Garrison’s Virgin Island View

On P-Day this week, we went to a new beach (for us).   Lindquist Bay.  It is beautiful, as they all are, but we still love our Brewers Bay the best so far.  It did have some interesting features, one of which was:  a "floating bar." Take a look at the picture below: Pretty innovative, isn't it???? Some of the sisters in our Branch .  Aren't they all so cute??? From this picture one may think that we beat the Elders at pickle ball again this week, but actually they beat us 3-2, but it wasn't without a fight!  Elder Shah struck this pose numerous times throughout the match....he really cracks us up! One thing that I  do a lot on this mission is bake !  I bake something for each person in the branch that has a birthday and then we deliver it to them.  Sometimes it is cookies (most times), sometimes it is cupcakes, or brownies or banana bread.  It gives us an excuse to visit, and usually they don't mind at all. ...

This is a view from our apartment balcony.  The clouds around here are so beautiful.  This never ever gets old.. .... Here we are with Elizabeth and Wilson Walch.  We have spent a few days with them these past few weeks working on a house in our branch that was damaged by the hurricane.  The Walches retired, bought a sail boat and came to these islands with the express purpose of doing service to those who were hit by the hurricanes.  Wilson has some serious tools and even more serious skills and they have been such a HUGE blessing to us and to others living on St. John too.  They have worked with All Hearts and Hands here too and continue to work so hard each day.  We adore them. Exciting times here in the San Juan Puerto Rico Mission!  On Monday, we picked up Elder Cox (from Evanston, Wyoming) and Elder Graff (from Spanish Fork, Utah).  We got them together with our Elders here in St. Thomas for a ...

Monday started off with a bang!  We gobsmacked the Elders in Pickle Ball 4-2.  I had to write that down just in case it doesn't happen again......I wish I would have taken a picture of them doing their push-ups every time they made an error.  it was hysterical.  What a way to start off the week....... later that night when we were getting ready to leave for our Branch Family Home Evening, we locked ourselves out of our apartment, so we were waiting outside for an hour until our landlord came and opened our door.  Now, we have a hide a key, so that won't happen again...... On Tuesdays for a few weeks now, we have been volunteering at a school here on the island behind that door above.  It is called " My Brother's Workshop, "  it is a program that a retired guy on the island started when he saw a need.  He noticed there were a lot of young men just hanging around and after further investigation found out that they hadn't graduated from High...

One thing about this place is that there is always a beautiful sunset .  No matter what kind of day it has been, good or bad, looking at  these sunsets reminds us of the hand of God in our lives. This is the little reminder that the Tortola Branch put out to remind everyone that this coming weekend is General Conference .  Our entire church world wide will tune in via TV or computer to view these meetings where our Prophet and Apostles will speak to us.  It is honestly a spiritual feast people!    We are all looking so forward to it.  We are so blessed to be members of a "living" church, where direction is on going from Our Heavenly Father.  Hope you all tuned in.   Elder Shah and Robinson Shaved ice....so great on a hot day! Mountain Top On Monday we usually have a P-Day.   We started out the morning playing P ickle Ball  with Elder Robinson and Elder Shah....they beat us old geezers! But I think we ...