Curacao Adventures......

Guests Joining us for Breakfast...…

We went out for breakfast and had some company (right downtown outside our Hotel).....these Iguanas are everywhere on the ABC Islands.  you can even find them on many Menus....

             THE MISSION HOME                

The Mission home has been moved from Trinidad to Curacao.  The home that has been purchased is beautiful and in a very beautiful location.  Unfortunately it is not quite ready for us to move in yet.  There are wooden shutters throughout the house which allow for a wonderful breeze to blow through but there is no glass or screens on any of the windows or doors.  This allows the dust as well as bugs to blow through so we are looking into getting this taken care of.  Also, because of that, when the pictures were taken off the walls and furniture moved from the previous owner you can see exactly where everything was because of the outlines on the walls caused by the dirt freely blowing through the house.  So it needs painted.  All of the furniture arrived from  the home in Trinidad (which was a larger home - so there is more furniture than what this home will need).  It's really nice furniture so we didn't want it to get ruined being exposed to the elements so we left it boxed up until after the windows are fixed and the house is painted.  We hope that can be arranged to happen soon but between going through the process of Church and the "no hurry" Island ways......it could be a while.   

We had an excellent crew of workers that helped unload the pod with all the furniture in it.  The guy by the pool was hilarious.  When I wanted to get a picture of them he wanted to see on my phone what his picture looked like.  Twice it wasn't good enough.  (He wanted to look "stylin'")  Finally he did this pose by the pool and decided that it looked good enough.  He was pretty excited when I told him I was going to post it on my blog.  They did a wonderful job.  I hope the moving company sends out the same crew when we finally get to unload all the boxes and set it all up.  (They were going to do it this day but we didn't want to do that before the painting was done.)

This is what the house looked like as we were leaving...…...maybe someday we'll be in.

Dinner With New Friends

This fun family is from Midway, Utah.  (Yes, right close to where we live and we met them in Curacao).  They are Jake and Wendy Reni.  (Jake's mother is originally from Curacao and she has offered to help me learn Papiamentu- the preferred language on the islands. I'm going to try.  I'm understanding a little of the Dutch and a little of the Spanish but I'm really slow....praying for the "gift of tongues") They have come all the way here to try to adopt.  It has been a long process for them and we are hoping and praying that they will be successful!! 

I know I've posted this picture before but I needed one to go with this....

I had the opportunity to go and teach with these wonderful sisters this week.  It was such a great experience.  We went to the home of this young man who joined the church a while ago and had not been coming for a while but has shown some desires to serve a mission.  He is the only member of the church in his family.  When we got there the sisters called to him.  This is one thing that has been very different for me.  Here you don't knock or ring the door bell, you call.  "Bon Dia!"  or "Bon Tardi"  Depending on the time of day.  And people will just come out.  Well, he didn't come out.  They called again....he didn't come..  Then they knocked (which they don't usually do)…..no answer.   Knocked and called again.  "Andre, Andre, Bon Tardi…...It's the Hermanas.  We are here for our appointment".  They kept trying for probably 5 minutes.  I was starting to get uncomfortable thinking we should just leave that either he wasn't home or he had changed his mind and didn't want to meet with them.  He finally came to the door, looking like he just woke up.  I couldn't understand much but I got the general idea that he works nights and had been asleep.  He sat down and asked me to start with a prayer.  That surprised me because I knew he wouldn't be able to understand mine but I know that the Spirit can speak to us in any language so I did.  Then the sisters proceeded to give him the message they had prepared.  I didn't get much but I heard him repeat the words "Andre, Andre....." and I knew he was talking about when they were calling him.  I could feel the spirit so strong and knew how much he wanted to follow Jesus Christ.  It was amazing to me how He was simply soaking in everything the Sisters were telling him.  He was so eager to learn all he could.  When we got back to the car the Sisters shared with me that he said when he heard them calling for him he felt as if the Savior was calling him to "follow him" and he knew what he should be doing.  He invited them to come back the next day.  I was so grateful that they were persistent and didn't give up calling for him.  (It was my instinct to just say "oh well, he's not home") but they didn't....and I know he was grateful too.