Young Womens Thanksgiving Activity

Today Jessica had all the young women up to Sueno for the day. Seven girls and Jessica's two young women counselors came along.

They home made pizza was a big hit.

They had a lot of fun with our camera. I mean a loooot of fun!

They are focusing on Thanksgiving this month. To give them a little perspective about how blessed they are Jessica took them 2 miles up the beach to see the boat that the Cuban refugees made their 3 week, 500 mile journey to Belize in.

(For more info on the boat see my other blog http://www.suenodelmarbelize.blogspot.com/).

Then they came back to the villa to make thank you cards to give to their friends and family.

My buddy

This is my buddy Josel. His mom brings him to church every once in a while. This day we saw him at the park in town.

Underwater video

I used this underwater camera only once before it broke. At the end of the video you can see it filling up with water from the top down.

Homes, Sweet Homes

We live in a villa at the resort where I work. It's quite the place.

We decided to get an apartment in town. We spend a couple nights a week in town on my days off and for church. For not much more than what we spend on dingy hotel rooms we got this place. We live on the ground floor and the missionaries live upstairs.

The roof is open and has a pretty cool view: San Pedro on one side and the lagoon on the other.

It is nicely landscaped with a garbage-filled swamp on two sides.

Haircut

This is B-andre, our favorite little guy from the branch. He had some pretty cool hair until it got cut off this week. We have an awsome video of him telling us how "de cote it." I can't get it to post though, my internet connection must be too slow.

Ode to Linus

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a dear friend and loving bus. Linus will truly be missed. If you have any parting thoughts, please list them in the comments section.

Sea Kayaking

I like to go sea kayaking at sunrise once or twice a week. Some mornings the water is as smooth as glass. I love the view of the island from the water looking in.

Jessica's volunteer work

Jessica has been volunteering at one of the schools in town, Holy Cross Anglican Primary School. They need a lot of help.

She's been working with two kids in particular, Aldair and Javier, who were going to get kicked out of school for behavioral problems unless they had a guardian in class with them.

Today Jessica taught the kids how to correctly say "tree" and "three." It's a tough distinction. The end result: tree and trrrrrree.

Sayuri and Jessica. BFF's!

Tropical Storms & Severed Digits

We lucked out yesterday. The tropical storm missed us, although it caught the south end of mainland Belize. We had some pretty intense rainfall and some high waters, but nothing serious.

A member of my maintenance staff cut his finger off in a golf cart engine yesterday. We rushed him to the doctor in San Pedro after I went and found his finger. Nasty stuff.

San Pedro Branch

The church is growing on the island. When I went to church the first time in January there were about 10 people there. Yesterday we had 72 people in sacrament meeting! We filled the chapel twice, once in the morning English meeting and once in the evening Spanish meeting. Jessica and I will be working hard the branch. I am serving as the Elder's quorum president, the executive secretary, and the branch clerk. Jessica will be recieving a calling next week. I've been going out with the missionaries about twice a week. We've been promised that if we can average 50 people at church for six months the area president will build us a chapel. Since the area president happens to be Elder Clarke, who was my mission president, I know him quite well. I send him pictures several times a week of the various church functions, so he can see how badly we need a chapel. In other words, I'm going to pester him until he builds us a church! These are the pictures I sent this week.

English Sacrament Meeting.

Spanish Sacrament Meeting.

Elder's Quorum

Primary taught by one of the Elders

Institute class

Jessica on our way to church to watch conference. We had a little rain that day.

Not a real great turn out for conference.

Meeting with the mission president and priesthood leaders. This is where we meet for church. The road gets a little nasty during the rainey season.

Ambergris caye, My island

Sunrise

After seeing Steph's blog I thought I'd give this a try. Seems like it would be a great way to stay in touch with everybody back home. I've got some cool stuff going on in my life that seems like it might be worth sharing. Here are some cool sunrise pics from the other day.