What makes a missionary smile?

Meet Elder Lang, who arrived from the Missionary Training Center in Utah to Rosignol, Guyana, about 25 days ago. In spite of the baggy and ocean-stained baptismal pants he is wearing, do you detect a smile and look of satisfaction his face?

Just look below to see what might have helped him to have that smile...

Yes, Saturday, September 27, was a pretty phenomenal day at the beach in Rosignol, Guyana. 15 people walked out to the ocean with Elder Lang, 3 other elders and President Tenisingh, the Rosignol Branch president, and were baptized.

Wouldn't you just have loved to have been there? Wouldn't that have just put a smile on your face, too?

Luckily for us, we were able to ride this small ferry (called the Launch) to the other side of the river where Rosignol is located and witness this special day. It was 1 pm and all of us on this ferry were feeling pretty hot and sweaty!

I looked out the open door from where I sat on the ferry and noticed these 5 bulging bags of slaughtered chickens which were about to share our ferry ride across the river. They were laying right on the deck in the hot sun. How many hours do you suppose they would have to wait before they would be refrigerated?

When we arrived at the Rosignol chapel, we were met by these four darling elders who are serving in the Rosignol Branch... (L to R) Elders Lang, Baantjer, Jones and Sarager.

Their candidates for baptism were all dressed and ready for their baptisms in the sea and look to see if they look excited! Most Guyanese won't smile for photos, but I assure you they were all excited! I got hugs from most of them.

After the first part of the baptismal service in the church, we stuffed ourselves in a van in preparation for our ride to the beach for the baptisms. We were feeling pretty cramped in that van when someone realized we had closed the door before everyone there had made it inside. So, we opened the van door and crammed some more until all 31 persons had squeezed in, not including our driver. I was sitting on some strange man's lap and everyone was seated similarly!

How did Elder Bullock rate the front seat? I guess it is because he is old and they often give us old people special privileges.

It was a short walk to the beach from where the van driver dropped us off.

First we crossed the trench...

Then, continued down a path until we arrived at a small grassy area at the edge of the sea.

The tide was way in and the water was close to the grass so they were able to do the baptisms in the sea, rather in the trench they had just crossed as they had had to do once in the past when the tide was too far out!

Here are Elders Jones and Baantjer with their group, just before their baptisms!

Legal marriages had to be performed for two of the women who were living in common-law marriages the day before this baptism.

And Elders Lang and Sarager with their group. President Tenisingh, who is the 3rd from the left, was pretty excited that he was going to be baptizing his sister and her daughter, who he is standing between. And notice there are two adult men....whoopie!

I coaxed them all to stand in that long line that you saw at the beginning of this blog and then they started their walk out to the sea. Most Guyanese cannot swim so this could be a scary experience for them!

They had to walk out pretty far before they could get to where it was deep enough to baptize them by immersion (waist deep).

We waited for a what seemed like a long time while they did all 15 baptisms.

Finally they headed back to shore.

We stuffed ourselves back in the waiting van. Remember, that most of them are sopping wet and no one had a towel. This time the dry ones got to sit in the front seat, so that meant I was sitting there, too!

When we arrived back at the church, everyone quickly changed into their dry clothes (all except the elders) and the service continued with a testimony meeting.

These little girls had waited with their mother so that the older girl could bear her testimony in the meeting. Her 7 year old testimony was precious! If you've read my previous blogs, you may recognize these children as 3 of Tasha's children. The little girls are both wearing dresses and headbands I brought to them from "the box from Carol".

We shared our testimonies, the service ended and we dashed out to the street to catch a "car" back to the Launch (ferry) so we could make it back across the river to more baptisms in New Amsterdam.

I carried 6 of the 20 wet muddy baptismal outfits on my lap as we rode back across the river on the ferry.

I forgot when I insisted on taking the wet outsfits home to wash that I would get all wet, too! But, there was no time to run home and change.

Luckily, we arrived just in time to see...

13 year old Martin's baptism (performed by Elder Bryan) and...

9 year old Aubrey's baptism which was done by our district president, Pres. Phagwah.

Elders Bishop and Hamilton, our zone leaders are left foreground of the photo.

Who is this little cutie? She is Aubrey's little sister wearing another one of the little dresses from "the box".

What a great day it was in Rosignol and New Amsterdam, Guyana, and yes, we were thrilled to be there and to experience it all!

A box of clothes

One Sunday after church, we went visiting with a bag loaded with little dresses sent to me in a box from my good friend, Carol, who lives in the US.

The little dolly in pink was the first to have her choice of the dresses. She chose this pink one and two others. I was hoping she would choose the pink one because she looks so cute wearing it.

She is standing with her 2 brothers 6 and 7, 12 year old sister, and mommy. They are the Apple family.

We saw the family married and baptized in the sea when we first arrived in Guyana. Do you remember these pictures?

The dad was a little embarrassed when I told him we had something for him, too, as I held up some nice new underwear. He took them but didn't wish to model them in front of my camera! This family is one of the few families lucky enough to have their dad living with them.

The 6 of them live together in the little yellow house. They do their cooking outside. The dad hopes to build a new house with lumber he has collected from a house that was torn down.

Here is their neighbor, wearing just a pair of undies, which isn't uncommon, especially for boys.

Here's another neighbor. As we walked passed this house, we called to the young elders who were inside getting a baptismal record signed for someone that had been baptized the day before.

As we got in our car to leave, these children approached us to show off today's "catch", which was a bucket full of little fish. I asked them to each hold one up for my photo. They didn't need coaxing. Check out those proud grins!

A second visit was to Tasha's family of 9. One of the little boys was a cousin.

These are just the boys. The little guy in the blue plaid pants has long dark curls and we keep thinking he is one of the girls. They seem to wear whatever they can find...even if it is pink!

Here is the family all together. Tasha, the mother, is one of my special friends. She is a primary teacher and the whole family was baptized within the last year. They are sitting on a bench under their house. Notice the dirt floor. That is where the family hangs out together.

She does all her cooking, dishwashing and clothes washing outside in an area just to the right of where they are seated. How many of you like to go camping? They live like they are camping every day of the year.

And here are the two precious little girls, each wearing a dress we had brought for them. We had enough dresses for the older one to pick one and for the little girl to pick 3.

They are standing in front of the stairs that lead up to the house where there is one bedroom with 2 large beds where they all sleep and a living room with a couch.

Notice the big boy is holding three size 4 underwears we had brought for the little boy with long hair who is hiding behind on the step. The next time we visited them, this big boy and his other two big brothers were each wearing a pair of them. Most people here aren't very chubby!

Now I have to show you something amazing that Tasha made for us:

Can you imagine her embroidering this pillowcase while she waited for her food to cook on an open fire?

Can you imagine her keeping this clean as she sewed while her children played on the dirt floor?

And here is some of the callaloo and corila that she grows and shared with us. Callaloo tastes like spinach and I love it.

Now I'll show you a couple of photos I took while out visiting with the Relief Society sisters. Can you tell that Samantha's baby is due any minute? She is hoping for a girl after having 3 boys. They have a hospital here in town but I sure wouldn't want to have a baby there. You have to bring your own sheets, pillow, food, toilet paper, etc.

In this photo, Samantha's husband, Amir (wearing the Tommy Hilfiger shirt), had just driven his family up and parked his red car in the middle of the dirt road in front of their house.

Instantly, his two buddies appeared carrying this odd-shaped board and a set of dominoes. The 3 chairs appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and the board was quickly placed "just so" on their laps barely in time for them to begin to play dominoes. Would this be what we consider a "stress reliever"?

It was a hot afternoon and these little kids had just come bursting out of their school. Is it a club meeting they are holding as they sit on the cab of one of the many old abandoned cars?

3 days in Trinidad

10 Reasons for Elder and Sister Bullock to visit Trinidad:





1. Two old BYU football buddies needed to see if they were as "tough" as they used to be.



2. They even had to do a little arm wrestling!

3. Two ex-California good friends had to wade up past their knees in the beautiful blue ocean. One of them wanted to take a dip in her clothes but Elder Bullock insisted she would smell up Elder Leavitt's car!

4. One ice cream lover had to eat a lot of good ice cream to hold him over for the next 16 months until he can eat some more!

5. Elder and Sister Bullock had to check on Elder and Sister Leavitt before they (the Leavitts) finished their mission and headed for home.

6. Four old friends had to catch up on all their old cronies from BYU and relive their old football days.






7. Elder and Sister Bullock had to see how beautiful and green Trinidad is.

8. And they had to visit the mission office so they could have a photo in front of the West Indies Mission map. Sister Bullock is pointing to Guyana and Trinidad is the large green and very odd-shaped island just off the northern coast of South America.

9. They got to visit President and Sister Robison in the mission home and eat beef steak and broccoli at their table after living on a diet of beans and chicken for the past 7 months.

10. They got to shop at a real shopping mall and load their suitcase with much-needed items to take back with them to Guyana. (No photo is provided...you'll just have to guess what they were!)

It's Elder Leavitt and Elder Bullock, again. Aren't they cute?

Eggballs & alligators

Anyone for an eggball?

It is the first of the month and Dad and I had to pay the rents for all the 20 elders in our two zones. We took Nanda and Geeta along with us as we drove the 90 minutes to Crabwood Creek to keep us out of trouble.


We found these yummy eggballs for our lunch. They have mashed casava on the outside with a boiled egg tucked in the inside and then they are fried. They are served with a sour sauce. They taste pretty good!

On the way home from Crabwood Creek, we took a side road that led to a village where Geeta used to live. As dad was struggling to miss all the huge potholes in the road, we suddenly noticed these 4 guys on the side of the road with these 25 dead alligators. The alligators were all wearing just their birthday suits. They had been caught in traps and were being skinned!

These guys are the ones doing the skinning. They were spreading salt over the skins they had just removed.

The guy on the left has just thrown another naked alligator on the pile and the one on the right is going to take the 2 he is holding and throw them back in the big trench on the other side of the street. I'm sure he'll be back for the rest. Where do you suppose they'll wash their hands when they are through? I think I'm going to be sick thinking about it.

The dead alligators were pretty smelly and I had to coax Geeta to get her nose close to this big one so I could take their photo together!

Across the big alligator trench we could see the house where Geeta's best friend lived. Geeta quickly called her on her cell phone and she came out on her steps to wave to us.

Do you see her standing on the outside stairway of her house wearing a white suit with black shirt underneath it?

We found this fat one a couple of blocks from where we live just lying dead in the street. He wasn't there very long before someone stole him. Some people like to cook and eat the alligator's tale...like crazy missionaries! Not me!

Which is worse, a snake or an alligator? I hate them both!