We had a farewell party for the McGhies last week. It was a good opportunity to get our picture with President Robison and Sister Robison. They are an awesome team as they serve in the West Indies Mission. They have definitely made a difference here. We are looking at a stake in Guyana soon as well as the one for Trinidad in probably November. Our September attendance at each of the branches will be critical.

Two Brits who went home last transfer created some nice memories for us about the quality of the young men serving in the West Indies Mission. Next to dad is Elder Ross Webb, who served his last 6 weeks in the Port of Spain branch while we were there. We grew to love his wit, his dedication to his call and his overall niceness. He had been in a rock band, pierced ears and all before coming on his mission and chose to leave fame and fortune behind.
This was the first time that I actually met Elder Swain. I had many conversations with him on the phone as he called the office checking on various things for others. He is mature beyond his years. While he was serving, his parents moved to New Zealand. He called me a couple of weeks before his departure and asked in I could change his flight so that he wouldn't arrive at 5:00 am as that would be a burden on his parents to get up so early and drive 2 hours to the airport. I was so touched as I told people in the office and I carried the feeling around with me for days of what an awesome son he was. You need to know that for him to get to the airport in Georgetown from Suriname he had to spend all day first going by taxi, then ferry across a river and then take a bus to get to there because there are no flights between the two countries that are side by side. The next day, very early he had to fly to Port of Spain and spend the day and this is when we were able to meet him face to face. The next day he had to be at the airport at 6 am to fly several hours then have a 5 hour layover then fly several more hours with another layover then fly all night and arrive at 5 am in New Zeland. I looked at his flight schedule and decided more layovers would be the only answer to fulfil his request. After pondering it for awhile, I decided not to contact Liz in SL who makes those reservations. I told him that is was OK to put his parents out a little to pick up a son who had served a great mission. They wouldn't mind and it would be a good memory of getting up really early to go pick him up. He said he hadn't ever thought about it that way and felt OK about it.

We met this big snail on our morning walk. We have never seen small snails, only ones this size. How would you like to turn him lose in your garden!



You cannot believe how many hundred or thousand of termites live in this hive! The birds love them.

This big toad loves to come eat from the cat's food dish in the evenings. We often see him hopping around.

Tobago or Bust

We will go to Tobago on Aug 19-22 to find an apartment. Our target date for moving there is September 23. We are in the process of preparing for the move. We will need to train replacements before we go. That becomes the major problem. We aren't sure who will take our place. It seems most couples aren't interested in the office. All of the couples now coming to the West Indies Mission have been recruited and they don't fit the office couple mold. If a mission recruits, they aren't assigned couples from the pool putting in their papers. I may be doing travel from Tobago! Of course, this isn't our first choice. We will be teaching seminary and institute in the fall if we can get a class together. We are taking the training in preparation. The branch had 11 active members a couple of months ago, but that has doubled or tripled in the last 2 months. It will be an exciting challenge to grow the branch.

More Tender Mercies

Today President Robison asked me to change the flights for two Elders coming to Trinidad for their final interview with him on the 15th. There were no flights available; they were all sold out. I decided to recheck the 15th. A flight two hours earlier showed up on the list. I immediately called the agent with whom I had booked the flights, but he had just left for the day. The lady who answered the phone offered to help. As she is searching for the valid tickets for the two elders, my screen goes to “all sold out” for all flights. She rechecked and said there are no flights on the 15th. I told her I had to get them to POS earlier than the current scheduled flight. She said what about the evening of the 14th? “I’ll take it,” I said.

The Lord knew I needed to have 2 tickets, and He provided me with 2 of them on the 14th.

Some of you are aware that our computer crashed on Sunday morning. We scoured the phone book (2007) for possible computer repairmen and called a few, but came up blank. We can’t survive without our computer at home. I often print out and email tickets in the evenings and I am preparing for another transfer on September 3. We went to the office a little early and shared our plight. A little while later in walks President Alleyne from one of the branches. He listened to our plight and packed up our computer and took it to a friend of his in Port of Spain. After many calls with the person who moonlights fixing computers, he said he could put in a new hard drive and get our programs back. He couldn’t take our documents off the old hard drive but he gave it back to us so we can deal with it at a later time. We had our computer back on Wednesday afternoon without a need to leave the office.

Luckily, we can check our email accounts at the office. My brother Alan had emailed me a couple of hours before that my mom was in the hospital with a bowel blockage. She had been admitted Monday evening by her caregiver who stayed with her through the night. He gave me the phone number to call her at the hospital, not knowing our computer had crashed with Skype on it, which is our means of making phone calls. I made a “trigger” (2 cents per minute) call from the office and spoke with her briefly. It was amazing that I was able to reach her on the first try and have Alan in the room. The Lord does look out for his missionaries. They are considering surgery, but as of today she is only being subjected to more tests. I will keep you posted.

Mini Miracles

Office work doesn't provide the spiritual experiences that one has proselyting full time. We have, however, had many tender mercies that we receive as we serve the elders in the field. They happen on a regular basis. I experienced several getting through transfers a couple of weeks ago. We will start sharing some of those with you. I know each of you experience the same kind of mini miracles as you ask for guidance from Heavenly Father. Often we receive direction or assistance and fail to recognize it as such, just thinking it is luck or coincidence. Not so!
Dad has a couple to share.

Mini Miracles 1

Recently, I began to realize that the Lord is blessing Mom and me in so many ways that it is stunning. I really felt unworthy to just let these Mini Miracles come and go without making some kind of record of them for me to remember, and more importantly, for my family to remember.

These are not miracles of the magnitude of the parting of the Red Sea or The First Vision of Joseph Smith, they are little things that are actual miracles that help to reinforce my testimony that the Lord is watching out for His missionaries and that if we are willing to sacrifice for His Church, He will bless us.

So, Miracle One relates to the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We have attended the Arima Branch for two weeks now and I have begun to notice something different about myself. As our various class teachers - Sunday School and Priesthood - have been teaching their lessons, I have had a problem controlling myself. By that I mean my mind has been so full of thoughts and ideas that it is all I can do to keep myself from just standing up and taking over as the teacher! I have even asked Mom to nudge me if I say too much… so far no nudges.

This has been one of the most powerful manifestations of the Gift of the Holy Ghost I have ever felt. My mind has been filled with “pure intelligence” and the feeling is both exhilarating and humbling. For example, today we were discussing “talents” and how some servants were given many and some were given few. It occurred to me (and I know most of you are going to say, “I knew that already.”) that “talents” are more than just the gifts of the Spirit like musical talents, or athletic talents, or artistic talents. In the scriptures when the Savior in referring to talents He is actually talking about money. Of course, in His genius, there are many levels of meaning in all He teaches. It occurred to me that the Savior was talking about all of the gifts he gives us. I explained this “epiphany” to the class by saying, “Have you ever considered that some of your most precious talents are your spouse, or the Scriptures, or your membership in this Church?” I could see the Spirit working on many of those in the class as they considered the many blessings (or talents) the Lord has given them. At that moment, the direction of the class discussion changed to a more spiritual and meaningful level as the Holy Ghost bore witness of these important truths. It was a sweet and precious experience that I will always remember. The Red Sea didn’t part but it was still a precious miracle.

Mini Miracle 2

Mini Miracle 2 by some will be called simply a collection of coincidences that are not really miracles, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

In the past few days, two things have happened that have made my life safer and in some ways easier. Elder Coleman (another senior missionary) is required to travel to the Phone Company each month to pay the phone bill of all the Elders, the Mission Home and Office. He goes with a very large check so he needs to have another Elder travel with him. When we arrived at the Phone Office, the traffic was a very huge snarl. Cars were double parked, horns were blaring, people were angry. It was not a pretty sight. As we pulled up to the front of the building, a car pulled out of the most prime parking space on the block. He pulled out and we pulled in… a mini miracle. When we left the building after paying the bill, the street was momentarily clear as I backed out… a mini miracle. I know you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of these two minis unless you understood the driving insanity here in Trinidad. Trust me, they were two mini miracles (similar to the Red Sea parting)

On another day, as we were trying to make sure our records of baptisms and Priesthood ordinations were accurate, I came across a problem entry that did not seem right. Remember, we baptize hundreds every month so the volume of paper is great. However, I grabbed a folder of baptisms for the month in question, opened it up and lifted about half of the large stack and there was the record I needed. I made the correction and now that brother is as he should be on the records of the Church. You may say that it was just a coincidence, and I might agree if it hadn’t been for the fact that within an hour the same thing happened again. I needed a record, I pulled a folder, thumbed down a few hundred sheets of papers and came to the exact sheet I needed.

Is the Lord concerned about every detail of our lives and the lives of all of his children? I don’t understand it, but I know it’s true that He is.