Celebrations and Service Project

We have come to love the flowers here and especially the Flamboyant tree. The picture is of the flowers that adorn the canopy of this beautiful majestic tree that spreads a wide canopy creating an ideal shade tree along with being incredibly beautiful. It is also called the Flame tree due to its fire red blooms that cover the tree. 

 We found out that they also have the 4th of July here as well. They also have a 5th and a 6th. So on Monday for the family home evening for all of the senior missionary couples, one of the couples organized a barbecue and pot luck. I love pot luck dinners! The food was delicious. Sherrie again used her creative talents to create a bean dip in the form of an american flag.

Fun and busy times. Sherrie loves to provide baby showers for the sisters. One of the secretaries in the institute office is expecting and Sherrie put on a baby shower for her. She and her husband and the others in the office were there. She made her wonderful rolls and a casserole as well as a cake with cute little baby booties made out of marshmallows and icing. They loved it.

We had a full house in our institute class this week with about 39 kids. We have felt good about the attendance since summer tends to have a lower turn out. Our class is entitled Preparing for an Eternal Marriage. We have made some comments about having a girlfriend or boyfriend by the end of class or their money back which may have something to do with the attendance!







Institute activities have been great! This last Saturday they loaded up two big school buses of about 120 kids and took them to the church camp about 1 1/2 hours away. Unfortunately, the buses got lost, we got lost following the buses and it took closer to 2 1/2 hours to get there. It was hot and the kids did not have any air conditioning on the buses. The missionary caretakers of the camp had a number of projects set up for the kids and many of them got right into the work.

After about an hour, it was time for lunch. Sister Finlayson and I cooked the hot dogs and as you can see, the kids are always anxious to get some Sherries cooking. She made cakes for all of them as well. I saw this had and had to have it! It is great shade but tough to keep on your head in a breeze!

After lunch, all loaded back into the buses and headed for the river for swimming. The kids loved the water and because it was so warm, they appreciated being able to cool off.

They were tough kids. The river site appeared to be on the site of a lot of old concrete work with rebar sticking out of pieces of concrete with a lot of rocks. No sandy beaches. They all seemed to have a good time and even took advantage of the water to soap up for a quick bath.