Yallahs Church

Here we are at Church today in Yallahs - the branch enjoyed having visitors - so did we! Here is the repair job Elder Smith did on the car back window - should be able to fix it tomorrow. We stopped by the Spanish Town Church building on the way back to Kingston from Ocho Rios. We had some business with the YSA's there - while we were inside someone broke out the back window and stole our suitcases. We had just packed for overnight so for Elder Smith and I we just lost our pajama's - dirty underwear! and makeup bag full of toothbrushes, deorderant, etc....all can be replaced but I'll miss the bag my sister Sue gave me! Chris and Polly lost their overnight stuff and a backpack with a great flashlight Chris got in Kosovo, their phone chargers, phone cradle, glasses, clothes and personal grooming - Oh - Elder Smith lost his 7 year old electric razor - time to be replaced anyway. It was just annoying - several of the senior couples have been robbed - some more than once! So we feel pretty good that nothing of much value was stolen - will miss the suitcases, however!

Green Grotto Caves

We are loving having Chris and Polly here - At the Ochie Craft Market the row that our friend Jon-Jon the wood carver is on - the lady next to him was braiding the hair of her triplette girls! Karoni, Keroni, Kesoni or something like that - darling girls. Next is Chris crawling through one of the holes in the Green Grotto cave - then Polly and all four of us with the cute hard hats.

Polly and Chris in JamaicaY

Yay! Polly and Chris are visiting Jamaica - we are having a great time with them. Here they are at the Columbus Park - also all of us at Rose Hall... very interesting and a little spooky! Annie Palmer murdered three husbands and several servants there - rumor has it that she haunts the area. We stopped at Moneaque College on our way to Ocho Rios - pretty campus. They liked the food at Chilletos as much as we do - JaMexican!!

University of West Indies Campus

We visited the University of The West Indies campus again last Saturday. We found an old ruins of a sugar mill - pretty neat. Also a mural on the side of a building, and another aqua-duct that goes through campus...plus one that goes over the road at the south end of campus. History is fascinating!

Plants

Our Church Building in Yallahs is an older house - small house but huge yard. In the yard are several mango trees, other fruits that I don't know - a June Plum I think and a cashew tree. Here are two cashew apples - the nut is on the end - you can eat the apple about 24 hours after picking it ... after that it ferments easily...the nuts are shelled and then roasted - see why cashews are so expensive - lots of hard labor to harvest them. The mangoes are numerous - but people say there were many more last year. The Agave (sp) plant is huge - Yallahs is drier than the other places we have lived on the island. Elder Smith says it is in a 'rain shadow' being close to the Blue Mountains.

More Wedding pictures

More pictures from the wedding - the cakes were made by the other Sister Smith - Patr. wife...the head table, the 16 year old sister of Elder Walker who was killed last year (she didn't listen to the YW lesson on modest dress!) All in all it was a fun party.

Jamaican Wedding

Saturday, April 14th we attended a wedding of two of our Single Young Adults. Tracy Meddow is from Yallahs, her husband from Portmore. We have a nice chapel in Portmore so they had their wedding there. It is a tradition in Jamaica for the bride to be very late - like two hours! Pres. Hendricks was funny - when we had waited about an hour - he would tell people coming - you are 56 minutes smarter than me. The scheduled time was 3:30 and it began at 5:00...I over heard Pres Hendricks say: "How can you be that fluent in stupid?" - not sure what he was talking about but it made me laugh. They had bright green and dark purple as colors and Elder Hitchcock in Yallas loaned his suit to her brother to wear - very kind and generous of him. The AP's heard that his suit was taken out of the mission home closet and they called to be sure he wasn't coming to the wedding! nope - just his suit was!!

Jamaican Wedding

Jamaican Wedding

Yallahs Chapel

This is the small house and huge yard that the Church rents in Yallahs for us to meet in. The sign is out on a road, that is our SUV parked in the driveway. The keyboard is outside on the front porch because there isn't room inside for it...we put it away after church on Sundays. The chapel has the orange chairs that both Ochie and Junction had - small and cozy. It does have it's own small bathroom and kitchen so that is good - we are almost too big to fit when most people come to church.

Yallahs Chapel

Transfers

I found this transfers picture in a file and put it up in the mission office the week of transfers! Pretty funny!! Also here are the new seven elders who finally made it to Jamaica after four days in the Dallas area - in their same suits! they had wet suitcases when they opened them in the mission home. Sister Larsen spent most of the night doing their laundry and some elders lost white shirts to mildew or spots! Gotta love mission life.

market to plate

I love the fresh fruit and veggies here! I miss Junction Market but our landlady told us about the Kingston one - just on Friday and Saturday, but the farmers bring fresh things in to the big city to sell - - and I buy! Here is a small part of the market, also our Easter Dinner and a plate of veggies I took to a dinner at the mission home for all senior couples...yum, yum, yum!

Old Aqueduct

On the Campus of the U of the W.I. there is this old aqueduct - built in the 1750's. It was very interesting. We had a good time learning about it and hope to see the end that goes over a road close by - - we had been told about it but couldn't find it on Saturday.

University of the West Indies

On Saturday we visited the campus of the University of the West Indies. It felt really good to be on a college campus if just to drive around. We had been told to visit the Bookstore but it was closed so we will go back sometime. This old church was dismantled in another part of the island and brought here. Elder Smith is 'sleeping' the sign refers to a speed bump down the road - they call them sleeping policeman - but we'd never seen a sign naming it! Beautiful huge old tree on the campus. Sister Smith is 'clamping' - another term for booting your tires, we guess.

Rain

Here is Elder Smith and Sister Daniels, ordering our food at an outdoor restaurant in a pouring rain! It had some shelters but we got wet anyway - then took a picture of the rain making the road a river!

Party Times

Here is our Young Single Adult committee meeting - Elder Smith conducting - he does a great job! Next we had a Seniors Dinner at a Chines Restaurant to say goodbye to the Daniels - also had Tacos at our new (old) apartment. Nice of everyone to want to party with us!