We witnessed 2 murders.........

We witnessed 2 murders this week, one right after the other. We were sitting near our dining room window eating lunch when we saw a large white bird, about 18-24 inches tall with a very very long neck, swoop down to the ground and snatch up 2 little ducks and carry them across the pond where one fell out of the beak. The duckling started running around following the white bird while it worked on getting the other duckling in a position where it finally swallowed it. I kept hoping the one on the ground would make a "run for it" but it didn't before the bird also snatched it up. It kept putting the duckling into the water as if it was washing it off before enjoying it for dinner.
I had noticed a mother duck with about 10 ducklings that morning walking past our apartment and later that day I saw one with only 5 ducklings so something must have happened to the other 5. It must be one of those "food chain" things. Sad though.

Shallow baptisms and strange food.......

Cristy, a Jamaican, came to church for the 2nd time today and was baptized afterwards along with Bishop Moore’s great grandson. We continue to have problems with our baptisms. Today they were only able to get about 2-3 feet of water into the font. One person said it was because it kept draining out and someone else said that he would fill it part way and then have to wait for the water to heat up again because the water heater wasn’t big enough to do it all at once. He said they only had time to wait for 3 fills. It is a good thing that Cristy was tiny. The boy was 10 years old but Cristy has 3 children. They both had to kneel and then they bent them backwards. Bishop Moore, who is about 89 years old, baptized his great grandson. He had to do it twice because he didn’t call him by name before starting the prayer. When Elder Bird baptized Cristy, they both started to fall because he had to bend so far down to get her under the water that they both lost their balance. If we had had an older person, they would never have been able to do it with that little of water BUT the church is still true!!!!!
We had Elders Holland, Bird, Nelson and Edwards for dinner today. The four of them live together. Elder Nelson and Edwards are Creole missionaries. They really enjoy mashed potatoes because the Haitians don’t feed them that. They get really strange food at the members’ homes. Elder Holland said he was hungry last week and saw some Creole food in the refrigerator so Elder Bird warmed it up for him. While he was eating it, he noticed something hard in it. He spit it out. It looked like a tooth and asked Elder Bird if he thought it was a tooth. They both agreed it was. He found a total of 4 in his dinner. When Elder Edwards and Nelson got home, they asked them what it was and they said pig teeth. YUK!!!

Sizzling hot......

OK. So summer has just begun and 2 days ago it was 108 degrees + the humidity. Maybe this is where the devil hides out. It was unbearable. Think of us when you think it is hot in your neck of the woods. I can't believe people can bear to work outside in it, like construction people.

Here is a picture of our 88 yr. old Uraguay friend, Tina. She has quite the cute personality. It was the 108 degree day when she came to visit and she just fell into the sofa. I asked her what her favorite food was and she said, "How you say .... in English?" I didn't know what she was talking about because of her strong Uruguay accent so she said, "You need to learn Spanish." I told her she was living in the United States now so she needed to learn English. She has been here for 60 years. It wore me out trying to understand her for 2 hours the other night. She talks non-stop.

Working with the Elders.....

We are working with the Elders in our area to teach a couple, the Goodmans, who are about our age. They are very wonderful people. Two of our dinner appointments with them fell through this week because their daughter (about 45 years old) was put in the hospital. We buy and prepare part of the dinner and then find out that they won't be able to come. We are going to try again this week. They have attended church the last couple of weeks and have really enjoyed it. I am going to resign myself to getting Kentucky Fried chicken at the last minute if they can come this week. I don't want to have a 4 lb. roast cooked and only 2 people to eat it.
It is Father's Day today. You know how the women always get plants for Mother's Day. Today the bishopric gave "hi 5's" to the men in our ward as they left the chapel!! I told Tim his present from me was that he could take a Sunday nap and wouldn't have to help me fix dinner.
It is still raining almost every day although not as much as the previous few weeks. The sun is shining brightly outside and I noticed just now a streak of lightening and heard thunder so I think we are in for another one this afternoon.
Keep those letters coming!!!!!!!!!!!

Updates on old posts..........

Well, the lady at the hospital was still alive when the Elders gave her a blessing. After the blessing, the family gave them 2 referrals.

Nothing has been resolved on the lady that was supposedly baptized twice. Salt Lake said we have 2 choices; have the current Bishop contact the old Bishop to see if he remembers what happened or send a letter to the First Presidency explaining the situation and let them decide what to do. I doubt the Bishop will have luck contacting a Bishop from Guatemala from 12 years ago so I have asked President Hale what to do. He hasn't given me an answer yet. It may be the first letter I write to a Prophet.

We are both feeling quite comfortable in our assignments now. However, the President keeps giving Tim more "special projects" and says he learned very early on not to tell Tim what he wanted but rather have Tim decide how to do something he wanted to be done. He says he always gets a much better version when he doesn't put ideas into Tim's head first. He loves Tim.

We are missing our family a lot. I think I am finally starting to go through "withdrawl" from them and seeing how much the kids are growing already.

Aunt Corlyss, Aunt Norma and Uncle Theron and Brian and his family have all said they were going to try and visit us. We are hoping that happens. We love you all!!!!!

We found this huge bug on our entry way when we left for the office yesterday. We don't know what kind it is but it was the length of 4 nickels.

Weird baptism record...........

Yesterday I received word from Salt Lake that I had submitted the baptism of a 65 year old lady who was already baptized in Guatemala in 1996. She says she has never been baptized before except for in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Both records have the same birthdate, same husband, same parents, 2 of the same children. Everything points to it being the same person except her daughter who lives with her and is about 40 years old says she was never baptized either. The daughter was baptized and we have found her record in the same place that we show her mother getting baptized within 1 year. The poor Elders are trying to sort things out. I think she thinks she has to be baptized in EVERY church house, not realizing that it is the same church but different chapels.

Today I had my 3rd opportunity to find Elders to go to a hospital to give blessings to people who are "not doing well". After pondering the one today, I am not so sure that the lady was still alive. The nurse asked me if there was someone who would be picking her up soon. She was given a list of numbers to call and we were one of them. She was shocked when I said we were a church. I asked if it was urgent and she said, "She's not doing well." but then nurses can't tell someone over the phone that her patient just died. I wonder if it was someone who is not active and wanted a "last rite" blessing. Tim said Catholics give last rites after a person has died. I am anxious to find out what the missionaries walked into. It has been a weird couple of days.

It's a small small world......

Today I was entering the Bishop and Stake President for one of our new missionaries and I couldn't believe my eyes. His Bishop was Vern Belcher from Park City, Utah. He is the missionary who baptized Tim 40 years ago. The missionary said it was because of his Bishop that he was now on a mission. It's a very small world.

Inspecting cars

Tim helped the other senior Elder inspect the cars this past week at 4 different zone conferences. It takes about 2 1/2 hours. The temperature has been in the mid to high 80's and the humidity has been about 90-100% every day and it has rained 11 of the last 12 days, sometimes as much as 3 times a day. The weatherman said last night he has not seen anything like this in the past 15 years except for when they had a hurricane. Elder Dalling puts a wet towel on top of his head to try to keep cool. They both ended up drenched from sweat and had to go home and shower before returning to the office.