Oct.31,2010

Dear family and friends,

We have been missing the Halloween weekend. We have yet to see the
family pictures of the Wheeler family spooks and are looking forward
to that. When we were in St. Vincent, it came and went without any
notice but they do celebrate it here. You probably all celebrated
last night as today is Sunday but they will celebrate it here tonight.
It will be interesting to see how many times our doorbell rings.
There are quite a few children who live in our complex. Everything
here is gated so they probably only go to those they know.

We had another interesting week. It was a "catch up" week as we had
not spent our usually time at the office the week before as we were
staying with the Gamiette family. We were relieved to feel almost
"caught up" as we left the office Friday night. About noon on
Thursday, security came into the Office and evacuated us as they had
received a bomb threat to the bank next door to us. They moved all of
us to the north end of the parking lot and kept us there for about an
hour and a half. It was interesting to watch how they reacted to such
an event. They did not stop traffic from coming into the parking lot
and they were still letting a few people walk by the bank. We decided
to go to lunch instead of waiting for the okay to go back to work.
"When you are given lemons, make lemonade." Right? On Friday, about
the same time we began to receive tropical storm warnings. Tomas was
beginning to form and they were warning everyone to prepare for heavy
winds and rain. The grocery stores were packed and the traffic became
unreal. The evening hours came and went and nothing. Night came and
went and nothing. Morning came and was very pleasant. And then we
began to hear that Tomas had indeed become a hurricane and was
battering Barbados. By noon we received a message from Brother
Sutherland in St. Vincent that they expected Tomas to hit about 1 p.m.
and that he would stay in touch if he could. Tomas strengthen to a 2
hurricane when it hit St. Vincent and St. Lucia. It tore roofs of the
houses, downed power lines, flooded and caused mud slides. Our hearts
and prayers are with our dear friends in St. Vincent and we are
anxious to know how they weathered the storm. Brother Sutherland
expressed his great faith that the Lord's will would be done. Those
who are truly converted have such great faith and are an inspiration
to all. It sounds like Tomas will be around for the better part of
this next week. It will be interesting to see what happens. We are
grateful to be this far south as most of these storms begin here but
do not strengthen until they are north of Trinidad. A local told us
that we are not out of danger for 36 hours and then it is over. We
had heavy rain this morning but it did not make it impossible to go to
Church. We were grateful to be able to go to Sacrament meeting and
partake of the sacrament. We attended Church in Couva and enjoyed our
meetings immensely. Sister Mundah, who was the first baptism we went
to here in Trinidad, talked and gave a very good talk. She has grown
so much and has been so faithful, great to watch.

Our thoughts and prayers are with each of you. We are so grateful for
our blessings and recognize our Father's hand in all we do. We look
forward to the Thanksgiving season and remember well President
Monson's admonition to be grateful.

Much love,