We hope they call us on a mission!

Meet two darling cousins who are both anxious to serve missions.

They are Vickey (19) on the left and Bibi (21) on the right.

Last Sunday, they went with us across the big Berbice River on the ferry to visit the Rosignol Branch and to visit with...

Roopa (21) who has just turned in her missionary papers.

Here's a look at some of the sights we saw as we drove to the ferry stelling:

Midget furniture movers...

A new recycling center in town...

And a little more of it.

On the ferry we had a little musical entertainment from these ladies who were sharpening up their voices for a Sunday morning concert in their church.

Granny on the right is looking a little stern at this moment as she glares at me and my camera, but I promise you that when I approached her and said I wanted to hear more of their beautiful singing she lit right up with a great big smile for me!

Once again, I visited the primary as I always do.

A couple of the children are showing you how they wiggled during our class!

We sang all my favorite primary songs and I tried my best to liven up each song, including "I Hope They Call Me On a Mission", just like any old clown would.

After church we walked to Roopa's parent's house for some lunch (channa made from garbanzo beans and onions) and passed...

these handsome boys chewing on sugar cane.

With the bark pulled back they were chewing as hard as they could. It's pretty hard on the teeth. I know. I've tried it!

Our visit with Roopa was great. She told them to not let anything keep them from serving if that's what they've decided to do. She said she had had some problems, even a proposal, that had detained her somewhat. She eventually told the boy (probably not a member of the church)that there was only one place she wanted to be married and that was in the temple and that it was important to her to serve a mission first.

On our way back to the ferry, we talked more about missions. Bibi asked me how much it cost to serve a mission and I must admit I panicked a bit. All of the Guyanese people we know are poor. They stuggle just to have the necessities of life such as food and a roof over their heads. I wondered how Bibe and Vickey would ever be able to contribute any money towards serving their missions. I promised them I'd find out.

As we walked and talked we passed some of my favorite friends...

Sleepy Porky... As we passed I heard sighs of delight coming from the trench!

Muddy mama running from one of her several piglets... I heard her scream, "I just can't take another minute of those piglets of mine chewing on me!"

And Papa Harry! I knew he was pausing for a moment to look for a big pile of garbage where he could enjoy lunch!

Notice that most of these friends of mine are close enough for me to reach out and give a little hug! Would I dare?

After we dropped off Bibi and headed toward Vickey's house, we noticed this horsecart had dumped its load in the road as it headed over the wooden bridge. Here you see several men working together to reload the cart.

The horse waited patiently even though noone held it in place.


Ah, good. Every piece is back on the cart and its good to go. We can now pass on through the road with our car.

With a left turn we are almost to Vickey's house to drop him off. These roads are looking pretty good right about now because we haven't had any rain. You should see how muddy they can be to walk through after a good rain!

In the dark one slippery, wet night, my feet went right out from under me and I fell right in the mud and it was all over my skirt. We were late to a family home evening at the home of Jade and Travis so just had to continue walking to their home where Travis washed off my legs and feet from their bucket of water and Jade found her only skirt that was big enough for me to wear. We were back in business and ready for the FHE!

Here is Vickey where we finally dropped him at his home. He lives here with his aunts and cousins. His mom lives in Canada and his dad lives in England. His mom has been trying to get Vickey and his younger sister into Canada ever since she went to Canada for a visit 10 years ago and never returned.

The dream for many Guyanese is to find a way into Canada or the U.S. for them and their families. There must be big groups of them that live in New York, Miami and Toronto, Canada.

Funny thing, our dream come true is to be able to come to Guyana and serve a mission here. We love the Guyanese people and we love sharing with them what we love most...the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Rolling Roti

What could possibly cause Elder Hyde to look like a vampire?

Could it be that the we, the 4 elders and me, decided to make enough roti for our whole zone of 12 elders?

We have had our roti lessons from Sisters Karen and Geeta. Now it was time for us to go solo!

Elder Lauritzen and I mixed it and kneaded it, while Elder Hyde added the water.

Then Elders Hamilton and Hyde rolled it out.

Elder Lauritzen took over the frying and oiling (pronounced eye-ling here).

Elder Bishop did the clapping of the burning hot roti. Actually, he cheated by putting it in the plastic container that you see with the green lid fastened on tight and shaking it really hard. It was a little easier on the hands.

Meanwhile, Elders Hamilton and Hyde continued rolling and rolling and rolling out the 36 roti. Each roti had to be rolled out twice! Is that a little sweat dripping off Elder Hyde's face on to the roti? No, I think that's a lot of sweat!


Now you are beginning to see why Elder Hyde began to look...and act...like a vampire!

Everyone was all smiles when we were finally able to line up with the last rotis needing to be put on the tawas to fry.



Elder Hamilton has his eye on those 36 pieces of hot roti.

You can imagine who is inside waiting for food...and lots of it when you check this next photo!

This scruffy assortment of dirty shoes were all lined up just outside our front door. It is the custom here to remove your shoes before entering homes.

Some of the elders just ditch their shoelaces because it's so much faster putting them on and off as they visit. They all look a little cleaner than usual. It hasn't rained in a while and so there's no mud on the roads.


Along with the roti, they ate 5 freshly slaughtered chickens with barbecue sauce, an enormous pan of mashed potatoes, wonderful Guyanese fresh pineapple circles, bread pudding and pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.

Who would have ever thought the Elders would go crazy over bread pudding!

And here they are, all 12 of them, ready to inhale the food. Who is the comic in the background?

Through open doorway, that you see, we just carried our kitchentable so they could eat outside in the area where we park our car.

A little after dinner entertainment from long and lanky Elder Bryan as he tries to do a trick climbing over a long stick.

Scroll down to see what happened to the cook after all the festivities of this big meal...

Looks like she crashed and some wise guy elder caught her on her very own camera!

Baptism Bliss

Dripping wet and "skinning his teeth", nine year old Neville couldn't be happier! It looks as if Elder Bishop has just baptized him in lemonade!

Between General Conference sessions, Ricky Bahudur, the father of this beautiful family, called home from Georgetown (where he works all week) to his family to say,


"I'm ready to be baptized. Can we do it next Saturday?" Needless to say, they...and we...were all ecstatic!


Elder Young, who had taught and baptized the rest of the family previously, returned from Georgetown 3 hours away to New Amsterdam to perform the ordinance.

It was hard to say who was happier, Elder Young or Bro. Bahadur.


That night we had a family home evening with them on prayer and Ricky shared how he had prayed about joining the church. He had planned on being baptized next year but suddenly in his heart he knew he couldn't wait another moment. Elder Bryan, who is 6'5", barely squeezed in the photo.



The previous Saturday a.m. before conference, the family (minus the dad) spent several hours in our kitchen while the mother, Karen, showed us how to make roti.


Here is a sample of Karen's perfect roti.


And Elder Bullock making some of his perfectly scrambled eggs to put inside the roti.


And here we are munching down on our breakfast burritos made from roti, scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browned potatoes and hot pepper sauce with the Bahadur family and Elders Bryan, Richards, Hamilton and Bishop.

The elders are never disappointed when they have an opportunity to eat!

The Guyanese love their food with fiery hot pepper sauce. You can see some in the bottle in the middle of the table. Elder Bryan's stomach must be lined with something fireproof because he can never seem to get quite enough of it!