Lorna"s Visit

We have been so blessed to have Sherrie's mother, Lorna, here with us for a month. She came in November with Sherries brother, Scott, and sister in law, Edith, before Thanksgiving.

We were able to show them around for a few days before they returned to New York to be with their daughter. We enjoyed them so much.

Mission Training Center Missionaries Sing

This past Monday at our family home evening with the other senior missionary couples, we had a pot luck to send off our past temple president (the Harris's) and his first counselor (the Bowcuts). They have been wonderful to work with. The Harris's are from Portland Oregon and are returning to take the place as a sealer in the Portland Oregon Temple while the brother who was a sealer at the Portland Temple is coming here to be the temple president. They are changing places.

We were blessed to have a group of elders from the CCM(Mission Training Center), which is directly above our apartment in our building, come and sing to us. I have included a video clip of their performance. We love being close to the missionaries. When we go to bed at night, we can hear them singing above us. We feel like we are hearing angels! This past week a new group arrived. There are about 16 from North America and about 10 Haitian missionaries. I love to be with the missionaries in the temple and feel of their power. We met the first Haitian general authority (area Seventy) this past Friday at the institute. His name is Elder Piernó (sp) and is only 37 years old. He has already served as a stake president. He is the coordinator of Seminaries and Institutes in Haiti.

Many activities and even a visit from my beautiful sister, Joy and her husband, Lane. We are standing in front of the house of the son of Christopher Columbus. It is a huge stone building which is remarkable given the time period and crude tools used for construction. We also spent some time visiting the old fortress that was built at the mouth of the river to protect the city. It was later turned into a prison. The many prisoners that died there were just thrown into the river which runs next to it. It was humbling to walk through such a place. The picture of the gate is the original entrance into the city from the river. It was built in the early 1500's.

They also spent 4 days in an all inclusive resort on our favorite beach about an hour from Santo Domingo. We joined them for one night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Activities

What a great time we have. Sherrie is amazing and continues to bless the people here. She has started to spend time learning French so she can speak with the members that are here from Haiti. I have included one photo of a beautiful family who met each other here at the temple a number of years ago and have 3 adorable children.

Other photos are of our outing with the other senior couples and of our 100% dinner. Last week we had a dinner for all of the student in the institute program not only in our building but throughout the stakes and had about 95 people there. Sherrie came up with the idea to help motivate the kids  to attend institute and it has been very successful. She underestimated how motivated the kids here are for food rewards. She thought initially we could get all of them in our apartment. Not so!

The other photos are of our trip to a cocoa processing plant and a pottery factory. Cocoa is a big business here with the beans from the DR reaching mostly buyers in Europe. The good German chocolate comes from the DR. The Dr is the biggest producer of organic cocoa in the world. They call it organic of course because of not pesticides or artificial fertilizers. I asked about the diseases and pests and they said that the biggest problem they have is with the rats that infest the fields and climb the trees and eat into a pod and bite a bean and spit it out. I asked how they control the rats and they said snakes. So there you have it. Nothing to worry about! Makes your chocolate taste even  better knowing what people have to do to pick it. We are drinking freshly made hot cocoa. It was very good but very different from what we traditionally have. One photo is of some wooden bins where they ferment the cocoa beans after they are harvested. The grower has up to 6 hours to get his beans to the processor or he will loose them. The fermentation process is what gives the cocoa beans their distinctive chocolate flavor. The longer the process, the more rich the chocolate flavor. They are then dried and bagged. Each bag sells for about $200 US dollars. One photo is of our guide with a cocoa pod open. The beans are inside surrounded by a white fruit. It is quite tasty but the farmers grind the whole thing up after separating the seeds and use it as fertilizer.






We also visited a small fabrication facility of authentic Tiano Indian pottery. The Tianos are the indigenous people that were on the island when Columbus arrived. It was very interesting and very warm. I respect so much the difficulty the workers have sitting in the heat for 10 hours a day trimming and making the individual pieces of pottery. The pieces are sold throughout the country. We took advantage of the chance and bought some souvenirs.

The kids were back to school this past week so things were rocking. Our class starts this Wednesday but so far we only have 4 signed up. Probably due to the fact that is only for engaged or married students.

Another week in paradise!

Last Institute Class

Hermana Finlayson has already published a previous posting of her experiences and our last institute class. I thought I would add a few pictures as well.

About mid semester one of the institute students suggested that we have a class at the temple since the subject of the class was Preparing for Eternal Marriage. We thought that was a great idea so had our last class on the temple lawn in front of the temple. Since we live on the temple grounds it was very convenient for us but for some of the kids, they had to walk a ways in a very hot sun with a high humidity. Over 30 students came.

We had the temple president come and speak with them about the blessings of the temple. When I looked over at the parking lot, I recognized one of the stake presidents sitting in his car and invited him to also come and speak to the youth about the promises. He did a wonderful job. Sherrie had spent a great deal of time and effort writing over 50 individual notes to all of the students who had registered for our class and we gave them to those that were there. Many commented how much it meant to them to have the notes.

It also seemed fitting to have refreshments so Sherrie also made a wedding cake that we shared with the youth after the class. She did a beautiful job and the kids seemed to enjoy it.

It was so hard to say good-by to this class. They have been a remarkable group and we have learned so much from them. They have great insight and a wonderful faith in the Lord. They will always be in our memory and prayers.

Baseball

This past Monday I went with some of the other senior missionaries to a baseball academy owned by the San Diego Padres here in the DR. I am sitting next to Elder Crowder who is a retired teacher who taught at Ricks College for 20 years and coached football there. The facility was beautiful and quite new. They took good care of us. We were able to watch the first game of a double header between the Padre farm team here and the Denver Rockies farm team.

Many major league clubs have farm teams here.  I am told about 15% of the players in major league baseball come from the DR. It is the national sport here. Denver won but it was a close game with one HR by the Padres. The setting was beautiful with the Caribbean Ocean in the background of the picture of the ball field.

Before the games, we were taken on a tour of the facilities and then after the game were taken to the cafeteria and treated to lunch which happened to be hot dogs. It was a fun day and the price was right, free!

"Look to the temple"

Reed has been so great to keep up our blog but I wanted to share a special experience that I had last Sat.   I was feeling a little stressed out because of  a bunch of things coming all at once so got up at 6:00 to walk around the temple.  On my first lap I saw a little guy about 2 1/2 ' tall and kind of chunky running up an incline towards the temple as fast as his little legs would go and his arms pumping.  When we met up he looked at me and then at the temple and exclaimed with a huge smile and eyes shining,  "Mira al templo!!" (Look at the temple)  As I walked on, at first I just thought, what an adorable little boy, but as I kept thinking about him, the Spirit whispered to me that that is exactly what I needed to do.  There is no more important message to anyone than "Look to the temple!" and remember the teachings received in the Lord's Holy House and the covenants made with Him there.  That is what this life is all about.  I am so grateful for this message from Heavenly Father.  Then on Wed. evening we had our last class of Preparing for an Eternal Marriage on the lawn in front of the temple.  Looking into the faces of those valiant young adults I was overwhelmed with such a love for them and a desire that they would each know the true joy of being sealed in the temple for eternity and keeping their covenants.  I am growing to love my eternal companion more and more on this mission!