Garrison’s Virgin Island View

Every other weekend, we travel to the British Virgin Island of Tortola.  We enjoy the people of this little branch so much. They are some  of the most faithful, hardworking and devoted people that we have ever met. On Saturday night, we met up with the Branch President and his wife:  Andrew and Dion Pollard.  They are the parents of 5 children and are originally from Guyana.  They are the heart and soul of this Branch.  We took them out to dinner and discussed some of the needs that they have there.  It was fun to get to know them a little bit better.   This is a picture of their 3 year old:  Alex.  Dick taught him and his brother in Primary on Sunday.  He is honestly just the cutest little cherub you would ever want to meet......so full of it! Here are some pictures of the people in this branch.  The last picture is a picture of the young adults that we teach a Book of Mormon class to on Sunday evenings....

A beautiful picture of a St. Thomas Sunset! These chickens are all over the island. They are our alarm clocks!   Much like  Kauai in Hawaii.  But, these guys start crowing at like 3 AM,  and because we sleep with our windows open, they are pretty annoying.  But hey, it is their habitat right?   On the Monday mornings that we are here, we have been playing pickle ball with our Elders.  The first time we played, Elder Garrison and I beat them but last Monday when we played, they won the first two games and then we came back and tied it 2-2!  But, then they came back and beat us in the last game.  They are good sports to play with grandpa and grandma!  We tease them that they should be killing us, but maybe they are just letting us win, who knows????  It is fun for us though and we all look forward to it.   We have been trying to get around and see all the members of the branch here.  This week, we had the privileg...

This week started out with a ferry trip over to the British Virgin Island of Tortola.  Elder Garrison and I are assigned to work with that branch also!  We ferried over on Saturday about noon and arrived about an hour later. We have to go through customs there, but they were very efficient and it was a breeze.  We walked to the hotel that we were staying at: Maria's by the Sea.  It was a very nice, clean hotel.  We rented a car and then went to the grocery store to get food, since we were going to be there until Monday.  Most of the stores are closed on Sunday, which was a surprise!  We got situated and met with Branch President Pollard and met his wife Dion and their 3 year old son Alex.  We had a nice visit with them.  They are the backbone of that branch and we loved them immediately. Church was at 10 the next day on the 3rd floor of a building that also has a restaurant on the 2nd floor:  Virgin Queen.  When we arrived, there...

Well, we have been here two weeks now.  There is a lot to be learned on this island.  A few of the things that we have learned are:  THE PUERTO RICAN POKE.  The helps a lot in traffic, when we need to turn...we just have to be brave and poke ourselves into traffic!  It works every time!  We have also learned that things move very slow on the island, this was very evident when Elder Garrison had to take the car in for a routine service.  He left at 6:30 am to get in line, and didn't get back until 1PM.  So next time, we will try to leave the car and catch a Safari.  That is the way that locals get around the island.  They have fancy Safaris for the tourists too.  Here is a picture of one: It is basically a truck, that has been converted to an open air taxi service.  It costs $1 to most areas, but if you go past a certain point, it is $2 each way.  You pay when you get off. We attended church for there first time on ...