Happy (American) Independence Day! July 4, 2023

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). Plus I need to tack between 10-30 minutes extra onto the baking time, keeping a watch on it constantly. Once you figure it out, it's not so bad. But the oven is also verrrry small. I admit, I am spoiled with big ovens in our other homes - and 2 ovens in each. So baking obviously takes longer when you can fit only 1 pan or maybe 2 smaller ones in the oven at a time. Also, I do have an electric mixer that we've bought - but it is not my KitchenAid! (Man, how I love and miss that thing!). So this mixer prefers to mix recipes like cake mixes - but it doesn't do well with thick things like cookie dough. I have already destroyed one electric mixer here - so this is our #2. So when I say I am baking a lot - just know that I truly am sacrificing - haha!! 

Also, might I add that it is dang hot here! So it is really never a good time to turn on the oven to heat up the place. 

Anyway, I used a "Swig" - type sugar cookie recipe, and it actually was quite good! The mixer made it through! I used white buttercream icing on them (leftover in my freezer from the cake I made with Yali for her birthday), and then used some of the red sugar sprinkles that I'd just located in the store to decorate them. I had some colored sprinkles that looked a little like fireworks that I sprinkled on a cookies as well, and then stuck a little toothpick USA flag on the tops to make them more festive (printed from an online freebie site). The elders and hermanas seemed to like them, as they downed 2 each (we Seniors did the same!). 

Each Tuesday morning after our early workouts, we drive over to the Church for a mission devotional via Zoom with our entire mission. July 4th marked our 1st mission devotional with the new name of our mission - Guyana Georgetown Mission. We've been the Trinidad Port of Spain mission until July 1 - when it was barely changed. The mission home and mission office are being relocated there from Curacao as well - but we have the same exact areas that are still included in the mission (Trinidad, Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire). 

After our mission devotional which is usually half an hour and includes discussion of Scriptures, General Conference talks we've been studying for the week, and how the progress of the mission has been going over the past week - we then have our District Meeting. Our District Meeting is just the Bonaire missionaries, which currently is Elder Olsen, Elder Turley, Hermana Schexnayder, Hermana Cox, Elder Ridd and myself. 

Each week we are assigned a talk or 2 to study, and then to go over with our District. This week as a mission, we studied General Conference talks,  "Ministering" by Elder Gong, and "The Lord Jesus Christ Teaches Us to Minister" by Elder Uceda. The story of John and Peggy in Elder Gong's talk was so sweet. I love how John felt such a friendship with his ministering brother that he wanted his friend to be with him when they had the missionaries come over. Everyone needs a good friend they can trust. 

I also loved the story Elder Uceda shared about his new friend, a former bishop and loving father. I loved how Elder Uceda met and listened to this good man, thanked him and told him what a wonderful person he was. It was such a beautiful story. It touched my heart. There are so many people who need to know they are loved and not judged. 

So there you have it! 

We went home after our morning meetings and worked on some paperwork. We've been planning out our temple trip with members from our branch. We have several who are planning to go for the first time, so we are working on getting their passports, tickets and plans together.