Week Six of the Mission

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. They are all so committed to each other and to the gospel.  It is a pleasure to be with them and get to know them better.

Here is a picture of the church in Tortola.  It is actually the third floor of this building.  The second floor is a restaurant called the Virgin Queen and on the bottom there is a barber ship and another little food joint.  The hurricane damaged the building pretty badly and they have just barely gotten back into this space, and they are all so grateful to have a place to meet every week and in between.  It really makes us think about how much we take for granted where we live.  We have such nice chapels that accommodate us with chapels, kitchens, classrooms and even gyms.  We are definitely spoiled!

One of the things that we try to do is bring cupcakes to everyone that has a birthday.  Can you tell which one of these darling little girls had her 5 year old birthday this week?   The crown says it all!

One night this week, our appointment fell through, so we headed home and went to the little beach by our house and watched the sunset before dinner.  It is just so calming, beautiful and peaceful.

On Wednesday we went to Queen Louise House of the Aging and played Dominos with some of the residents.  The Elders are quite good at the game.  Apparently it is a very popular thing to play in the islands.  Who knew?

Wednesday evening we had English Class and we actually had a customer!  Sofia is from Haiti and has self taught herself English.  She is really pretty good.....it was fun to get to know her and have some English Conversation.  She has actually taught the Elders French Creole and they are getting pretty good at it too......it is amazing how fast they have picked it up!

This weekend, the Rhiens came to St. Thomas.  They are humanitarian missionaries that serve the Caribbean Islands.  We went to dinner with them and learned all about the great work that the church does to support other non profit organizations in their pursuits.  They had come to see a couple of projects that the church is supporting on our island.  One of them is My Brother's Workshop and the other one is called All Hands and Hearts.  Both of these organizations are doing so much good to help people on this island and the church has helped them by buying materials for building projects as well as equipment for them to work or to run their organizations.  They were so fun to talk to and get to know.  As we were going to dinner, our young Elders just happened to be out on the street that we were driving on, so they got to go to dinner too.  We told them that they REALLY were following the spirit that evening!  So fun!

Here they are showing off their desserts........

All in all in was a good week here. We are slowly making a life here on the island of St. Thomas.  One of the other things we did this week was to work at the Salvation Army helping serving lunch.  They serve over 100 people a day, and are so grateful for any help that they can get, so we will be doing that each Friday:

Here I am in my apron loading the trays of food.  The lady behind me has cooked over 100 meals every Monday thru Friday for 7 years.  She is my age and still going strong.  That is a lot of food!  This particular day, she cooked 16 pounds of spaghetti noodles.......

We are grateful to be able to serve here.  It is a privilege to get up every single day with only one thing to do:  serve.  We hope and pray that we can do some good while we are here.