Garrison’s Virgin Island View

Got a great little treat in the mail this week from Jackie and Bob and the family for Mother's Day!   See's candy. ....they know the way to my heart!  Chocolate!  Thanks guys....  We had a good turn out at church on Sunday and a great discussion in Sunday School about some of the parables in the New Testament.  I LOVE the " Come Follow Me " lessons that we are all studying together this year.  The parable that gave me the most food for thought this week was found in Matthew 20: 1-16: The parable of the "Laborers in the Vineyard."  I love what Jeffrey R. Holland said about this parable:   " This parable—like all parables—is not really about laborers or wages any more than the others are about sheep and goats. This is a story about God’s goodness, His patience and forgiveness, and the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a story about generosity and compassion. It is a story about grace. It underscores the thought I heard many years ago tha...

Hard to believe that we are on week 18 of this mission huh?  In just a couple more weeks, we will be into June and then we can say that we only have a year to go........although many days that still sounds like a long time away. The weather is getting hotter and more humid now, so when our kids tell us that it is 59 degrees and will be in the high 60's, with rain,  we are a little envious!  Here the weather really doesn't get cool, when we got here in January, most days the temperatures were in the 70's and this past week we have definitely noticed it creeping up to the 90's. One would never need a jacket here; at least we do not!   If you know either one of us, we are not huge fans of very hot weather, especially where most people do not have air conditioning, so we are just WET a lot or extremely damp.      We understand why so many people leave the island from the end of May to September, besides the hurricane threat, it is just plain hot and h...

We left on Saturday to go to Tortola.  They were having Branch Council and wanted us to come.  The main topic was hurricane preparedness.  After the devastating hurricanes of 2017, hurricane preparedness is no joke.  They know what can happen:  many were without electricity for 6 months, food ran out, shortages of water etc., so it is a serious topic. So the Tortola Branch made a plan to help everyone prepare.   Even though the Elders are now serving on that island, President Smart wants us to go over once a month to check in and help out in any way that we can, and we are glad to do it.  We love that little Branch on the island of Tortola.    Here are two reasons that we love to go to Tortola!!!  The cutest faces! After church in Tortola  on Sunday and after going to a teaching appointment with the Elders, we got to have dinner on The Walches boat.  They are in Tortola for some boat repairs before they...

Another week has flown by.  I will be honest, the first few weeks we were here dragged by, and we wondered if we really could live here for 18 months , but each week we are adjusting to living here a little better, and we are actually feeling like the weeks are going by pretty quickly now. Here is Elder Shah in his pose again.  No, we didn't beat them again this week in pickle ball .   They won 3-2. They are going down next week for sure. No mercy from the geriatric crowd next week! I was thinking that if someone was considering going on a senior mission that they may wonder what we do all day, so today I took a picture of our "to do" list.    This is a pretty typical day, except lately it seems like we have become very involved with some members that have immigration issues and also housing issues.  So today we actually became official "case workers" for the Virgin Islands Housing Authority!  We are hoping that we don't get too many calls...