Change #4796.5

There has been a change in plans.  (We are getting used to having plans suddenly changed.  I am not comfortable with it yet, but we are growing accustomed to it.)  One of the reasons we were going to St Thomas, before the Social Security malfunction that demands a personal appearance at the nearest facility--one of the reasons we were going over is to retrieve some things from the mission office.  That has changed.  

US Postal Service includes Puerto Rico and St Thomas.  It does not come to Tortola because, as I mentioned before, we are not in the US. That means it is easy to get packages to Puerto Rico, but much more difficult to get them to Tortola.  When I had my first interview with President on our first day down here I mentioned that I am a dentist, retired from active practice but still licensed in Idaho.  He became excited as he considered how I might be able to help with some mission applications of young men and women in The Islands.  The dental exam and treatment plans have been holding the applications up.  He asked me if I could do the exams.  Well, I am not licensed in Puerto Rico, but...That doesn’t matter, he said.  A license is all we need.  Technically he is right but ... never mind.  It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.  So I asked Kim to gather up the stuff I need and send it to me.  She found the gear at home, gathered some instruments kindly provided by Dr Lambert in Twin Falls, and boxed it up and shipped it to the mission office.

We can get letters from the US in Road Town because we have rented a mailbox with a service (Khoy’s) that goes to St John (an island right next to St Thomas and also in the USVI) twice per week on a mail run.  They have a US mailbox over there.  We tell people to send things to us at that address and the service picks it up and we get it in Tortola.  It is a couple weeks slower, but who cares.  

The problem is not with letters and cards, it is with bigger things.  Those bigger things end up costing several dollars more if they are shipped to Khoy’s address.  So we have a different method of getting things larger than a letter.  We ship it to the mission office in Puerto Rico and then the next person to come to Tortola from mission HQ brings the goods with him.  Works quite well most of the time.  The problem is that nobody has come to Tortola for three weeks and the package was not there then.  Further, nobody is planning on coming here for another month when we will have our branch conference.  Then we will have lots of visitors from Mission HQ.

We have a way around that, too.  When mission personnel go to St Thomas from Puerto Rico they can take stuff with them without any hassles because Puerto Rico and St Thomas are both US Territories.  We can catch the ferry over to St Thomas and retrieve the delivered goods.  

That accomplishes a couple of good purposes.  First, it gives Gaye and me a reason to get off this tiny little island for a change of scenery.  Second, it gives us a chance to get the goods.  The package with the dental instruments would be the first priority, but we also need a couple of keyboards to loan to our music students, so those could also be delivered by the mission visitors.  It just happens that the branch conference for St Thomas was scheduled for this coming weekend.  Since we would be going over there to resolve the Social Security issue anyway, we could also pick up our packages.  It is sort of like Christmas all over again.  There would be several visitors coming to St Thomas, so getting all the stuff there would be easy.  

Branch conference on St Thomas was rescheduled at the last minute to sometime next month, so we are also rescheduling our visit to a later date.  It turns out that the YFTM’s working on St Thomas are going to PR on Monday and returning on Wednesday, so we will go over on Thursday and return on Friday.  On second thought, we will wait until we are sure the goods have been delivered before we make any plans.  I don’t really like surprises.

Oh, I just learned of another surprise.  We will be having a remote control conference with Mission HQ this next Sunday.  It will be sort of like the stake conferences that are broadcast from Salt Lake to dozens of stakes in a given area.  It seems that somebody who runs the calendar over there likes to pull sudden changes.  Or maybe it has been scheduled for a long time but the message was not sent out.  So that means that I will not be teaching Sunday school next Sunday.  On second thought, I think I will have a lesson ready just in case.

Stay tuned.

ARRRRGH!

January 10, 2013

Okay, today was not one of my better days.  We really don’t have too much to do, to put it mildly.  There are things to do, but sometimes those things are just busy work.  That’s okay because busy work has to be done, too.  But today there wasn’t even much busy work to do.  We did go down to the beach where the baptism will be held Saturday to check it out.  It will be a sweet experience.  While we were there we saw about five guys out on boards the size of snowboards, but these guys were flying along over the waves behind and beneath big sails, like you see in the sky at Point of the Mountain.  There was a stiff trade wind from the east (it is always from the east, always), and those guys were really moving.  One guy would actually go up in the air 30-40 feet, and then fly down to pull off a soft landing on the waves.  Anyway we had fun watching them.  Sorry.  No photos.

Gaye and I worked on our finances today.  I have to preface this with a story.  When we lived in Alaska I would try to balance the checkbook.  It was before personal computers and I used a paper spreadsheet to categorize our purchases.  I have a pathologic need to know where the money has gone.  It doesn’t help slow down the escape, but I feel better knowing where it went.  So I was trying unsuccessfully to work through the mess and 6-year-old Kim came up to ask me what I was doing.  She could see that I was not having a good afternoon.  I told her I was playing the checkbook game.

I got through that event and about a month later, tried it again.  It was not going any better that time.  Juli, about 4 or so, wandered over and asked me what I was doing.  She was attracted by my snarls and growls and the ARRRRGH! that would regularly fill the room.  Kim looked at Juli and said, “Be quiet, Juli!  Dad is playing the checkbook game!”  I hope my kids have recovered from those frustrating exercises.

So today Gaye and I were playing the checkbook game.  I must point out that I switched from paper to computer years ago, and when the dental practice got busier, Gaye offered to help me do the finances of the family.  So I yielded.  For the next 20+ years I had no idea where the money was going.  Gaye entered the checks and paid the bills, eventually getting into online bill paying, but the categories were not useful to me and a report from Quicken was therefore useless.  I dropped out, but every once in while I would yearn for the days when I knew where the money was going.

I have started writing every purchase down in a small book since we have been here on our mission.  It has given me some peace of mind and even a good job to do when there is nothing to do.  Reports are hard to get from paper, though, so we decided we should purchase Quicken.  The problem is that Quicken works on Windows driven PC, but I use a Mac.  Much more intuitive and user friendly.  So we loaded Quicken onto Gaye’s PC and started to record what I had in my little book. It was taking me way too long to relearn how to maneuver around Windows on a PC.  We downloaded our credit card data from the card company, as well as the online banking data from our bank.  Of course the data would come with an entry like “Check 00200997--$400”.  That’s all.  I was having flashbacks of earlier frustrations.

See, Gaye and I have one brain between us.  I am completely left-side dominated.  I see the parts very well.  I love the detail, and the more the better.  Gaye, on the other hand, is very happy to be close enough.  She sees the whole picture, but not the parts very well.  Don’t sweat the details.  We still have money in the checking account.  It went somewhere and we have lots of stuff to show for it.  You know the drill.  So we have been trying to resolve this little impediment to our relationship by communicating better over financial matters.  That is when we discovered that we are not getting our monthly Social Security check.

I decided to start receiving the SS check when I turned 66 in November.  Gaye is waiting for a year until she also hits the magic number next November.  No check was deposited in November, but I assumed that was because it would arrive in the next month.  No problem.  Except that it did not arrive in December, either.  So I called the 800 number for the SS Administration.  I also called our bank to see if the information had perhaps just not downloaded.  I’ll shorten this a little.  After 2+ hours on hold and talking to “the next available representative” I learned that indeed, the check was being paid, but also indeed, it was not being deposited into our account.  So where in the wide universe is it going?

The sweet lady on the SS line asked me for the account number of my bank.  This was after I answered all those security questions designed to prove that I was really Ken Patterson, the owner of the problem.  You know the questions:  What is the name of your first grade school?  What is the first name of your paternal grandmother?  What is the name of your first pet?  Who was your first girlfriend in kindergarten?  What was the middle initial of your second grade teacher’s husband’s name?  I answered them all correctly, for which I felt like giving myself High Five!  So She asked me the number of my bank account, which I slowly read to her.  She said, “No, that is not the account where the check is going”.  I already knew that.

After a few requests of “would you mind holding for just a moment (five minutes) please” she came back and told me that I was two numbers off.  Two numbers of the account number I gave her were not the same as the account number where the money was actually going.  (The bank told me that if I could give them the number they could get the money back for me.  But they had to have the wrong number to make things right.)  She further informed me that she would not be able to tell me the wrong number.  Something about regulations to protect proper identity of people. It was supposed to prevent fraud from being perpetrated on innocent victims.  Of course there was fraud going on!  If not I would not have needed to spend the day with the telephone glued to my ear (the phone does not have a speaker).  I could only get the necessary wrong number only by visiting my local Social Security office.

Have you ever been to a Social Security office?  It is not a pleasant experience.  There is an armed guard without a personality who greets you at the door with terse instructions to turn your cell phone OFF, not just SILENT, but COMPLETELY OFF, then hands you a number from a computer system that has replaced the simple little take-a-number thingy like they have at the local electrical supply store.  Better use of tax payers’ money I suppose.  Then you sit there with lots of other people who voted for Obama and wait for a couple of hours until the lady behind the glass window with the two little holes in it to supposedly communicate through gets through picking her fingernails and calls out your number.  It takes her about 20 seconds to tell me that I don’t have the right paperwork and I will need to come back.  Don’t go there if you don’t have to.

But that is not the big problem here.  We are on Tortola and there is not a Social Security office on Tortola.  That is probably because Tortola is in the British Virgin Islands, and things British and things American were separated quite permanently in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence, and really cemented with the War of 1812.  So I need to go to a Social Security office to get this straightened out, and the nearest one is an hour ferry ride from here in St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.  This is British, that is US.  (I don’t know why they don’t just combine into one country.  They all drive left-side driver vehicles on the left side of the narrow, steep highways and speak the same beautiful but unintelligible Caribbean English that I can’t hear anyway because they speak so softly.  ARRRGH!)

The solution has presented itself.  Gaye and I are going to catch ferry to St Thomas early Monday morning.  Our friends from the MTC, the Peterson’s, with whom we spent New Year’s Day getting pounded by huge waves on Virgin Gorda--those same friends will pick us up at the ferry and take us where we need to go.  We might even go to McDonalds or Burger King for some junk food and nostalgically wander through the aisles of one of the chain stores like K-Mart or Walmart.  We will stay over there Monday night, have FHE with Elder and Sister Peterson, catch the ferry back Tuesday, and hope the Social Security office people there will get this problem straightened out.  And I might then resist curling up into a fetal position with my thumb in my mouth.

Stay tuned.

A Wonderful Sunday

January 6, 2013

I need to resolve one issue I left hanging.  We are driving Suzzie Suzuki.  We had a surprise visit from President Alvarado last week.  In response to my question about vehicles he said the area leadership says the elders will drive the truck and the senior couple will drive the SUV.  That settled that, so we gave the keys to the YFTM’s and we are driving the SUV.  Frankly, it is just fine.  In fact, it is 3 feet shorter and much, much easier to park and maneuver than the truck.  The suspension is not as good, the floor mats are cheap, the seats are more flimsy, but Suzzie gets us up the hills just fine, if a little slower.  She is full-time 4WD so that is not an issue when we need the extra traction going up a steep driveway.  We are safe and secure and happy, and we are paying a lot less for fuel.  I actually felt sorry for the YFTM’s as we were parking in a tight spot.  They will never be able to do that.  Besides, neither vehicle is ours.  We will leave them both here when we are moved, whenever that is.  Now if we could just get rid of the two 2008 Toyota Tacoma trucks.  I am tired of washing them and worrying about them.

Today is fast Sunday.  I love these occasions to reconvince my body who is in charge. We had a wonderful meeting this morning.  The Kalama family have some some big news lately.  Their two oldest girls, Hali’a and Hina, have received their mission calls.  Hina, the younger, is leaving in February for a Spanish California mission.  Hali’a is leaving in April for Quezon Philippines.  She will learn Tagalog. 

Hali'a, Hina, Tau Kalama

So the whole family is going back to Hawaii for their temple endowments and then they will drop Hina off at the Provo MTC on their way back to Tortola.  I think Hali’a is going to work for a few weeks before she enters Provo MTC in April, a week or two after Hina leaves for California.  There were some tender expressions of testimony and love in our meeting today concerning this endeavor.  Our tiny branch will now have 4 YFTM’s (Young Full-Time Missionaries), and there are two more young men getting their papers in.  That is more from one unit than many wards in LDS areas have.  We will all be blessed for it, too.

Krystin in the middle of friends

Krystin Kalama has been practicing the keyboard for a few weeks and today she accompanied the singing her first time in church.  She played the simplified arrangement of We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet, and it was terrific!  I played the other two hymns, also from the simplified arrangements.  Now Krystin has seen that she can do it and she is excited to play again.  We will have her play next week, and the next, and the next, and...There are also some others with whom we will work to get ready to play in a week or four.  Our goal is to have enough players in the branch by the time we leave that they will not even know we have left.  So since we have been here we have had a little part in two landmark activities in Tortola Branch--the first branch choir number and the first branch member accompanying the congregational singing. Haleluiah!!!

Orlando bore testimony today of the effect the Church has had in his life since he joined in October.  He is a good young man.  He got off the education track for a couple of years so he is 18 and still has a year and a half to graduate from high school.  Then he wants to go on his mission and return to study medicine.  He can do it.  Along the way he is setting a great example for his brother and two sisters and his parents.

Orlando at the keyboard

Orlando today

Jermaine has been dealing with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma for a few months.  He is almost finished with the treatments.  He testified that this has been a blessing to him!  He said it has been hard, but that he would not have it any other way.  He told of his wandering from the things he knew were true and right as a young Aaronic Priesthood holder.  He expressed sincere gratitude that this illness has brought him back to what is right, and he expressed a desire to continue on the right path.  He is a handsome guy, about 6’3” tall, 21 years old.  His girl friend, Lisa, is about 5’ tall, so they make an interesting couple. 

Lisa

 Lisa will be baptized this Saturday in the ocean near here.  Jermaine will perform the baptism, and the two YFTM’s will be the witnesses.  It is the only way they will be allowed to wade out into the water, or to even go on the beach for that matter.  I think we will be involved in teaching the fellowshipping lessons after the baptism.  

I will be going out Tuesday night with the Elders Quorum President to show him how Home Teaching should be done.  He is really keen on getting out to visit the members of his group and he wants to do it right.  However, as with most of the members of the branch here, he has not been a member of teh Church all that long.  We will visit his first counsellor.  Then they will go out with their own companions and carry the training to the other members of the priesthood of the branch.  Gaye will be doing the same thing with the Relief Society.  As my friend Doug Ladle put it, we are the starter motors, not the engine.  The goal is to get the engine running and teach them enough that they can keep it running after the starter has shut down.

Stay tuned.

Diane Samuel

Sister Samuel is from Dominican Republic originally.  Spanish is her home language.  English is sometimes a struggle for her.  She had a job but the economy has had its effect on her like so many others.  She has a car but often struggles to buy fuel to run it.  She is a single mom with a daughter living with her.  The daughter is mid-twenties and has been sick.  Diane is in her fifties.  She makes a living by selling ties and other small items at a little stand.  Some days she doesn’t do very well but she always says tomorrow will be better.  One day she was at the church enthusiastically washing the windows and cleaning the area for Sunday meetings.  She worked hard and made it shine.  I suspect she was receiving assistance from the branch fast offerings.  She was happy in her work.

Diane has been the branch accompanist, but she doesn’t read music or play the piano.  She has had the assignment to push the buttons on the electronic piano to play the recorded hymns that were chosen for each Sunday’s meetings. President Kalama has released her from that calling because he wants to support having a live keyboard player playing the hymns each Sunday. 

She loves music and when we announced that we were teaching the keyboarding class, she was one of the first to sign up for lessons.  She has had a hard time learning the keyboarding, but I think she will catch on to the conducting lessons.  (Diane does better counting the music in Spanish than in English. Of course.  She speaks Spanish.) She loves to sing with our little choir, and in the congregational singing.  She has a deep contralto voice.  She sings the melody and soon gets lost when she tries to sing parts.  That doesn’t matter to this choir director (me) however.  I love the spirit she brings.

I have a standing assignment to teach Sunday school class, so as part of my lesson last week, I asked her and some others to tell their conversion stories.  Everybody has a story and they are all fascinating.  (Every couple also has a story of how they got together, and they are all interesting, too.)

Diane said she had a burning desire to know Jesus Christ.  She searched for ways to satisfy that yearning.  She told her friends and the people she was working with of her desire.  Then one day she saw two young men in white shirts with name tags that said they were from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  (At this point in the story she became quite excited as she told us in her broken English about the encounter with the missionaries.)  

“Do you know about Jesus Christ?” she asked them.  They assured her that they did.

“Can you teach me about Jesus Christ?  I want to know Jesus Christ!”  

Diane was baptized three weeks later as she gained her own testimony of Jesus and His mission to rescue fallen mankind from the hopeless morass of a fallen world.  She has been faithful since then.

Diane tells with fondness when she went to Salt Lake City to the temple.  She is excited when she tells about meeting President Hinckley when he stopped in St Thomas a few years ago on his way to Africa.  She said she didn’t want to wash her hand for a month.

These are sweet people.  Not the Church members only but everyone we meet. Gaye and I love them.  Our lives will forever be better because we are having this opportunity to be with them and to serve them.  That is really what a mission is about.  We love the people we serve and all are blessed by that love, a real extension of the love Jesus has for each of us.

Have a great day, and a great 2013.

The Baths

The Baths

We had some visitors from St Thomas for a few days.  We had intended to have Elder George and Sister Sharon Peterson over for Sharon’s birthday December 30, then spend New Year’s Eve at The Baths on Virgin Gorda and they would go home on January 1.  They came over a day earlier, and because of a sudden visit from President Alvarado on December 31, they stayed a day longer. Then we missed the ferry back to St Thomas so they spent most of January 2 with us, too.  I am sure they are tired of us by now.  It was good to get together and compare notes.

January 1 was a long day.  We caught the early ferry to Virgin Gorda.  It was the smallest boat they have, so it bounced a lot and water was blown through the open windows. The windows were closed and we finished the trip with little fresh air.  It was good to get there.  We rented a car, drove around the island, visited two of the Church members who live there (we just happened to drive by their apartment and they were sitting on the veranda), and drove to The Baths, the main focus of our visit.

We had lunch and grabbed our gear to hike the 350 yards to the shore.  There we changed into our swim gear, stowed some bags of clothes, etc, and moved into the trail from The Baths to Devil’s Bay.  

It was a very interesting trail through tight spots, stairs, sand and water, and huge round boulders.  That trail was about 250 yards long, ending at a small bay with a big beach.  

Devil's Bay

The Baths

The Baths is known as a snorkeling site, but the surf was too high and dangerous.  It was exciting to look at but certainly not a place to go swimming.  

Small wave at Devil's Bay

Devil’s Bay is aptly named.  A huge wave came crashing down on Gaye and Sharon when they had turned their backs and rolled them over and over.  Both ended up with wrenched knees and sand every where.  George and I had a good swim out in the bay, but then the hard trip back to the car began.   

I went back through The Cave and picked up the gear I left at The Baths.  The others took the trail up the hill to the parking lot.   I made three trips up the trail hauling gear and finally helping the walking wounded ladies get to the car.  So now we have two ladies with fairly serious injuries to their knees.  The Peterson’s have gone back to St Thomas.  Gaye and I have spent the day doing laundry and getting ourselves ready to go back to work.  Sometimes “vacations” are not worth the cost.

All in all, it was a good experience to get together to compare notes. Elder Peterson has a MSW focussed on 12-Step Addiction Recovery programs.  They are starting a Church-sponsored program on St Thomas and will help the rest of us get similar programs going through the Islands.  We have been having good success with the Keyboarding Instruction program and now Sharon is ready to go back to St Thomas and get it going there.  We had planned on being together for 2-1/2 days and ended spending almost 6 days together.  

Trail through The Cave

The Baths

Devil's Bay

Now it is back to work.  Stay tuned.

Good-by 2012

December 30, 2012

Sunday.  George and Sharon Peterson are staying with us.  They came over from St Thomas yesterday and stayed last night.  George is one month younger than I and Sharon is one month younger than Gaye.  We get along very well, and it is especially nice to have someone our age and in our own circumstance to talk to.  We have enjoyed comparing our experiences, our joys and frustrations.  We were all at the MTC in Provo together and flew to San Juan together.  

Today we went to the beach at Long Bay and the Kalama family were all there, too, so we enjoyed being around them, riding on their paddle boards, and just soaking in the water for the afternoon.  It was partly cloudy but very comfortable.  The water was a little cool when we first got into it but we quickly adjusted to it.  Following the afternoon of relaxing in the water we cleaned up and went to dinner at a nice restaurant.  It was a nice day.

We have three vehicles at our place now.  I still want to drive the truck.  It is bigger and more difficult to park, but it is also more comfortable to ride in and has more power to handle the steep hills.  Today we drove both.  We picked up three loads of branch members for church.  Then we took them home again after church.  

Gaye and I have been trying to help get the Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching set up in the branch.  We have able and committed priesthood and Relief Society leaders.  They want to get it going, but they don’t quite know how to go about it.  So after the meetings were over and the shuttle of members was completed, the branch presidency, the EQ presidency, Elder Peterson and I loaded into the truck and went to visit some of the members who have not come to church for a while. We ended up with a few of the leaders in the back of the truck.  So much for that rule.  We visited Br St Rose, the father of some of the strong young men in the branch. He and Sister St Rose are divorced and he has remarried. I didn’t know we would be taking our truck so I did not fill it up with gas.  I really do not want to fill up the truck and then have the YFTM’s drive it.  We got to the top of the ridge and we were almost out of fuel.  I had to ask Br St Rose if I could buy some fuel from him.  He had a gallon that he just gave to us.  That was a nice thing to do, and it got us down the hill where se purchased some more. It was good to meet those members and it was good for them to meet us, but what we need is to get the method of home teaching established in the branch.  I have an idea of how to do that.

I will go home teaching with the EQ president to a couple of receptive families, including his counselor.  We will visit with the family members, have a message prepared, have a discussion about the message, close with prayer, and leave.  Each visit will be about 20 minutes long.  Then we will report to the home teaching supervisor.  The next night I will go with that counsellor we visited last night and do the same thing as we visit the EQ president and his family.  Then we will report.  Next I will encourage each of those two priesthood leaders to get with one of the stronger members of the branch and go out to two other families following that same pattern.  Reporting the visits and status of each family will be an important part of the visit.  Finally, the priesthood leaders will report to the branch president.  The same pattern will be followed with VT, with Gaye taking the RSP, visiting the strong sisters of the branch, etc.  The idea is to establish a pattern of how it should be done and then have the leaders teach each other.

Normal Sunset

The visits took a couple of hours so we were late getting home from church.  Usually we get home around 1 pm, but today it was almost 4 o’clock. Gaye had dinner waiting for us.  It was Sharon Peterson’s birthday so we were going to celebrate.  Earlier in the day the RSP asked me if we could spend some time at her home in the afternoon after church. I told her we would love to do that, but then we went on the visits to the branch members so we were later than usual.  As we were sitting down at the apartment to eat our dinner I called Sister DaSilva to tell her we would just eat and be right over.  She said she had dinner ready and for us to come and eat at her house.  I immediately guessed that was her plan from the beginning, but I had missed that essential part of the message.  So the four of us loaded into the car and drove over to their house.

The DaSilva family live in a small apartment a couple of miles east of our apartment.  There are four in the family.  The two boys, Jose (Jo-sie) and Winston, are in one room.  The kitchen/living room is small and compact.  Br DaSilva works 12 of 14 days and never comes to church.  But his wife and his boys love him and respect him, even though he sometimes drinks alcohol.  I wish we could get to work with him, but he is always working at his job as a boat mechanic.  Sister DaSilva loves to cook and had prepared a big meal of chow mein for us.  She also had a nice salad and some hot sauce for the main dish.  I decided to try a little of the hot sauce.  Holy Cow!!!  I think I lost all the skin off the dorsal surface of my tongue for a while.  Then suddenly, after about 15 minutes of silent agony the burn was gone and the numb went away.  I am sure glad we went overt there.  She would have been really disappointed, and besides, we had a nice visit with the branch RSP.  We went home and had some birthday cake for Sharon.  We will eat the lasagna tomorrow.

We have been planning on going to Virgin Gorda tomorrow to go snorkeling at The Baths, a world renowned snorkeling site.  We have some snorkeling gear thanks to the Peterson’s bringing it over from St Thomas.  That plan has changed, however.  President Alvarado has let us know that he is coming over tomorrow on the 9:30 ferry and he wants to meet with us.  Okay, we will meet the ferry and meet with him.  We will make the snorkeling trip on January 1.  Then George and Sharon will go back to St Thomas a day later than originally planned.  No problem with us.  Besides, I want to talk to President about the building site options and help him see why we should drive the truck and the YFTM’s drive the Suzuki.  It will be an interesting day.  The mission theme seems to be “the only constant is change.”  

Good Ice Cream

It is time for some photos of some of the people here.  Stay tuned.

Boxing Day Break

Krystin and Samora

 December 26, 2012

A Day of Relaxing

Today is Boxing Day, a big holiday in the UK, so today we took a day off and went to the beach with the Kalama Family.  Frank is the BP of Tortola Branch.  Originally from Hawaii, he served a mission to Spokane Washington and then married Tau from Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.  

Tau, Gaye, Frank

They have lived on islands all their lives and they know how to enjoy living by the sea.  We spent a few hours at Cane Garden Bay.

We were going to go yesterday but the wind was up and the waves were too high.  There were actually some surfers out on the waves.  But today was very nice.  We drove the long way to get there.  We could go by the Ridge Road, but Frank wanted to show us how to get there, so we drove through town and around the south side.  Next time we will be on our own.  It is fairly hard to get hopelessly lost on this island.  Drive far enough and you will be where you started.  We drove almost to the West End, then over Zion’s Hill to Cane Garden Bay.  It is a big sheltered bay where the cruise ships like to bring their passengers.  Actually the ships don’t bring them, the taxis do. They are trucks with open seating in the back.  I imagine it is quite a thrill to ride up and down the steep roads in the back of a truck.

We had fun riding the paddle boards.  They are like very large surf boards upon which the rider sits, kneels, or stands and paddles around.  The Kalama’s have been at it for a long time and do very well standing up.  

Tau and Frankie Kalama

Hina and Tau Kalama

I got to my knees and actually made it to standing before I fell off.  

Brave Elder Patterson

Gaye was content to just sit and paddle around.  

Not so brave Sister Patterson

The water was so clear and so comfortable.  At times there were even rain squalls that rolled through.  It was so fun to just stand out in the rain and get wet.  It diluted the salt from my body.

We saw some guys take a big fishnet out and haul in a load of fish.  It was interesting to watch.  I asked one of the guys hauling the net in how much they made per haul.  He said a good day would be about $2500.  How often do they do it?  Every day he said.  

Cast Your Nets on the Other Side

They watch to see the fish stirring the surface and out they go.  We could actually see the school of fish as they got into a bunch of smaller fish and the bigger ones were stirring up the water as they went after their prey.  Too bad, though, because that attracted the attention of the fishermen and now the fish are in the fish market.  There were also big old frigate birds swooping down to grab a fish or two.  

Frigate Bird

Today is also the big horse racing day on the island.  There is a race track that takes up a good size piece of the valuable flat land.  Boxing Day is the big race day.  We drove past the track as people were arriving for the races.  There did not appear to be any parking for a mile up or down the road.  It would actually be fun to go, but that is not going to happen.

Tomorrow we have a few maintenance things to do. Bills need to be paid.  Telephone, water, cable, etc. are due at the first of the month.  But they do not send out statements.  They just tell their customers that the money is due at the end of every month and if it is not paid on time the service is cut off.  Not a bad way to do business, really, especially when there is no competition.  Many of the services are getting set up to take payments online.  That will be a lot better.  

Tomorrow we will also pick up the new Suzuki Grand Vitara.  This is a small wimpy SUV.  It can haul 5 people and has a reasonable cargo area.  I have mentioned the problem with who will be driving what.  

Steep Driveway

President is quite adamant about the senior couple driving the SUV (or is it that he does not want the YFTM’s to drive it?).  

Elders' Apt Top Right

The truck is more powerful and certainly more useful, but we will do what he tells us to do.  

Hillside Homes

It is looking like President Kalama will be able to purchase one of the trucks, too.  That is great.  That will make it more convenient for them to transport some of the members who do not have vehicles.  We have been doing some of that transporting but the authorities up the line don’t want us to do that and we want to be obedient.  

Life is good.  This is a slow time as the locals take a break between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  Two big cruise ships just went past out location on their way to Road Town, so the town will be full of White tourists, mainly American and European.  They are noisy and dress sloppily.  We just try to keep our heads down.

Happy New Year!  We pray for the blessings of heaven to accompany each of you through 2013.

That’s it for now.