First few days

Flag Day

The first P-Day we were here was "Flag Day" a major Holiday here in Curacao.  They were all excited because the King of the Netherlands was coming for a visit, along with dignitaries from  6 different countries.  The missionaries here wanted to spend the morning and go to the area where the king was coming.  So we all gathered early in the morning (in the middle of the floating bridge) and were there in time to see all the military, police, scouts and others marching in a parade to welcome the Royalty.  It was quite an impressive sight.

They stopped and lined the sides of the bridge for when the King arrived.  All the dignitaries, including the King and Queen, walked the length of the bridge to the area where all the people were waiting to greet them.  We had a front row seat to view the festivities.  When we got there the bleachers were full except for the front two rows (it had rained the night before and they were still very wet).  One of the Elders, Elder Marks, sacrificed his handkerchief and wiped the seats down for us. I'm sure we made quite the impression all of them on the front row with white shirts, ties and name tags😘 (along with, of course, the two cute sisters and our senior couple)  There were 12 of us altogether.  We even made it on the TV broadcast of the event.  One of the Elders had one of the people they are teaching call and tell them he had just seen them on TV.  They were pretty excited about getting a little "press time".  Who knows, maybe it will help open a few doors for them.  This is a little bit of a tough area.

Washing Clothes

After getting most of our stuff wet on the plane ride here, it was nice to get a moment to get some laundry done.  I'm so grateful that Sister Parr let me use her laundry to do it.  She has a great laundry line in the back yard and with the wind (that always seems to blow here) the clothes dried quickly and were soft. (I remember drying clothes on the line in Australia - or when my dryer went out at home but the clothes were always a little "stiff" after drying in the hot sun)  Here they get plenty of "fluffing" (so does my hair 😂).

District Meeting

We met with our district here in Curacao today.  We are absolutely loving our missionaries and can't wait to meet the rest of them.  We leave on Saturday morning to start our mission tour to all the other countries.  These are our missionaries that are here on Curacao.  Right now we have 86 younger missionaries and 6 senior couples.  The last transfer quite a few went home and only 3 came out but this transfer coming in we get 15 new ones so we are really excited about that.  

Kyle and I are busy preparing for the Zone conferences and training we will be doing while we are traveling.  We are really hoping to be able to focus on teaching by the Spirit so that the missionaries can really learn to listen and be prompted as to what each individual will benefit from the most.  And we are going to challenge them to really reach out to everyone they meet.  I think that is the hardest for the missionaries to do.  It's out of their comfort zone but when they do it with their efforts focused on individuals with the pure love of Christ, miracles can happen.  

This is our beautiful little church building in Curacao

It is a small Branch but it is growing.  The people here speak mainly Papiamento, but Spanish, Dutch and English are spoken as well.  When I spoke on Sunday (for my testimony - Elder Lopez translated for me so the members who did not speak English could understand me)  The meetings are in Papiamento so any English only speakers like me are given a head set and the missionaries translate as the meetings are going on.  (Elder Lopez did really well translating for Kyle until he switched over and started speaking Dutch....lol - Elder Lopez doesn't know Dutch- but most of the people in the congregation could understand him anyway)