September 12,2010

How are you all doing? We are wondering about the harvest, school and
the weather. We miss the change of seasons even though this green is
beautiful. It is still the rainy season here and the foliage is lush.
We sometimes have water ponding in the streets which makes it
difficult to get around but amazingly it disappears into the ground
after a short time.

We have had a great week! President and Sister Gamiette have been in
the Dominican Republic at a Mission Presidents Seminar for the past
week and we have been staying with their children. They are a great
family. They have five children. Coralie is 15, Jennifer is 14,
Terry is 10, Tom is 6 and Amy is 5. They started school this week so
it was a bit hectic but it brought back a lot of a memories and some
homesickness for our own grandchildren and family. We would start the
day with the commute to school. We would leave the house at 7:15 am
and take the older girls to their school which is a private school
just for girls. Then we would take the three younger ones to their
school which is a private Catholic school. The traffic is unreal as
they do not have school buses and everyone either takes their own
children or they us the vans (taxis) to get the children to school.
The morning commute can be over two hours. We would leave the Mission
office at 2 pm to pick them up from school and that commute was even
worse. We would arrive home about 4:30 pm and have the rest of the
evening to get homework done, have dinner and then scriptures,and
family prayer and then tuck them all in about 8:30 pm. We had a great
time. We also met the housekeeper, Doris, who works at least three
days a week and she is a delight. She has been the housekeeper for
the mission home through 4 or 5 mission presidents. The Gamiettes are
the first to have a young family. She had such great stories to
tell. She is originally from Guyana and is an Amoran indian. We hope
to stay close to her as well as the children the rest of our mission.
Sister Mimi (She was called to help the children make the change from
French to English and has spent a lot of time with them.) from the
office came to stay with them on Saturday while we came home to wash
and get ready for the coming week. We had shopping to do to prepare
for the training that the President is so anxious to give to the
mission leaders. He was so spiritually fed at the Seminar and is on
fire to share it with the mission. This coming week will be very busy
with many missionaries coming to Trinidad for Zone Leader Council and
now other leaders will be coming also. This mission is complex and
interesting.

Elder Wheeler had quite the experience this week with funding the
missionaries. There are two Elder Jordans. One is Michael Jordan and
he is in St. Maarten and the other is Christopher Jordan and he is in
Guyana. St. Maarten uses the U.S. dollar and the Guyana uses GYD with
an exchange rate of 200 to 1. Well, Elder Wheeler turned them around
and funded Elder Michael Jordan $124,000 and Elder Christopher Jordan
$430 which is $2.15 US. Needless to say, each Elder was very
surprised and Elder Wheeler was "taken back" by what had happened
also. Elder Michael Jordan should have received $430 U.S. and Elder
Christopher Jordan should have received $124000 GYD. It made for some
great laughs after it was all straightened out.

We are so grateful for all of our blessings and for this opportunity
to serve. We pray for you all at home everyday! After reading
scriptures with the Gamiette family each day, we hope that you all are
making time for this important event in your homes. We are so
grateful for the Book of Mormon and the answers to prayers that come
from reading it each day.

We are so enjoying each new experience. What a great blessing it is
to serve! There is so much need for senior couples.

Love and blessings,