Another busy week!

Since I have been working on family history for the branch, I find that I am having a hard time posting on my blog.  This past week has been busy.  Brian has been working on a project for President Brown so yesterday I got to do some service with the sister missionaries.  We helped Jasmine with her home and then I went with the sisters to do some missionary work.  It was fun for me to watch them teach.  It always seems like we spend a lot of time traveling as everyone lives so far apart.

Wednesday was our district meeting.  We have been having them here at the condo.  It works out really well.  The area held a meeting for the youth and young adults.  Since they were broadcast at the same time, we had to take the TV down to the branch with a computer to hook up the internet for the broadcast.  We also hooked up the broadcast on our other computer at the condo for the youth.  The young adults got to hear from Elder Holland and the youth got to hear from Elder Zivic and Elder Clayton.  We missed most of Elder Holland’s because we were with the youth.  When we took them back to the branch for desert, Elder Holland was still speaking and that was nice.  We were a little worried earlier during the day because our internet was off but it finally came back on. 

Brian spent most of his day working on the project for President Brown so I stayed  home and did family history for most of the day.  It was so nice.  I love looking for these names.  I wish there was some way of doing it in the member’s homes but most of them do not have internet access.

We got our truck washed on Saturday.  By the time we got home I fixed an early dinner and then we headed to the branch for leadership training.  While we were waiting for meeting to start, I helped a few members with some of their geneology.  It is starting to catch on.

Our attendance at church is dropping but I think it is because of the rain.  When it rains, people do not like to come out.  For some, walking down a path can become treacherous if it is rain hard.  For others, it is a way of life.  We were lucky that it did not rain today.  We started with very few at the beginning of church but we had over 50 by the end.  The talks were given by the missionaries and they were so good.  It is really too bad that so many missed their talks.  That seems to be typical for most Sundays.

I will try and repent and take more pictures.  Sometimes I don’t think about it until it is too late.

Busy Week

I thought I had better repent and make a post on this blog.  It has been a really busy week.  Monday we made a trip to Highgate to see two of our members and take them some food.  We visited with Sister Raymond and Sister Bennett.  I gave them each a "My Family" book so they could start gathering names for our temple trip in July.  The mission and stake have set a goal of 2,000 names so we are trying to get our members busy.  I am excited.  On our way home the elders called us.  They wanted to know if we were close at hand.  The water supply line to their toilet burst and they came home to two inches of water.  By the time we got back to Ocho it was cleaned up so we headed for home.  The plumber had just been out to their home to fix the toilet.  He actually taped up the small hole in the supply line so I am not surprised that it burst.

Tuesday we spent the morning at the branch.  I vacuumed and swept while Brian worked on some membership records for President Brown.  Later that afternoon we visited a less active sister and our elders quorum president.  We also went out to Huddersfield to visit with the Noble family. The rest of the evening was spent in studying for classes.

Wednesday was a very long day.  We left our condo at 8:10 so that we could make a trip to Port Antonio to pick up two of our elders.  We were hoping to see one of our members on the way but she didn't pick up her phone.  We found out later that she had been in Kingston.  We loaded up Elder Rammell and Elder Grossbeck and headed for Spanish Town.  We went over Stoney Hill.  It was the first time I had made the trip and it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.  Luckily, we did not come across any big trucks.  We stopped at Pricesmart in Kingston to buy a pizza for lunch and then finished our trip into Spanish Town.  Elder Rammell was leaving to be one of the new zone leaders in Kingston and Elder Grossbeck was going back home to Oregon.  Some of my favorite elders and sisters were leaving to go home.  We had a nice meeting and it was fun to see some of the missionaries that we haven't seen for awhile.  After the meeting we headed back to Port Antonio with Elder Muirhead who is Jamaican and Elder Hunt.  When we got to Port Antonio, we unloaded the truck in pouring rain.  Brian was pretty wet when he got back in the truck.  From there, we headed back to Ocho in the dark.  It was a very long day.  We figured that we spent about 10 hours in the truck.  We also got two new missionaries in our branch.  Elder Gardner from Orem replaced Elder Jones and Sister Tuttle from Bountiful replaced Sister Garrett.

Thursday morning we paid our internet bill and then headed to the branch to pick up Sister Llewellan who was being dropped off by the AP's so that we could take her to her home.  It was fun to get to know her a little.  Her family had their porch decorated for her return.  We left her with her family and then stopped to purchase some ice cream for the branch social. Later in the afternoon we drove to the branch for seminary and institute.  Mark did not come and Brian's adult class fizzled out also.  We did get our YA's out for the 6:00 class so that was nice.  After class we stopped at the store and then took the elders back to their apartment before heading home.  The elders needed a few items and so did we so it worked out great for both of us.

Friday we went to Lime Hall to get the truck washed.  We got to visit with Humphrey for a few minutes.  He saw that Wayne was washing the truck and he had just gotten off work and was pretty tired but he came over to visit with us.  I love some of the expressions here.  Wayne said to Humphrey, "You look mashed up."  That was his way of saying "you look tired".  I love some of the Patwah  phrases.  I went home and made a pan of brownies and two sheet cake pans of banana cake for the branch activity.  The sisters dropped off a chocolate cake for us to take to the activity.  We headed to the branch for missionary correlation meeting at 5:00 and then set up for the branch social that started at 6:30.  We got about 50 people out and they seemed to have a lot of fun.  We are going to try having a branch social every other week.  We went through 6 gallons of ice cream.  Most of the branches and wards do not serve any refreshments at their activities so we will probably do the same.  However, the members love to eat sweets so I hope they will still come out even if we don't serve refreshments.

Saturday we made a trip into Spanish Town for our temple meeting.  We are excited about the trip and hope that we can encourage our members to participate.  We were going to stop at Pricesmart but decided to wait until we come to Kingston next Tuesday for family history training.  When we got home, I made dinner while Brian cleaned up the church.  We spent the rest of the evening getting ready for Sunday.

Sunday it rained so our attendance at the branch was not that great. Jamaicans do not like to go out in the rain so it always affects our attendance.  Lately, we have had a lot of rain on Sundays - a good test of their faith. I taught the YW's lesson on "Our body is a temple."  I really enjoyed teaching that lesson. I only had two girls in the class but we had a good time.  After church, Brian taught the Temple Preparation class.  He also taught the gospel doctrine class and was suppose to teach the YM but the Elder's quorum president asked him to come into priesthood to help out with the lesson so he turned the YM over to Rohan.  It was a busy day for him. When we got home I fixed dinner and then we made a visit to the Llewellans.  Jody was called to be the new YW's President.  That will free me up to concentrate on getting the members involved in family history since I am also the family history specialist in our branch.  It was a good day.  We got to Facetime and Skype with Amy, Jill and Emily.  Ben also called.  It is always nice to talk to family.

From left to right, David (Jasmine's husband), Jasmine, Cindy, Jody, and Jody's mom Marge.

Jody and Shawn (our two returned missionaries)  Tracy is in the back.

Dunn's River with Sister Wege and Jean Harper

Wednesday morning we had district meeting at our condo.  After the missionaries left, Sister Wege and Jean Harper came up for a visit.  Jean was a companion to Sister Wege when they both served in the Washington DC Mission.  We visited until 3:00 and then they headed to their hotel while Brian and I headed to the branch.  I waited for Mark to come to seminary but he never showed up.  Brian went with Sister Wege and Jean to visit Rohan and Tracy's school.  When they got back to the branch, we all went out to dinner with Shawn.  We decided to go to Scotchies for Jerk chicken.  Sister Wege wanted to talk to Shawn about the Path program.  I found out from Jean that she and my cousin Steve Morgan are very good friends.

Thursday we picked up Jean and Sister Wege and headed to Dunn's River.  Brian and I wanted to check it out to see if it would be a good place to take our children when they came.  We were not disappointed.  It was very crowded but we did not hike up the falls as we did not have our swimming suits.  I am sure Brian will hike up the falls when family come.  After we dropped Jean and Sister Wege off at their hotel, we went home for lunch and then stopped to see the Llewellans as Abigail had just gotten out of the hospital.  We then headed to the branch for seminary and institute.  I ended up teaching Raheem and Jahleem but Mark did not show up.

Friday morning we picked up Tracy and took her to St. Ann's so that she could check out the cost of getting  passports.  We want our members to start getting their passports now so that they can go to the temple in July.  After we got home, Brian went to the bank while I studied my YW's lesson.  When he got home, we went to the store to pick up some ingredients for Sister Alexander as she wanted to make lasagna for her restaurant grand opening.  The sisters called and wanted to go to Brown's Town with us so we waited for them to get to our condo and then headed out.  We stopped to see Cheryl and Monica and then picked up Sister Alexander and headed to her cook shop.  We treated the sisters to dinner at the cook shop before heading back to Ocho.  We all had fried chicken and rice and peas.  Later on in the evening, Elder Jones called to tell us that Elder Cox had been bitten by a 40 legger.  That is what they call the centipedes around here.  They can get pretty big (5 - 9 inches long).  The one that bit Elder Cox was small and he said that it didn't hurt or break skin.  He was pretty lucky!  You can check it out on google.  Just type in " Jamaican 40 legger."

Saturday morning we headed over to the elder's apartment to help them move to their new apartment.  After we took the first load over, I decided to stay at their old apartment and mop the floors and do a little cleaning.  I thought it would save them some time.  Elder Cox and Elder Jones seem very pleased with their new apartment.  However, they told us this morning at church that they don't have very good water pressure.  I will not miss driving down James Avenue to pick them up.  It is a very congested street and sometimes it is hard to navigate our way through it.  The new apartment is just down the road from Tracy and Rohan.  It will be a longer walk to church for them but it will be closer to most of their contacts.  After we finished with the move, we went back to our condo and started watching the Roots Conference.  It was very inspiring.

We had a pretty good turnout at the branch.  We had one family from Canada and another from Blackfoot, Idaho.   We are always happy when we get visitors as it boosts our numbers. After the meeting we visited with the Llewellans.  Jasmine is visiting from the Isle of Man. She is such a delightful lady.  She is going to speak in church next week.  She and her niece Jody are the only ones who have gone to the temple in that family.  Jody is Marge's daughter and she is serving a mission here in Jamaica.  Her mission ends this month. After our visit, we headed back home for the evening.  We do not like to venture out on the roads at night.

Sister Wege, Shawn, Brian and Jean Harper at Scotchies

Jerk chicken being cooked.

Sister Wege and Jean at the pool Thursday morning before Dunn's River.

This is the top of the falls at Dunn's River

Midway down the falls.

Lower view of the falls

Another view of the falls with tourists hiking up.

The beach where the tourists gather before they head up the falls.

Tourists hiking up the falls from the beach below.  They are headed under the road.

Mystic Mountain, Kingston and Kingston

Saturday was a fun filled day at Mystic Mountain with the senior couples and Sister Wege.  We were originally going to go to Port Antonio for a river raft on the Rio Grande but there was a 60% chance of rain so we decided that Mystic Mountain was a better option.  I experienced my first ever zip line.  It was fun but not as exciting as the bobsled run.  I also loved the chair lift with it's beautiful view of the ocean and Ocho Rios.  After our excursion, we all headed back to Ocho where we all stopped for a bite to eat at our favorite Chinese restaurant.  Before going home, we stopped to pick up some bread for the sacrament and then headed up to Lime Hall for a badly needed truck wash.  Last Monday while we were parked in Ocho, a bottle of pop hit the road and pop sprayed all over the truck so it was looking pretty bad.

Sunday Brian dropped the bread off at the branch and then came home to pick me up so that we could travel to Kingston for President and Sister Brown's baby blessing.  It was fun to go to a ward where there were actually families sitting together.  It was a good sized ward.  The blessing was beautiful.  President Brown is a very spiritual man.  After the blessing we headed back to Ocho.  The sisters called us to let us know that Sister Llewellan was in the hospital so we drove up to see her and then headed for the branch so Brian could meet with Brother and Sister Sorenson and Brother Singh for clerk training.  I had a nice visit with Sister Sorenson.  This is their second mission.

Monday we did our typical P-day routine of wash and defrost and then headed down to Kingston for FHE.
The Halls were in charge.  Everyone brought their own meat plus a side dish for the dinner and then Elder and Sister Hall gave a lesson and had an activity of roll playing for all of us to do.  We all said our goodbyes to Elder and Sister Whitehead and met their new replacement, Elder and Sister Summers.  It was hard to say  goodbye to the Whiteheads as they are such a wonderful couple. We have had a lot of fun doing some humanitarian projects with them.  We spent the night at the Whiteheads.  Elder and Sister Summers are staying with Sister Wege until Friday and then the Summers will move into the Whitehead's apartment.

Before going back to Ocho, we ate breakfast with the Whiteheads and Summers and then headed to Pricesmart.  It was fun to buy frozen vegetable and frozen fruit to put in our little 2 ft. by 2 ft. freezer at home.  We should have bought the freezer months ago.  I purchased 5 lbs. of butter as it is about $2.00 a lb. cheaper at Pricesmart.   We traveled a new route on the way back to Ocho.  We got on a road called Red Hills and continued on it until we got to Sligoville Road.  It was high in the hills and we had a beautiful view of Kingston.  The road was in excellent shape but somewhat windy.  The Chinese are going to build an overpass road near the Bog Walk so the Bog Walk is going to be closed and this will be the alternate route into Kingston.  The road comes out just past the Flat Bridge and completely bypasses Spanish Town.  I am not sure it is any faster but mileage wise, it is shorter.  There was not a lot of traffic on it so that was a plus.
When we got home, we unloaded groceries and ate lunch.  Brian headed to the branch while I studied and fixed dinner.

Brian and I sitting in the chair lift with the Vances.

Overlooking Ocho Rios from the Mystic Mountain Tower.

The top of the tower.

Looking towards Montego Bay from the tower.

Lunch at the Chinese restaurant.  From left to right, Brian, Elder Whitehead, Sister Whitehead, Sister Wege, Sister Vance, Elder Vance, Elder Hall and Sister Hall.

President and Sister Brown with friends and family after the baby blessing.

The bobsled ride!

Three Hills

Sister Thompson informed Brian on Sunday that after he and the elders finished putting the stove back together last Tuesday that they tried to light the back burner and a big swoosh of fire came out and they hadn't been able to use the stove.  Brian called Rohan and the elders to see if they wanted to go back out to Sister Thompson's and take another look at the stove.  Since the elder's service project had cancelled, they agreed to go.  Five hours later, the stove was put back together and working.  Of course, that includes the time it took to go back into town to pick up parts.  The oven is still not working.  Brian thinks it is probably the igniter.  He gave Sister Thompson the phone number for a stove repairman.  As they were all gathered around the stove, I asked them, "How many elders does it take to repair a stove?"  They all laughed remembering the old saying, "how many people does it take to unscrew a light bulb."

Tuesday night we took Rohan and Tracy, Sister Vacianna, and Sister Henry out for Chinese food.  They worked so hard on the branch Christmas party that Brian told them that he would take them out to dinner.  We had a nice visit and they all seemed to enjoy the food.  We had sweet and sour chicken, sweet and sour port, sweet and sour fish, chow mein, cashew nut chicken, peppered beef, and special fried rice.  Sister Alexander and her daughter Anika were not able to join us.   Anika is going to school in Kingston and Sister Alexander did not want to make the hour long trip into Ocho from Brown's Town.

From left to right, Sister Henry, Sister Vacianna, Rohan and Tracy and Brian.

A few of the dishes that had already arrived.

From left to right, Elder Cox, Brian, Rohan, and Elder Jones.

St. Ann's Infirmary

Today Elder and Sister Whitehead picked us up so that we could go out to St. Ann's Infirmary.  ATL had arranged to meet us at the Infirmary so that they could drop off two washers, a freezer, a stainless steel sink, a TV, a microwave oven, a blender, a large exhaust fan, and a pressure cooker.  Brian had arranged with the deputy inspector of the poor to meet us out at the Infirmary at 1:00 for a turnover ceremony.   Elder Whitehead took some pictures with the deputy so that he could send the pictures to those who oversee the  Church's humanitarian efforts.  The people at St. Ann's seemed very appreciative as did Lucille, who is the deputy inspector of the poor.  It was fun to be a part of that project.  The Church's humanitarian department do such wonderful projects.  I hope this puts the church in a better light for some of these people in Jamaica.
After we left the Infirmary, we went to lunch with Elder and Sister Whitehead at the Island Grill.  They leave for home next week.  It will be a sad day.

The sisters came over so that Brian could put new windshield wipers on their truck and look at their brake light.  Sister Garrett was feeling pretty sad because she lost a lot of her pictures as she was downloading them.

Laundry on the line at St. Ann's Infirmary.  The Infirmary is on  beach front property.

The laundry room with the new washers.  

Wash basins where the excess laundry gets washed

Two of the cooks at St. Ann's Infirmary.  The new microwave, pressure cooker and Vitamix are in the background.

Yesterday was our Caribbean Conference.  It was excellent.  We got to hear from Elder Anderson, Sister Osgerson, Elder Holland and President Packer.  The internet kept freezing during the talks which was very frustrating.  The emphasis of the meeting centered around the Savior, the family, the church and the temple.  The meeting started at 9:00 and some of our members did not reach church until the closing song. While we were waiting for Brian and Rohan to finish branch business, I played Johnny Lingo for Tracy and her children.  Brian and Rohan came down in time to finish the movie.  It was enjoyed by all.  After we left the building, we took some food to two of our members and then headed back to our Condo for the day.

Montego Bay and Negril

Thursday we left the house at 7:00 so that we could meet the Greensides in Falmouth.  When we got to Falmouth, we could not see the cruise ship.  We checked at the gate and they told us that it had docked in Montego Bay.  We headed to Montego Bay hoping we could find where the ship was docked.  We finally got to the port but we were not sure where to enter.  One gate we entered took us close and there was a gate that was guarded but the attendant would not let us enter so we walked back to the road and headed towards another entrance where we could see a bunch of buses and taxis.  Lo and behold, there were the Greensides waiting for us.  I am so glad the guard did not let us in the other gate or we could have been waiting for ever.  We all got in the truck and decided to head towards Negril.  If we could have picked them up in Falmouth, we would have taken them back to Ocho but Montego Bay is two hours from Ocho so we decided to head for Negril instead.  The Pearsons gave us a key so that we could use their rest room and then we walked from their condo to the beach.  We had such a great visit and it was so good to see them again.  We left Montego bay around 2:00 and headed back to Ocho since we had to both teach our seminary and institute classes.

Sister Thompson's grandmother died and Sister Thompson was really having a hard time.  The sisters had called earlier while we were in Montego Bay and we arranged to meet them at the branch.  Brian gave Sister Thompson a really nice blessing before  Rohan and Tracy came for class.  Shawn and Kimisha came to the 6:00 institute class and the elders showed up also.  I am sure they were hoping that some investigators would come but no such luck.

Dave and Meda Greensides 

Today it has been raining all day.  We had to go over to St. Ann's Bay to ask a lady who oversees the committee that takes care of the poor if she could come to the Infirmary on Monday so that the humanitarian couple could present the items that are being  donated by the Church.  She graciously agreed to come.  We then went grocery shopping before our appointment with Sister Henry.  I made Sister Henry some cookies and just as we were getting ready to go, it started raining buckets.  We waited for the rain to slow down and then left for Sister Henry's.  We had a nice visit.  It is nice to see her healthier.  After the visit we made another visit and the rain started pouring again.  We decided to call it and day and headed home for dinner.