Senior Conference November 2015

Elder Cox is now an Assistant to President Herrington.  We had the wonderful opportunity to work with Elder Cox in Tobago and St. Vincent.  I love this young man and am always glad to see his happy smile.  He is an amazing young man and I wish I had a daughter to line him up with.  He was proud of his sandwich wrap tower.  The beautiful kitchen of the mission home is pictured in the background.  

 Any time we go to the mission home we are always well taken care of.  Sister Herrington and President Herrington are a great team, working together in everything they do.

 One of best parts of senior conference is to share stories and laugh at all the memorable experiences we have had while serving a mission.

 Sister Richmond (in the yellow shirt) celebrated her birthday with us.  She and her husband serve on the French side of the mission in Guadeloupe.  Elder Broadbent, the other assistant to the President, takes care of the French side of the mission and during the conference was the Richmond's interpreter.  Elder and Sister Clawson also are on the French side in St. Martin.  Brother Clawson handles anything involving cars in the mission.  Sister Clawson (pink shirt) is the medical person for our mission and the Trinidad and Tobago mission.  She is one busy lady getting calls all hours of the day from missionaries with sickness, allergies, broken bones....you name it, she handles it.  She is amazing.  

Elder and Sister Horne serve in St. Lucia.  They are standing in front of a simple water filtration system used when George Washington visited Barbados.  As one of our excursions we visited the home George Washington stayed in with his brother who had tuberculosis.  While George Washington was in Barbados, he contracted small pox.  Barbados claims that getting sick here changed his career because he had immunity from the disease when many soldiers were dying from small pox during the Revolutionary War.  The Hornes have the largest group of missionaries on an island in the mission, 24 missionaries right now.  Brother Horne is also the branch president in their branch.  This is their second mission.  They served in Brazil about 10 years ago.  

 Another Excursion we did was the Barbados Wildlife Reserve.  2:00 p.m. was feeding time at the Reserve and we got there just in time for the show.  We were all thrilled to watch the turtles, deer, monkeys and chickens sharing dinner.  The reserve workers said that all the food would be gone in a couple of hours.  We also saw snakes, exotic birds, giant iguanas, caiman and peacocks.

 The monkeys were so close and were not bothered by us except when someone tried to pet them and then they would bare their teeth.

Elder and Sister Monk are the couple in Grenada.  They are in their 70's and this is their first mission.  Brother Monk shared how he lost his voice to cancer just like President Kimball.  The only difference in his surgery was that President Kimball's cancer was cut off, thus losing his voice.  Elder Monk's cancer was removed using a laser, leaving him with a soft voice.  What a wonderful couple.  We walked with them on the board walk until midnight on Wednesday to see if we could see a turtle laying her eggs.

 .......with President and Sister Herrington.  

 There are 6 couples serving in the Barbados Mission right now.  Within the next three months all except the Clawsons will return home.  There is a great need for Senior couples in our mission.

 I love moss.  This place was the coolest.  

 Elder and Sister Turner extended their mission to 23 months and will finish in two weeks.  They have  literally organized the new mission office, working in the mission office for the last 6 months.  They started from nothing and have equipped the mission office, worked with country officials to get the new mission going.  It has been a headache every single day with constant problems with immigration and finances.  We will truly miss them.  Their shoes will be hard to fill.

Elder and Sister Clawson.....cars and medical gurus.  

 Elder and Sister Richmond

Walk along the beach and doing silly stuff!  Even seniors can be goofy!

Baby Nolan Arrives

Oh, the joy of being a Grandma!!!  I was able to fly to San Diego for the birth of Rachelle and Richard's 2nd child, Nolan.  It always amazes me to witness the miracle of birth and know that 100's of little miracles have to happen the minute this little soul enters the world and separates from Mom after 9 months.  Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing us with a healthy beautiful baby.  Thank you for watching over Rachelle during the delivery and bless Richard and Rachelle to be the kind of parents Nolan needs to lead him back to thee.  We are so grateful to welcome Nolan to the family.  

 Big brother Stockton

October 27th, St. Vincent Independence Day

The Georgetown and Calliaqua branch members enjoyed a day of fun and games to celebrate St. Vincent's Independence Day.  We went to Ra-wa-cou Recreation Park for swimming, games and food.  

 The perfect protected swimming hole on the windward side of the island.  

 Elder Goddard tries a little cricket.  

Black sand beach. 

Ra-wa-cou is right next to the new International airport under construction.  This is a picture of the new terminal.  The new airport was supposed to open in 2013, but will hopefully open in 2016.

Sister May and Brother Bengy Get Married

Sister May and Brother Bengy have been investigating the church for three years.  They come with their children faithfully each week.  They have worked with many many sets of missionaries who would have loved baptizing their family more than anything, but the obstacle preventing that was a wedding.  Sister May and Brother Bengy have been common law husband and wife....living together for 18 years, but today they made everything official and were married by President Young of the Georgetown Branch.  Everyone was delighted to help in any way they could.  Sister Young made the beautiful wedding cake.  Sister Brown provided the food for the luncheon.  

 Janisha May and Francine Brown were beautiful bridesmaids.  

 All the missionaries arrive for this grand celebration.  The following Saturday the whole family will be baptized.  Five baptisms in one day after not having any for such a long time makes all of us giddy with joy.  It is a great day!

 More of the bridal party waits for the bride across the street from the Georgetown Branch building.

 A beaming, happy, beautiful bride.   Sister May.

 The new Bengy family....daughter Janique, Bro. Bengy, son Rodney, Sister May, daughter Janisha, son Zavron.  The last man pictured is ???   Toddler son is missing from the picture, but is in the picture below with his mom.

 Sister May with her youngest son Andre.  

 The sister missionaries took care of preparing and serving the appetizers.  Then, they helped dish up and serve the wedding lunch.  Sister Layton, Campbell, Norris, and Lometo with me in the middle.  I love these wonderful young ladies.  

The Georgetown Branch building is too small to set up tables for the luncheon.  Everyone just waited for the missionaries to serve them.