Market morning

Every morning is market morning in Rosignol.

Rosignol is the little town where our ferry lands and we begin our walk to the church for our missionary district meeting Tuesday mornings. Walking through the market on our way to the church is always a thrill for us.

Check out this cute little guy selling chickens. He was especially exciting because after he let me take his photo, he held out his hand to shake my hand. What do you suppose he had all over his hands after he had just handled all these raw chickens? You guessed it...raw chicken goo. His was the last photo I took and I could hardly wait until I made it to the church so I could wash my hands thoroughly!

Now come with me and I'll show you what you missed as we walked through the market. These are the photos I took before the gooey handshake!

Notice each cute little lady with her own individual stand. They were all tickled when I asked them if I could take their photo. Below you can see the long green strands of bora hanging. They are a vegetable that is similar to a green string bean that they use in their fried rice.

See the purple eggplants...

And the watermelons...

Pumpkins, tomatoes and more eggplant...and tiny round red hot peppers behind the pumpkin. Do you suppose she has any teeth?

More of everything...and I even caught a smile from her...


What's that hanging from her mouth? Check out the yummy pineapples! We never tire of them.

Hi, granny. I love fish but I haven't the courage to try any of these.

Now, I'll show you why I pulled out my camera when we began our walk. I suddenly saw this great big pig just strolling across the busy highway. He was following his nose looking for some good garbage.

We waved goodbye to the pig and turned the corner to start down the dirt road towards the church.



We passed a few puddles...as usual. It's been raining a lot.

This one was a little too deep to want to wade through.

We passed a lot of garbage that was strewn everywhere.

The last time we walked through here there were two huge pigs munching on the garbage. Too bad they weren't there today for you to see.

We finally made it to the edge of the morning market. And you already saw all the rest of the market.

There's dad calling, "Are you coming with me?"

Geeta's Kitchen

Geeta is considered a long timer in the church here in Guyana. She has been a member for about 3 years.

She's the Relief Society President, the seminary teacher and the Gospel Principles teacher all in one. Her husband is a Hindu and they live in this cute house with Geeta's mother, Shiela.

For a mother's day present, she invited us to come to her house on a Tuesday so she could cook curried chicken and roti for us and to give me her gift. I said, "Oh, please, teach me how to make it all."


She agreed and we arrived at her house at 10 am with the chicken to start the cooking.


We met her at the door to her kitchen and dad immediately found himself a seat!

Her kitchen is the cutest one I have seen so I asked her if I could take photos of it. Notice the large blue container at the right. It is filled with water. She is one of the lucky ones to have a faucet at her sink also that provides her with water.

She is very short and doesn't she have just the best smile?

She has no refrigerator and gives any leftovers she has to the neighbor. You can see the 2 green kerosene oil burners that she cooks on. The curried chicken is cooking in the pot on the right. The flat roti pan is on the left burner.

To her right is her work table where I prepared the roti while she gave me instructions. It was made of flour, water, baking powder and oil and I rolled it out like a flour tortilla. Then, she fried each roti on both sides with a little oil on her flat pan. After each roti was fried and still hot, she clapped her hands around it to break it up and to make it flaky. It is a favorite of the Guyanese and they probably eat it most days.

Is the curried chicken done?

Meanwhile, Garbar, her husband, and dad chatted in the shaded, breezy area under their house. We later ate at the table you can see near Garbar's foot.

The meal was yummy and we were served it without spoon or fork. That is the way many of the people here eat...with their hands. In fact, later that day I was feeding Jade some Swedish Pancakes and when I handed her a fork, she said, "I don't know how to use one of these!"

What's with the loosened tie, Elder Bullock?

Just as we were about to leave, Geeta got out her wooden paddle to show me how she washes her clothes. After she soaks all the clothes in a tub of soapy water, she takes each piece of clothing, wads it up and hits it with the paddle. She continues to turn it over and hit it before she rinses it and hangs it up to dry.

I asked Geeta, "May I come back another day and do your laundry with you!"

Sunday at church I wore my new maroon skirt she had given me for mother's day.

I love Geeta a lot and I know she loves me, too. Can you tell?

Sorry, suddenly the blog went bizerk!

Feeling settled in

We've been here nearly 3 months and we are feeling pretty settled in.

We've grown accustomed to daily cold showers and love eating fresh pineapple and yummy little bananas all day long.

The alligators don't even scare us anymore. Afterall, I've shared a trench with some of them!

Elders Webb and Lucero brought this little feller by our apartment one evening in a taxi just before their curfew. They had him all tied up so he couldn't bite them. Later, they cooked up his tail and all who tasted him testified that he was good eating.

Our assignments here are completely different than they were in the Canary Islands. Our mission president really emphasizes to all the leaders and members here that we are the "tutors" to teach the members here how to "do" the Church like it is supposed to be done.

We are assigned to 3 branches and the other couple that lives upstairs from us is assigned to the other 3. We have been visiting with the branch presidents individually to teach them about making calls to everyone in their branches within 2 weeks of their baptisms and to ordain the men to the priesthood within the week. We meet with these presidents every 2 weeks to check their progress and keep them on target to staff their branches.

Our district has grown from 400 members six months ago to about 800 at present. That's a lot of new members who are just learning how to be members of the Church. They are still learning the basics such as learning to sing the hymns and how to teach classes. Singing the Primary songs with their children is a huge challenge for them. Noone here can read music and I think they have done very little singing in their lives.

Here are a couple of their primaries.

The teacher is dressed in pink and is shorter than some of the kids.

This primary class had 30 kids in it. They didn't all fit in the photo. They had been sitting in this very hot room for more than 1 1/2 hours.

Here I am with some of the Relief Society sisters. Don't I just look like a giant next to them? We are standing at the side of one of our church buildings. Do you like the bright blue?

Because many people in Guyana do not know how to read, teaching lessons, giving talks and reading the scriptures is a problem for many. I wish I could magically teach them all how to read.

Dad and the other Senior missionary have been assigned as the 2 district councilmen to the District presidency. They are the only councilmen and they attend their meetings and are to help the District presidency learn how to function as a presidency. They are teaching them the basics, such as to have an agenda, etc.

Dad and I teach weekly fireside classes to 3 of the branches. We are teaching from the "Teachings of the Prophets" Joseph Smith Manual. We simplify the lessons in an effort to help them understand what we are teaching. We play a game at the end of each lesson to review what they have learned. They love the games. We have between 15-30 at our firesides and some of them are children.

We, also, have a youth game night once a week for one of the branches. Send ideas for games, please...ones that don't require any reading! We've even played the Hokey Pokey and Musical Chairs and they have loved them!

We recently had our District Conference.

We have one new chapel. This photo shows less than half of the building. It was full to overflowing with nearly 400 people. Many were visitors and every seat was taken. Many were seated in the halls completely out of view of the speakers.

Our mission president and his wife, the Robisons, were here for the conference and for our zone conference the next day.

Here are some photos we took after the District Conference.

Granny was just baptized and Tasha will be as soon as she can find her birth certificate and make her marriage legal.

Check out the big cane workers truck in the background that is carrying lots of the members back to their neighborhoods so they can walk home.With me is Sister Robison, our president's wife, and we are with some of my favorite little boys.

This is Tall Man (his call name) and his family members. His name is really David but that is not what they call him. Check out the pretty colors they are wearing!

Here are most of our 20 missionaries after the missionary Zone Conference. Notice the "Israel Pride" written across the front of the truck ... and the handsome guy down in front on the left!

The Saturday before the conference, I went to the church to help with some training of the Primary teachers. I found the gate to the parking lot open and saw 2 cows chewing on the chapel lawn. I put down my things and said to the other sister, "I'm going to chase these cows out".

I rounded the side of the chapel after the 2 cows I thought were there and was surprised to find 5 of them staring at me, including a large bull. When I started scolding them, the bull started towards me and I ran back to the building just a bit frightened.

I stood very still until they passed me and headed for the gate. Suddenly, I remembered my camera in my purse and decided I had to have a photo with these cows.

I quickly handed my camera to one of the sisters and asked, "Please take my photo with these cows". I was barely fast enough to get a picture before the last one left!

After the Sunday conference, Sister Larsen and I were to prepare a dinner for the Robisons and the 3 members of the District presidency and their wives. When we discovered they were all in a meeting after the conference, we decided to take a taxi home and get the food on the table for them when they arrived.

When we were almost home, we realized neither of us had a key to get into our apartments nor a key to unlock the gate to the wall that surrounds our apartment. I coaxed her to climb over the wall with me rather than stand out in the street in the sun and wait for our husbands to arrive.

First, I hopped on over.

Then, Sister Larsen had the courage to come on over, too.

As I was climbing she said, “Wait, I’ve got to take your picture!” So, here’s the photos of the leap we made. The wall is nearly 6 feet tall.

Later, one of my teenage grandsons, Connor, commented that the wall around our apartment must not do very much to protect us if two grannies can climb over it without any problem!

Here's the photos we took after our meal.

In the middle are the District Presidency with President Robison, the mission president on the left, and Elder Larsen, the other senior missionary, on the right, with your dad.

And, here are the wives, with Sister Robison on the right and Sister Larsen in the middle.

Does my hair look like it has grown out, yet?

Spending the afternoon in Cow Dam

What's it like to walk down a dirt road with little shanties everywhere and to go visiting?

Jade had been begging us to walk to her house for a visit during the day sometime. Friday was clear on our schedule so we set off for a walk through Cow Dam, especially to visit Jade.

And look what greeted us...besides Jade and her husband, Travis, all these darling little boys. She invited us inside and we visited while these darling little guys rolled and tumbled on the floor at our feet.

They are the 4 little brothers of Jade and Travis and Jade's baby. Most are wearing just their underpants. One little guy was wearing jeans with no snaps and no underpants!

You can see the plastic buckets that they use to either collect water when it rains or to carry to the water pipe (wherever that is) to gather their water supply. They have no plumbing or electricity, just like most of the people that live in Cow Dam.

Jade has become my special friend. She is 17 and everytime I tell her that I love her she quickly says back, "I love you more!"

Jade wanted us to let her pick some coconuts for us to drink but we ran out of time because we were to join the elders for an appointment at the Azeez family for their last lesson before their upcoming baptism on Saturday. Dad was relieved he didn't have to drink coconut milk from the coconut...again.

Meet the Azeez family...Anita, the mom, with Annette, Anthony and Andrew. Is this a cute family or what? Gosh, I had the worst time remembering which boy was which!

Here's another photo of them after their lesson. Dad took the photo and decided the tall elder was too tall so he cut off the top of his hair and head!

Notice that we are in a swing in an area underneath the elevated house that is standing on posts. It is cooler down here and here is where many families do their visiting and spend their relaxing time.

After the lesson with the Azeez family, we separated from the elders and began walking back through Cow Dam towards home. We kept running into people we knew...some members, some not. Each one would invite us to their home.

The first family we saw was Allison's family of mostly girls. We chatted a bit outside with her and the girls and when I noticed dad singing, "I am a Child of God" with them, I just had to pull out my camera fast.

We started for home but immediately ran into 20 year old Tasha, who is also my good friend. She asked, "When are you coming to my house?" So, off we went to Tasha's house to meet and visit with her whole family...mom, stepdad, 5 siblings and her husband...who isn't really her legal husband.

We took lots of family photos. Everyone wants their photo taken here in Guyana...and then they want a copy...of every photo you took of them...and they don't forget any of them!

Here's how their home looked as we started for home...once again. You can see the black hammock and the outside area under the house where we did all our visiting and picture taking.

As we left, it was starting to be a little dark. I wondered how they had such bright lights. I don't remember hearing a generator.

One church member came out to meet us and invited us to come to her house for Family Home Evening the next Monday evening. Though I recognized her, I was embarrassed when I had to ask her what her name was. I sure wish everyone wore a nametag!

What a perfect day we had visiting in Cow Dam...these humble, sweet families that we got to visit and take a peek into their lives and to be a part of them for a few minutes.

The next day, Saturday, was the baptism day for 12 in our zone. Here's Bedita before hers....No smiles for her because she doesn't have all her teeth.But, check out these smiles! A happy day for the 4 members of the Azeez family.

Are they photogenic or what?

Hurray for us!

Here's some photos of them in the font behind the church in New Amsterdam.

Anthony was the first to go of his family. They each waited their turn while the rest of us watched from the balcony above.

The mommy, Anita...

The sister, Annette...

And the little brother, Andrew!

He's smiling, not only because he got baptized, but because he got to dive down in the water after all the baptisms were finished and pull the plug (just like a sink plug) to let the water drain out of the font.

Dad interviewed all these 5 before their baptisms. They were all eager and excited to be members of the Church. And we were thrilled to know them, to be a part of their lives and to be there with them for their baptisms.

And it was another perfect day for us in Guyana.