Family History

We welcomed another new couple right after Christmas. This is Elder and Sister Handly. They have come to support the Family History program in the Caribbean. They are starting with Guyana but will go to Trinidad, Suriname, and the islands that have a need. This is the first picture we took with our new camera. It is a little blurry because we haven't gotten used to it yet. You may ask, what happened to the old camera? I'm sorry we don't have a picture of that!

We went to Patentia Village to visit Sister Ruby and collect her attendance report for the month of November. The first time we went, her yard and house were flooded. People were bailing water out of the bottom floor. We could not get close enough to the house to get her attention and decided she was too busy to deal with us anyway so we went home. It is an hour drive to her village. Her phone didn't work and hadn't worked for over a week. We decided to go back a week later. We found her and she welcomed us into her home, BUT, her yard was still flooded. The flood water is brown so you cannot see through it. There is a trench (with yucky water) around every house in Guyana. The trench was flooded. There was a bridge, but we couldn't see it. Sister Ruby stood in her gateway and said, "Just walk toward me and you'll be fine." Elder Langford walked toward her and was fine. He turned to me and said, "Just walk where I walked". I took a step and felt the bridge, I took a second step and there was no bridge and I went down sideways up to my neck in yucky water. My bag with my camera, cell phone and the palm pilot went with me. Sister Ruby, her sister and Elder Langford couldn't help laughing until they cried. I crawled out like a drowned rat and regretted that we couldn't get a picture of the entire mess. We got the November report, cancelled our other appointment in Patentia and went home. I took a 20 minute hot shower with lots of soap, washed my clothes (including my black skirt) in Clorox and was as good as new. Elder Langford was able to dry out all three electronics, but the cell phone is the only one that agreed to work. The camera and the palm pilot were lost. There are nasty diseases that you can get from falling into trenches, but we have been very faithful about taking our malaria meds from the day we got here. We found out that the malaria meds are what they give to people in flooded areas and it prevents other diseases besides malaria. Lesson: Be obedient to all of the rules and the Lord will bless you.