Banana trees produce once and are cut down. This one is on the other side of the fence by our patio. It is interesting to watch the bananas develop. Each leaf of the bulb lifts up and reveals a bunch of baby bananas that grow into full sized bananas. We love the bananas we get here. They can be purchased in fruit stands all over the island.
I seem to have an obsession with flowers. The pink ones are tiny and grow all over a junk pile near the branch building. The white ones and yellow ones are on bushes everywhere. A white one is in front of our apartment. The purple one and the aloe vera are in our small yard.
There are several goats that are outside the church. We have watched this one since he was a baby. He loves his head scratched.
There are chickens all over the island. It is so fun to watch the new baby chicks. It is hard to get close to them for a picture.
Sunday we had the missionaries over for lunch. We picked them up at 5:40 am the next morning to take them to the airport to catch their 7:00 am flight to Trinidad. We followed them 40 minutes later, since we couldn't get on the same flight. As a result, we were a few minutes late to Zone Confernce that started at 8:30 am. It was an excellent meeting as usual. We ended the meeting where everyone had a chance to express his/her feelings and testimony. We went around the room, consequently, we were next to last. The meeting ended at 2:00 pm, then we had lunch. We had a brief exit interview with President Robison then headed to the airport and returned home by 6:30 pm.
Transfers are next week. We get to keep both our our elders for another transfer! They are doing a great job. (Elder Jones, Elder Jarvis)
Our end of the island had been very brown since the dry season started in March. It happened gradually until all of the sudden you realized that many of the trees are leafless and the grass is all brown. Some of the dry trees started blooming in May, which signals that the wet season is coming.
This is a cotton tree. Before the hurricane of 1963, cotton was a major crop. We have only seen a few of them around the island. Brother Jasper told us that after slavery was abolished, the people cut them all down because they hated them so much.
This is a mango tree in bloom. Mango trees are all over the island. There are several varieties. We made mango mousse for dinner Sunday for the missionaries. Sister Robison had made it for us when we were in Trinidad.
We love watching this herd of sheep that hang out up and down this road that connects to the highway. We have seen them across the highway. Usually, sheep and goats, or at least a few of them, are tethered so they don't wander. Notice the dry grass they are eating. In a couple of weeks, the grass will be a beautiful green.
Note the cool bird in the grass.
Sure enough, June 1 we had a massive down pour. It has rained fairly regularly since. Last Saturday was the big football game between Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica played in the Dwight Yorke Stadium. Yorke was one of the players so it was fun to watch part of it on TV. As we watched the game, it started pouring at the stadium and all the players were soaked and sliding on the grass. It didn’t rain a drop at our apartment! You would think that if it rained one place on this small island it would rain all over it. Not so. We went to Roxborough to visit the Dookran’s, who live near the rain forest, on Friday and noticed that it was looking brown as well and they hadn’t had as much rain as we have since June 1.
It has been fun to notice the grass greening up and the trees looking much better since it has started raining more regularly. The rain was a good excuse for some of our members to stay home on Sunday. It is common during the rainy season. The down side for us has been the increased humidity.
It has been several weeks since we have gone on an outing on our P Day. We thought it would be fun to see the Hillsborough Dam and the reservior for the Tobago water supply. It was not to be. We could get to the area and see the spillway shown in the right corner above, but we couldn't get to the water. We did hike up the road at the end of the pavement for about 20 minutes and saw gorgeous trees and foilage. We had heard the tours to the area were canceled a few years ago. On the way to the dam we found the Green Hill water fall. It was a delightful spot. The pictures below were taken there as well as the one on the bottom in the above collage.
Elder Jarvis baptized Shackelar Braithwaite and Elder Ross baptized Pauline Braithwaite on Saturday, May 30 at Ft Granby. What beautiful baptisms. Pauline wants to know what she needs to do to go to the temple.
Elder Jones conducted the serive. Melvin Bovell gave a talk on baptism. President Ramkissoon (going to the Santo Domingo Temple take out his endowments and be sealed to his wife on June 16) welcomed them and Sister Ross gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. The testimonies were wonderful and the spirit was stong.
Both were given the Gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday by Elder Ross and presented as the newest members of the Tobago Branch.
We picked up Brother Gamiette (He will be our new mission president July 1) at the airport on Thursday afternoon at 3:45 pm. He came to compete in the Toyota Rainbow Cup International Triathlon & 5 K run held on Saturday. His bike didn't arrive with him. He was distraught.
To cap off the weekend, we had a great sacrament meeting with the Green's and Brother Gamiette as the featured speakers. They all gave excellent talks. The branch members were thrilled to meet Brother Gamiette.
