September was a very hectic time for all of us, missionaries, in Guyana. We had a lot of work to do in preparation for the departures of most of the foreign missionaries, including us. We had apartments to close, furniture from these closed apartments to be moved and sometimes sold, , landlords to settle up with and most of the elders to be shipped to the various islands of the mission.
We had a pizza luncheon at our apartment for them their last pday. Here’s some photos of the day. Notice that not a crumb of food remains on any of their plates!
Burt and Ernie look like they're enjoying themselves! Whoops, I mean Elders Bullock and Lingren.
And me with my dear friend, Geeta, who is so tiny, and the two sister missionaries, Sisters Treseder and Lingren.
Elder Welch taking his last swing in our hammock.
Bye bye, Elder Lundberg…
and Elder Manwill
and Elder Noah
and of course, us too, Elder and Sister Bullock!
The night before the missionaries began departing, Elders Olsen and Lundberg baptized a great family, the King family. Elder Lundberg, are you drawing our attention to your white legs?
On the days of September 13-15, the majority of the foreign young elders left Guyana. It was transfer week. It was so sad to watch the mass exodus of most of our elders.
Here you see Tall boy, who arrived at 5:30 am with his van to take a load of elders to the airport.
A final goodbye to Elders Lundberg, Bullock, Huntsman, Packer, Westover, Coronado and Linton…
Elder Huntsman and Elder Westover’s faces seem to say, “Do we really have to go?”
Now that the missionary force in Guyana was so diminished, the mission had to come up with a new plan in order to keep the missionary work in Guyana going. The new plan would depend on the young Guyanese saints. The mission would interview all the young Guyanese boys from ages 18-25 and try to find 14 of them that were worthy and willing to be called as full-time missionaries to be companions to the 14 foreign elders that would be allowed to stay in Guyana. The remaining 6 of the 20 would be 3 new senior couples, those whose names weren’t on the CID’s “list”.
The mission feverishly interviewed boys all over the two districts in Guyana. The young Guyanese boys seemed to come out of the woodwork. It was like they were just waiting for something to call them forth into action. Almost none were in school. Most had been out of school for 2-6 years. Almost no young people attend school after they are 16 and many stop school at 12 and begin to work, many becoming the primary breadwinner for their fatherless families.
While the boys in our district were being interviewed, I sat at a table and filled out the missionary papers for about 10-12 of them. There was a real excitement in them. They had huge smiles on their faces and when asked how they felt about being missionaries, they made comments such as “I’m ready and anxious”.
We're going on a mission!
Within a few days, the mission presidency had picked out the names of 14 boys to submit to the First Presidency for approval to serve as full-time missionaries as the first “wave” of Guyanese missionaries. Most of these boys were 18 years old. Three of them were from down our way, and two of them were still 17 being several weeks shy of their 18th birthdays. Two of our three new missionary boys, Winston Henry and Aaron Persaud...
Here's Winston again.
And a couple of photos of our third missionary, Steve Narine, with his family.
Steve is on the left in the red shirt and his 16 year old brother, Leon, in the blue shirt is one of the temporary mini missionaries.
Steve, Aaron and Leon each weigh less than 105 lbs!
These 14 boys all began to complete their medical and dental exams as required by their missionary applications . Probably none had been to a dentist before so this was a big deal for them. They had to have tetanus shots and blood tests, etc. The applications had to be completed and sent to the First Presidency before they could get their official calls from Salt Lake.
One of our 3 boys didn’t have his passport so we had to make the all-day trip to the passport office with his parents. We also had to help them with rounding up their clothes, shoes and suitcases. As the foreign elders left Guyana, each were asked to leave some of their shirts and ties to help outfit these Guyanese boys who barely had 1 white shirt and 1 pair of church pants. None of them had a decent pair of shoes or money to buy a pair. Over 40 shirts and 80 ties were donated by these elders who were forced to leave. Some of us gave up our big suitcases and the district helped buy their shoes and the other clothes they lacked.
