Merry Christmas

We have been here long enough to have gained an understanding of Christmas in Guyana. Last year we gave the Guyanese a curious stare. This year, we see. They celebrate the birth of the Savior and what it means to them.
Major house cleaning – once a year – is begun about the first or second week of December. I thought it was crazy to do cleaning for Christmas because at home, I was too busy shopping and baking cookies and writing Christmas cards. Here they wash walls and ceilings and scour floors. Furniture is piled in heap, rugs are taken outside and washed and hung over balconies to dry. The outsides of the buildings, homes and stores alike are either power washed or painted. After the flurry of cleaning, the Christmas decorations go up. Then the cooking and baking begin. Christmas Day is spent visiting friends and eating the goodies. Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) is spent visiting family. Gift exchanges are not common. Only the wealthy would do that. Thirty percent of the people are Hindu and they don’t celebrate Christmas at all.
Everyone celebrates Old Year’s Night. Georgetown First and Second Branches are getting together to have a church service at 7. Family fun will begin at 8:30 and then food as the New Year comes in.
We appreciate you and all of your messages. We are grateful to be serving here in Guyana. The people need much, but we are learning much. Have a joyous Christmas.
Elder and Sister Langford

Another Mission

We can't complain - Our Lady of Victory Mission looks a little sad.

Elder Langford's Birthday

What birthday would be complete without the Tanners. The coconuts were wonderful, but What's in the bag? A ship!!! Now Elder Langford doesn't have to be jealous of Sister Langford's ship. His is much more masculine - no birds flying in the sails and a big gun on the front. Besides, his clock works. Oh joy!

Coconuts

What are we going to do without our friends, the Tanners. They brought Elder Langford these wonderful coconuts for his birthday.

City Mall

This is City Mall in Georgetown. The mall has been decorated with a big Christmas tree. It has everything a mall in the U.S. has, only not as much.

Christmas in Georgetown

Christmas is an important holiday. As Ronetta says, "We make a big fuss about it." Houses are cleaned inside and out. New paint is applied (even if it is raining). Streets are repaired and repainted and decorations go up. It is a time of family and friends gathering. The gift giving is minimal. Some of the children only get one gift and that is what they receive at the branch Christmas party. Last year, the boys got plastic trucks and the girls got a small doll in Demerara Branch.

Seminary

This is Sister Marcia Gaspar's class in the Diamond Branch. Diamond is in the suburbs of Georgetown. It is on the way to the airport and there are new housing "schemes". A housing scheme is a housing tract. Sister Gaspar accepted the calling to be a seminary teacher after being a member only 7 months. She said she didn't know if she could do it but she would try. She is an example of humility. She has absorbed everything we have taught her and with her love of teenagers and ability to relate to them, she is one of our strongest seminary teachers. Pictured from left: Bartolomew, who is quiet and shy, Annie, who is 17 and almost ready for institute, Michelle, Marcia's sister, Yvonne, who is always there first, and Junior, who is the spark plug in the class. This picture was taken on a rainy day; there are usually four more students. It is a great class.

Zone Conference - December 3, 2008

Here is the whole group of good looking elders. The couples are from left, the Langfords (us) the Larsens, President and Sister Robison, the Tanners and the Evans'. We had a wonderful spiritual day studying Lehi's dream of the tree of life. We wanted our picture with a tree, but alas, the building is brand new and there isn't even a weed that tall.

Traffic

How many lanes do you see painted on the road? Do you think the bus on the far left wants to turn left? All he wants to do is get ahead of the other bus. Guyanese do not like to wait in line while they are driving.

House

We have been watching a woman build a house along a very busy street. She started with a cardboard box and has been adding to it. The rainy season is coming. When it rains, it pours buckets - thunder, lightening and wind. We wonder how long this will last.

Training

President Gamiette came to Guyana. His purpose was to help the Banch Presidents see what their duty was in relation to seminary and institute. Elder Boyd K. Packer says, "Doctrine if fully understood has the power to change behavior better than the study of behavior has to change behavior". So President Gamiette put the Branch Presidents and the Seminary and Institute teachers into groups and had them teach themselves. By the end of the training meeting, when the Branch Presidents reported on what they learned, they gave the talk that he would have given, had he given a talk.


We went to the Canje District and repeated the training. It was magical to see the Branch Presidents learn how to enroll new members who have just been baptized. The baptismal rate here is one of the highest in the world. One of the big problems we face is keeping up with the structure to retain all of the new members who are coming into the church.

Seminary

Scripture Mastery - These students in Vreed en Hoop are sharing their projects to help us remember a scripture. The Elders drop into class from time to time. They challenge new teen-age converts to meet them at seminary. Bless them, they do so much good.

Movie Night

The Young Adults had a movie night. How much equipment does it take to show a movie? And how many elders does it take to hook it all up. The rejoicing over a picture was premature. There was no sound. They ended up using the DVD player with the monitor. They put away the computer and the projector and the microphone sound system. It was fun. There were about 25 young adults. They served channa (garbanzo beans) and something else afterwards. My idea to have popcorn went over like a lead balloon.

After School

The children are all heading home. Notice the different colored uniforms in this picture. Every school has its own colors and combinations.

The Ocean

We were traveling by the sea wall and noticed that the tide was high. You can see from these pictures that the seawall keeps the ocean out. The waves splash over the sea wall. The paintings on the sea wall were done by school children to celebrate Carifesta, this last August. The cloud formations are beautiful.

Any place to keep cool.

We found Accuweather.com and now we know how hot it is. I think that is a big mistake. They take into account the humidity (like the wind chill factor in colder climates) and today it is 117 F. These cows are crowded into a small pond under a big shade tree. We seek the coolness of the air conditioned car. This picture was taken in New Amsterdam, far away from our home.

Joan's Birthday

Isn't this a lovely birthday present? Our friends, the Tanners, wanted to make my birthday really special. They shopped and shopped until they found this wonderful table lamp. The cord is so short, you have to put it on the floor, so I guess that makes it a floor lamp. Anyway, to celebrate, the Tanners and the Evans' came over to watch a movie "Emma Smith, My Story" and eat popcorn. We had a great time.

Beggar

This little guy is tied up next to the road. We rolled down the car window and gave him a cracker.

Dog and Bone

This game is played by two teams of dogs. A bone (shoe) is placed in the middle. Every dog has a number. The referee calls a number and two dogs come out to capture the bone. They must do it without touching an opponent. If the two can't do it, a second number is called and four of them circle the bone until someone snatches it up and races home with it without being tagged.

Cricket

The Guyanese love Cricket. I tried to get a picture of Brother Matthews bowling (pitching) and winning. He has an awesome throw and an even better yell when he hits the wicket (putting the batter out). Brother Matthews is the big man.

Elder Thomas played with the children, building mounds and houses out of dirt clods. They loved it.

Family Fun Day

Guyana celebrated a Hindu holiday, so the Georgetown District called a Family Fun Day at National Park. It was fun. The children were cute and the two girls on the right are seminary and institute teachers.

Monday, October 13 - off to Suriname

This trip, the Tanners followed us. They are the Humanitarian Aid couple and they had projects to look at in Paramaribo. We got as far as New Amsterdam on Sunday, spent the night and then got up early to go to Suriname. We had breakfast with the Tanners at the Little Rock Hotel and then left for the stelling at Moleson Creek. When we got to the stelling, we began the process by reporting to the police department. We were approved but the Tanners misplaced their Suriname insurance papers. They tore their car apart, but could not find it and the police would not let them go. They tried to buy a ticket anyway, and the girl told them to drive back to Skeldon and find the insurance office and get a new one. They called ahead and when they arrived, a copy of their insurance was waiting for them. They picked it up and came back, arriving in time to get through immigration and customs.

While waiting for the ferry, we met a couple from France who are seeing the world in their little truck. It is a camper and they live in it. They came to the tip of Argentina by boat and drove up the interior of South America. They turned right at the coast and are going through Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana before they head down the east coast of South America. When they get to the tip of Argentina, they plan to drive up the west coast of South America, Central America into the United States. They will take several months to tour the US and Canada and end up in Alaska. They have a map on the side of their camper with lines that show their route. They have made other trips into Asia and Africa. We admired their agenda but I think it would be lonely to never have any friends other than your companion and selfish to be touring constantly and not doing any good.

The drive to Paramaribo was beautiful. The dirt road was passable and they are working on the bad stretch of paved road into Paramaribo. Wayne got to see an anaconda snake and almost wrecked the car he was so excited. It had begun its journey across the road, but wasn’t out far enough for us to hit it. It must have been about 14-16’ long. The markings were beautiful. We found our hotel, the Best Western Elegance. We have never stayed here before and it is beautiful, comfortable and perfect. We probably won’t even call the Torarica again. We had dinner at the Torarica with the Tanners and then to bed. We were all tired.

Tuesday, October 14

We had breakfast with the Tanners and Henny Aroeman joined us. It was fun to see him again. They left together to visit hospitals and schools. We went to Digicel to find out why our phone doesn’t work. It turns out that the symcard expires after two months if you don’t use it every day. We had to buy a new symcard and get a new phone number. We will probably have to do that every time we come. I guess it is an expense just like Suriname car insurance. We have to buy that for every trip. We found Lorette Ibrahim’s dress shop and went in. I bought a blouse. I was excited. It is 100% cotton and black and a size L. When I got back to the hotel and tried it on, it is too tight. I don’t know where normal people buy their clothes, but Sister Tanner says the sizes run really small. She had that problem with Amanda when they went clothes shopping for her mission. She shouldn’t wear clothes that are really tight, but there is nothing else.

We had lunch at Burger King – couldn’t believe it was here – spent the afternoon reading. The Tanners and the Aroemans showed up about 3 so we visited with them until time to go to Tammenga to teach the in-service lesson. Attendance at the lesson was good. There were six out of seven teachers. I did “Deciding the What” and felt that with all of the times I have done it, that this went pretty well. I emphasized the fact that they can’t read all of the chapters in class. We worked on Matt. 4:1-11 which is the temptation of Christ. I discovered that there is no Dutch translation of the LDS Bible. They did not have the footnotes showing the JST. I was able to explain the corrections and why they made sense. They were very receptive. When I wanted lists made on the board, I had Natascha do it in Dutch. All in all, we accomplished a lot. It was hot in the room and at the end, Henny came in with two bottles of cold soda. Boy did it taste good!

We were able to talk to the zone leaders after the lesson and they suggested we call Elders Riding and Holtz to see if we could go out with them tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 15

We spent the morning with the Tanners. We visited the Jewish Synagog. It is big and old and we were curious. It is very beautiful and our guide was gracious in telling us about it. There is a very small community of Jews who are associated with it. The workmanship is very fine. The wood is polished and elegantly carved. There is a stand in the middle of the floor for the person leading the meeting to stand. At the front of the building, there is a large elegant cupboard where the Torah is stored. We were curious about the floors. They are sand. She said even in the women’s balcony there is sand. There are three reasons for the sand. 1) to remember the desert where they came from, 2) to remember their humility and 3) to catch oil lamps to keep the fire from spreading to the building (the first building burned down because of that). We really enjoyed our visit. We also met again our French couple whom we met on the ferry.

We took the Tanners to the Palm Garden and walked around for a little while, then let them to the road out of town to the ferry. They were going to Nickerie to spend the night and then go on home Thursday.

We called Elder Riding and Elder Holtz and arranged to take them out to lunch at 1 and then go on visits with them. They took us to an authentic German restaurant. When we got there, we realized it was a pancake house that we had been to before. They were disappointed that we knew about it but the food was really good. The men ordered “gladiators” and I ordered apple, raisens and cinnamon. Mine was good with syrup on it. Theirs was like a pizza with pancake on the bottom instead of bread dough.

We visited Sister Skipper first. She has been less active. The elders taught a lesson about the importance of partaking the sacrament. She was receptive. Wayne admired her plants. She grows plants to sell and they are beautiful. She has a huge variety and they all look very healthy. Sister Skipper has a funny tall house. I tried to get a picture of it by admiring her palm tree.