Sea, Surf & Service

You heard me - get out of town, Covid! I've been feeling sick since Sunday after church. Not super sick, but not great. It got continually worse, and then I felt like I was hit by a truck by Monday morning. When I noticed that my sense of smell was mostly gone, I realized it was probably covid. I could slightly smell the old jar of sauerkraut in our fridge, so that was the biggest giveaway to the possibility of covid vs. a cold. I felt like it could be a sinus infection. Sadly, I'm an old pro on those - tho' I was a bit worried...because of my sinus infection history, I generally need an antibiotic to take care of them. I don't have a doctor here and frankly, the medical care here scares me (thanks to our experiences with several missionaries and members). Anyway. I've been plowing through it. I had Elder Ridd run out on Monday to see if he could find any COVID tests, just in case. He went to about 6 stores and couldn't locate any. My cold got worse - including ...

Bonaire Day was held on September 6. It is an island-wide holiday, also known as Flag Day. It celebrates the traditional day that European explorers first arrived on the island. I convinced Elder Ridd to pop down to the town center at Wilhelmina Park to see some festivities. We walked around just after dinner, and saw some friends there before we went back home to make it in time for our Senior Missionary Zoom meeting (this is held each Wednesday night at 8pm).  There were lots of food + drink booths at the park, along with singing and dancing groups. There were also some booths were people sold souvenirs -jewelry, etc.   We were able to see our friend Melodie all dressed up in her dance outfit. She is in a Peruvian dance group. She looked so festive! Sadly we didn't get to see her dance.  All the major places in town - especially government buildings, were closed today. All week long, we saw many people with flags all over their cars and trucks, honoring the Bonaire...

So I am trying to get myself on track with keeping this blog better. It's been a busy week. Church was great on Sunday. It was Sister Schexnayder's last Sunday on the mission, so that's a bit sad. She gave a lovely testimony.  We had the Lamprechts in town, as they were visiting and doing interviews with the elders and sisters. We had a mission correlation meeting right after church, and then we went home. We Skyped with the kids at 4:30, and that's always fun! This time we had Hayden and Parker online. Hayden is getting ready to move out of his BYU apartment (Friday) and is staying with some friends for a few nights. He is staying over with Joni and John on Monday, and then he moves into his new apartment at the University of Utah the next day! We are excited for him as he starts law school. Parker is keeping busy with work and running. He took a vacation to Whistler, Canada a little over a week ago, and he had a great time. He hiked and used his new DLSR camera to tak...

Happy American Independence Day! Freedom and independence are really excellent entities to celebrate. I have always known how lucky I feel to be born in the USA, and it has been made even more clear to me over the past year how much I celebrate those qualities of freedom.  I celebrated by baking sugar cookies 'til 1am in the wee hours of July 3rd. We realized that we had nothing to bring to our morning meetings with the young missionaries on July 4th, and thought they might be missing home and need some little way to celebrate...and what is more fun than eating, right? So I ran out the night before, right before the stores close (they all are closed by 8pm; some closed by 6). I bought some extra things I needed to make the cookies. Then I came home to bake them! Baking food items is a bit trickier here! I do have an oven and stove, but they don't work great. The oven bakes about 25 degrees cooler than needed (I am thrilled with my Celsius conversion chart I keep on the fridge)....

Happy Easter!!  I was anticipating that I would be much more faithful in blogging and journaling while on our mission! However, thus far it has not been the case. I have taken thousands of photos, which seems to be the true way I chronicle events, so that is something! Part of my "problem" is that while we have certain things planned each week, we often have things that come up, just as in our normal life. Some are so-called emergencies, and some are not exactly emergencies but are things which need to be addressed. Our days are actually quite full, and by the time we are back home and have prepared/eaten dinner, I am so tired and ready to crash - and I don't find the energy to write!  I'll try to catch up!  Last week on Thursday night was our last temple preparation class which we taught, in a series of 4 classes. We combined several lessons together for most of our classes. We had a record number of people attend - I believe we had 21 altogether! That was fabulous. ...