is available to bring them through the shallows.



August 2013

After the threat of bad weather has passed, the boats sail back to their original docks and are prepared for the sailing season which starts in November.



It is fun to live with a “safe harbor” nearby. It is ever so much more special to have the gospel of Jesus Christ as the safe harbor of our lives. It has been a privilege to teach the Plan of Salvation to our investigators here in Tortola. We are so blessed to have the gospel; it is truly our “safe harbor”.

September 2013



Tortola

Hastening the Work

Last Saturday, September 28^th, was a wonderful day. Our Tortola Branch was blessed with two baptisms. On the beautiful sparkling white sand at Long Bay Beach, 35 members of the Tortola Branch arose early to be there at 7:00 A.M. They came to witness the baptism of Selena, age 9 and also Chela, a beautiful young woman who is originally from Haiti. These lovely daughters of our Heavenly Father were baptized in the warm turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea. Two stalwart sisters from our branch gave the talks on baptism and the influence of the Holy Ghost in our lives. Our mission president, Pres. Smartt happened to be in town and that made the experience even more special.

On Sunday, Sept. 29^th, our 2 newest members were confirmed. We had 50 people in attendance which makes twice this month that our attendance has been in the 50’s. We are thrilled because it had been in the 30’s this past summer. Things are looking up for Tortola and we are happy to be a small part of the work of our Heavenly Father.

Tortola

Missionary Transfer

Hello from the beautiful island of Tortola, BVI. It has been really hot here and humid of course! Tropical storm ‘Dorius’ came through this week which upped the humidity a lot! It rained a lot more than usual but didn’t do any wind damage. We passed ‘Dorius’ on over to Puerto Rico with our greetings.

After 2 months here, we have adjusted to life on this island. As we have said before, it is a very VERTICAL island with a lot of our members living “High on a Mountain Top”! Also, basically it is just a hugh rock so nothing much grows here in the way of produce. We really miss the Saturday “Farmers Market” on St. Kitts where we could buy almost any fresh produce. I could even make my Zucchini Chowder there!

We wanted to send a photo of our fabulous Tortola “keyboard” students. Because school is out, we teach keyboard lessons during the day and then every evening (because most people work) we are visiting less-active members and investigators. Not everyone is always thrilled to see us but we always tell them how much they are missed and how much they are needed! Only Tortola and one other island does not have their own chapel, we really need to increase attendance so that they can get the chapel they deserve!!

Two weeks ago we lost our set of Elders and for the first time ever, two Sister missionaries arrived on our island. One is the trainer, Sister Parker, and the second is a BRAND NEW missionary, Sister Calderon from El Salvador. Sister Calderon doesn’t speak much English, which is hard on an English speaking island, but she is really coming along. She is so sweet and humble, she has a strong testimony and really seems to love the work. Both have been members for only two years. They come to our apartment every Monday morning to read their weekly emails and do their laundry. Tuesday mornings we have a “District” meeting together. Not a huge district (4) but a great district none the less!

Tortola

Driving on the Island 

We have been in Tortola now for a couple weeks and have found the island has some very steep and narrow roads with beautiful views of the Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. You can imagine that there is little flat ground here and what there is, is occupied by buildings. The main city, Road Town, has some very nice buildings – the government buildings all look good.

Driving here, like all of the little islands in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission, is on the left side of the road – like in England. However, unlike St Kitts where our car – a Toyota, Rav 4 had right hand steering, our car here – a Suzuki, Grand Vitara has left hand steering (like the USA). This has led to some interesting moments for MB who sits closest to center of the road – she has to tell me to ‘move over’ and it is usually said with some urgency!

This past week, on Saturday, we celebrated our 46^th wedding anniversary – we had a special dinner on the waterfront. On Sunday, after our Tortola Meetings, we boarded the ferry to travel to the island of Virgin Gorda. Pictured in the photo with us are the young Elders and the new Tortola Branch President, Pres. Lyerly and his wife Toni. They live on Virgin Gorda. We held a second sacrament meeting for the members living there.

We are continuing our member and leader support roles here on Tortola and have found and talked to some members who have not been to church for quite a while. They are very friendly toward us and have invited us back for more discussion.

The branch is having a send-off party this weekend for the recently released branch president who is returning to Hawaii – he has been in a leadership role for about 14 years here so he will be sorely missed!  We are grateful to have been able to work with him for these two weeks before he departs for his home there. He has helped prepare missionaries to serve from this small branch – he has four in the field now with two more going out by September and another waiting for his call. Seven full time missionaries from a branch of about 110 – WOW! What great work.