Week 4 of the MIs

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 were 4 couples waiting for us.  They had chartered a boat and were going around to the British Virgin Islands for 10 days.  They were from Idaho and all were founders of a skilled nursing home business called:  Cascadia.  They were the nicest people ever!  They added so much to our Branch testimony meeting.  The branch is small but mighty, it was wonderful to be there with them and to get to know them.  Here is a picture of a few of them:

The little guy in front is Alex.....he stole my heart.

We went to visit a family that had lost their mother that morning after church. Most of the people shown in this picture
went too.  They are really just like a big family, so supportive of each other.

On Wednesday the long awaited day of having our Mission President and his wife come for a visit and a "training" happened.  We enjoyed spending a couple of days with President and Sister Smart and are so grateful for their friendship, leadership and examples.  They are a HUGE reason that we are on THIS mission.

Here are President and Sister Smart with Elder Robinson and Elder Howe

Here we are with President and Sister Smart.  Sister Smart and I both grew up in Tooele...and President Smart's brother was once my bishop.  Their oldest son, Cody, was a mission companion with Bob in Ecuador, not once, but twice!   We have been very good friends since then.  After they arrived in Puerto Rico, I got a call from Sister Smart asking us if we would come and serve on one of the islands in their mission.  We were not ready then, but told her that we would be ready for the last 18 months of their mission.  So here we are.  

We see this sign every time (3 so far) we go to St. John and it just is so great that I had to share it.  St. John is such a pretty island, one of these days we will go over and explore it, so far we have just gone over each
Friday to meet with and teach a member that lives there.  

This is a picture I snapped right before we got on the ferry in St. John on Friday.  We never get tired of this view.

This is a very common site to see all 3 islands that we have been on.  The hurricanes literally wiped out the top floors of so many homes and buildings. Many people are just living on the ground floor waiting until they can repair the top floor. The same with businesses and churches.  The hurricane did so much damage that it is just hard to describe the disrepair that is throughout the island.