Springtime in Guyana

Springtime in Guyana

Actually, it always felt like summer and there were always blossoms.

Some of our favorite blossoms were the water lilies.

It is hot in Guyana.  I noticed that today it is 88 degrees, and humid.  It is cooler than it was when we came.  We had many days in the upper nineties.  We are enjoying the "cooler" weather. One benefit of this climate is all the beautiful blossoms.  The trenches are still full of gorgeous big water lilies and the fruit are growing: pineapple, bananas, mangoes, papaya, and many, many more.

Bug bites

February 2013

Elder Beecher wanted to share this picture with you, so that you could commiserate with him.  He has had some type of critters attack his knees a few times.  We have been spraying our bed and it hasn't happened lately.  Luckily, those bugs haven't bothered Sister Beecher.

Humanitarian Substitutes

February 11, 2013

Elder and Sister Cook

Elder Val and Sister Marsha Cook are the Humanitarian Missionaries.  They were living in the apartment where we are, but when we came they were sent to Suriname to do some projects there.  However, they had started projects here in Guyana.  Because they are in and out of the country we have been helping them with their projects.  Our first project was to find members to help unload a 40 foot shipping container with school kits, hygiene kits, quilts, blankets, clothes, shoes, and sign language books for an organization called The Council of Persons with Disabilities.  We invited the Young Single Adults, and then the Branch Presidents announced it in church so that we could get members there to help.   There were eventually 8 or ten men helping to unload the container into a truck.
     They couldn't find a place to unload the container, so Mr. Rohaman consented to let us use his a spot on his Rohaman Park property.  His buildings are across the street from our Garden Park branch building.  It was a 30 foot by 30 foot place with a roof and a wall on each end.  Thirty or forty  sisters came to help, and eight people from the Council of Persons with Disabilities.
     We were instructed to unload the trucks and put everything in separate piles.  We ordered pizza and fed about 60 for lunch.  The sisters opened the big bundles of clothing from the sort center and separated it into mens, ladies, children, babies, and household items.  Most of them packed a little goodie bag to take home with things they wanted.  After three or four or five trips with the truck everything was unloaded.  We were happy to be done.  Then the leader of the Council group said when we come back tomorrow we can put everything in piles for each of the 25 groups in the Council.  My mouth dropped open because we could have done that during the day.  Our sisters would unload for a while and then sit and wait.  I finally told her that we would come back on Wednesday and bring the Elders and arrange it in piles for each group.  I told the sisters that we wouldn't need them to come back.
On Wednesday, our 10 Georgetown Elders came, and most of the sisters came back.  The council leader had invited them back.  We worked hard all day.  The Elders had to load a truck and take a bunch of the stuff to be stored at the Center for the Blind.  The Elders were throwing those boxes around in a chain line.  The sisters did that also, on the Monday.  We got everything put into 25 piles for the different groups.  The sisters turned out to be very useful because they had to put a little of every kind of clothing in one bag for each of the groups, and they packed another bag of goodies to take home. We ordered pizza again.  Because the place was not large enough we put down pallets with big pieces of plywood on them and piled the things on that.  Mr. Rohaman had his workers put up a tent.

Kendrick from LaGrange.

Natasha Algu

Sister Goodluck and Sister Chin and others.

Some of the wonderful sisters who helped.

Mark Cuehlo, who left on his mission this morning, Bro.
Crookshank, who has a gold mining operation, Elder Beecher, President
Reese from the Garden Park branch, Bro. Braithwaite, and Bro. Beharry.

Elder Gines, Elder McClain, Elder Mecham, Elder Anderson (in the back), Elder Reise,
Elder Babb, Elder Andreamanantena and Elder Wilson. Elder Nedd and Elder Giddings were gone unloading the truck.

     That night the rain poured down and some of the boxes got wet and the piles tipped over.  The next day the Cooks came and they had a Handing Over Ceremony where they invited the news and had speeches to celebrate the gift.  Mr. Walcott who is over the Council and rides a fancy red scooter type wheel chair came.  President Pooran from our District Presidency spoke among others.  There were about 20 students from a deaf school who came, and many of the disabled council members.  They were happy to receive all the items.  We were happy to hand it over to them.  We felt like it was a very successful project.  We had so many there and they all worked together.  We made some new friends on the Council and they came this past week to our Vision project.  We enjoyed being able to work together with everyone.

January 2013 Report to President Mehr

Dear President Mehr, 

Wow, can’t believe it is February 7^th!   Here is our report for January.  We loved our senior missionary conference in Trinidad.  It was wonderful to meet all the other senior couples. We learned and were inspired by the talks and information presented.  It will help us to be better missionaries.   The visit out to see the scarlet ibis was especially a thrill, and it was so enjoyable to go for a nice boat ride with everyone. There was a peaceful feeling being together with the group, although we missed Sister Mehr.

The idea of starting our own English and Maths CXC preparation classes at the church in Guyana is very exciting to us.  Our great Guyana PEF Country Committee has a vision for being able to help the people here.  We spoke with President Gamiette, as you suggested, and he was very interested in holding the "Maths" and "English" classes right after seminary and institute.   He thinks it would help in getting more students out to seminary and institute if we made that a requirement for the CXC classes.  He called Brother Rappeley who wondered about the legality of having a public class in the church, and also whether private schools would complain about the Church teaching their own classes.  President Gamiette then called Elder Cornish and told him about his interest in the idea and also about those two concerns.  Elder Cornish met with the Area Presidency who decided that if the teachers are not being paid, and the students are not paying for the class that there is not a problem holding the classes in the church.  Elder Cornish wants us to turn it over to President Benn and the branch presidents to discuss and work out the details, so that it belongs to them and it’s not the missionaries running it.  That is our plan right now.  President Gamiette may come on the 17^th of February when we have our next PEF Country Committee meeting.  He would also like to be there when the Priesthood discusses it.   

Planning and organizing the humanitarian program, the “Vision for All Project”, that is coming February 23^rd has kept us very busy.  It is challenging to figure out how to serve the members and non-members.  Getting enough people out to the clinics and not too many is a fine line. Better having a few too many than not enough is our motto, although having a mob of needy people is not good.  We are planning what to do with all the people when they come to the clinics.  We have been making vouchers for the branch presidents to pass out and trying to get them to write down the names and phone numbers of those to whom they give vouchers.  We want to make the 5 eye doctors and the other 17 people they are bringing happy. Figuring out transportation for 22 people and their luggage with 5,000 pairs of glasses to and from the airport, to church, to the clinics etc. is challenging. They do not all come nor leave at the same time.  We are planning lunches for them on three days and figuring out how they will do their laundry.  There will be three clinics; one in Linden, two in Berbice, on Monday, February 25 and a three day clinic in Georgetown on the 26th, 27th, and 28^th.  We are signing up volunteers to help and the missionaries to teach.  Plus we are building cardboard boxes with dividers to organize the 5,000 pair of glasses, and planning how to set up the exam rooms.  The Cooks are helping when they are around. We will be grateful when this project is over.

We are also helping the Cooks with another project.  They ordered a container of humanitarian kits, clothing and shoes from the SORT Center for the Guyana Council of Organizations for Persons with Disabilities.  The missionaries and YSA will help unload the container and sort the clothes and shoes.  Everything needs to be distributed out to 22 different groups.

We are keeping up with our monthly contacts to our PEF participants and sorting out all the little problems.   There are several who need to renew their loans, but are having problems meeting the PEF standards.  Three girls who were 150+ days behind in their payments have been making buck bead necklaces for Sister Beecher.  She is buying them to sell at home, only none of them have made it home yet.  The sister missionaries and visitors are buying many of them.  All three girls are caught up on their payments now, and are making more necklaces.  Two people got their new loans approved, but they have decided to wait for the CXC preparatory classes to start in the church. The best loan is no loan.

We are making progress with our piano students and are thrilled to have the six new keyboards from the Harmon Grant.  We need to quit teaching every new person who shows up.  We need to finish up with the ones we are working with and then start a new group.  We are also going to shut the door so all the primary kids and babies don’t come in.   A few students are making good progress.

We also finished training the Employment Specialists for all but two branches in Guyana when we finished the training of our 5 Berbice Employment Specialists on January 26^th.    The training lasts about ten hours.  We LOVED training them using “The Career Workshop.”  We know such a powerful program will definitely help a person get a job. We hope that the branch presidents will have them tell about it in church and share how they can help the members.  We also hope they will teach these classes to members of their branches.

Being here in Guyana as missionaries is great.  We love our association with the other missionaries.  We were sad to see Treseders leave, and Summers will be right behind them.  It was fun to meet the Carters and Esplins, and we pray that they will be settled soon in Berbice. 

Oh, one more thing.  We attended the “World Interfaith Harmony Week” where President Pooran gave one of the talks at the National Cultural Center.  We set up a table and gave away pamphlets and Books of Mormon.  There were many other religions represented but we were proud of Pres. Pooran and felt that the Church was represented well.

Thank you President Mehr for all you do.  The zone conference was also great and the fireside for the youth.  Sorry this is so long.

Carters and Esplins arriving in Guyana. World Interfaith Harmony Week

The Carters and Esplins arriving in Guyana.  The Guyanese
flag flying.  The airport is called the Cheddi Jagan International
Airport.

Just an interesting outfit I
wanted to capture.

A picture taken out the back window of the airport.

The only picture I got of them.  The Carters are,  going from left to right,  #'s 1 and 3,
the Esplins are #'s 5 & 6.

February 5, 2012

The International Airport in Guyana.

We had an exciting day today.  The Beutlers and we drove to Guyana's Cheddi Jagan International Airport to pick up our two new senior couples.  The Carters are from North Carolina and the Esplins are from Salt Lake City and St. George.  They will both be serving out in Berbice, a couple hours away from Georgetown.  The Carters will be in East Canje where the Treseders lived, and the Esplins will be in Bush Lot and are homeless for now.  Elder Esplin asked me if I knew any Ogdens from Richfield.  I said, "I am an Ogden from Richfield".  They have a Wayne Ogden and his family renting their home while they are gone.  I told him I was sure we were cousins and asked him to find out who his father and grandfather are.  They will be staying with the Carters while they look for a place to live.  Somehow the communication lines were down and we didn't find out until yesterday afternoon that they were coming today.  The Beutlers drove to Berbice with them to help them get settled.  We had taco soup together here at our place and then they were going to drive to Berbice.  They didn't end up leaving until three thirty, and then they stopped at Bush Lot to look at an apartment and see the church.  Those two newly arrived Elders had to drive from Georgetown, and get there in the dark.  What a wild time for their first day here.

Last Friday we found out when we went walking at 6:00 in the morning that we were invited to a religious meeting at the National Cultural Center at 8:00.  We heard that President Pooran, the counselor in the District Presidency was going to be a speaker.  We hurried and got ready, even faster than usual because the power was off and I didn't have to dry my hair:)  We hurried over there and hardly anyone was there (it started at 8:30), but people were setting up display tables in the large foyer.  Elder Beutler asked Pres. Pooran if we should set up a display and he said yes, so the Beutlers and Elder Beecher ran to gather pamphlets, Books of Mormon, our banner, etc.  We managed to get it all set up by the time the meeting finally started at 8:45.  It turned out to be a meeting of many different religions for the United Nations "World Interfaith Harmony Week".  It was very interesting to see all the Muslims, Hindus, Bai'hi, Mystics, Rastifarians, and others all dressed in their religious garbs.  About eight different religions offered prayers, and then others gave talks on harmony.  President Pooran gave a great talk about "love the Lord, thy God, and love thy neighbor as thyself".  He talked about service and how one of our leaders spoke of lifting the hands that hang down, and strengthening the feeble knees.  He talked about how all the people in Guyana get along even though they are many different religions.  He made us proud.  Then the Prime Minister, Samuel A.A. Hines gave a nice short talk and the Police Band played the Guyana National Anthem.    Then they ended that part of the meeting and invited everyone to look at the display tables and enjoy a snack.  They had packed styrofoam containers with fruit and others with cheese pastries, pineapple tarts, and sandwiches. Elder Beecher's pineapple tart did not have any pineapple or even pineapple syrup just the crust. We visited with some interesting people and looked at the displays.  People were quickly gathering up our pamphlets of The Plan of Salvation, The Restoration, The Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, The Family, Tithing and Fast Offerings, and Books of Mormon.  We were happy that the Church was so well represented and felt that we made a very positive impression.  It was something that the members here could be proud of.

The Rastafarian Leader

President Pooran on the right.

Our display table and people checking out our pamphlets.

President Benn, our District President in front of the table and banner.

The Rastafarians don't believe in cutting their hair.

The Bai'hai

A sharp looking Rastafarian.

The Hindu group, I believe.

The one in white is a Muslim for sure, and the other men may be.
The muslim women wear scarves over their faces and only their eyes
show.  They wear long sleeves and are very modest and probably hot.

This lady sat just in front of us.
President Pooran said that she is
the most powerful woman in the
government.

Mission Couples Conference

January 26
Wow, this month has flown by.  On January 2, we planned to fly to Trinidad for the mission couples conference.  We were on our way to the airport and the Treseders were driving.  Elder Beecher suddenly remembered that we forgot our passports.  Ackk.  Elder Treseder turned the car around and we raced back home to get our passports.  We were 45 minutes down the road when he remembered, so by the time we finally made it to the airport they had closed the flight.  There was still a half hour before it took off, but we were too late.  We called Sister Galbraith, our mission travel coordinator and she tried to change our flight to the next morning, but they said that we were already on the flight that we had missed.  We went back into the airport and tried to convince the man at the counter that he had signed us in on the flight that had left.  He would not even listen to us.  Forty five minutes later  after we had lost our cool and asked to speak to his supervisor he checked and found out that we were right.  He booked us on the flight the next morning at 5:30.  Elder and Sister Treseder drove us back to Georgetown, an hour drive, and we took them out to dinner (the least we could do).  Then we  went home to bed and woke up at 2:00.  So that we could be at the airport at 3:30.  We were there in time for the conference to begin on Thursday morning, but missed the activities the night before.
It was great to be at the conference.  There were twenty some couples there and a couple single sisters.  It was wonderful to meet all those missionaries and feel like we were a part of something great, not just working away on our own.  The conference was inspiring, uplifting, and motivating!  Here are some of the things I came away with: " Preach the Gospel all day every day.  If you need to use words."(President Uctdorf)  Starve your Problems - Feed your Opportunities.  Before you speak, Taste your words.  How to obtain real growth - train a replacement.  Where there is no vision, people perish. What is that feeling you are feeling?  Follow that feeling.  Understand and honor your covenants.  Review covenants you have made in the temple.  Help the Elders be obedient.  Help members prepare for new missionaries.  Work with councils. Study Preach my Gospel.  This is true on the earth in which you stand.  Know the the thoughts and intents of the hearts of those you teach. (Ether Cha. 1 & 2, Ether 2:14, Alma 10:17, Alma 8:16, and Moroni 7:38-47) and many other things.

Mission Conference in Trinidad

We all fit into one boat.

January 2 - 5, 2013
Our Senior Missionary Conference in Trinidad.
One of the most enjoyable parts of our mission conference was going on a little boat ride to see the scarlet ibis.

This ride reminded us of Puerto Rico with all the mangrove
 roots going down into the river.

Snails attached themselves to the roots .

The scarlet ibis have a little black on their wingtips.  They were magnificent!

 There were white ibis mixed in with the red
roosting on the island.

A snake curled up in the tree above us as we floated down the river.

We learned so much at the mission conference, but we also had the opportunity to take a little boat ride down a river to an area where the scarlet ibis come to roost on a little island every night.  We saw some viper snakes curled up in the trees up above us, and lots of tri-colored heron, and white ibis.  The scarlet ibis were definitely my favorite.  They are a fairly large bird with a wingspan of about 30 inches, long legs, long neck, and a long bill.  They would fly in in flocks of 20 to 50 or so and land on only this one island.  We were there just at dusk and they just kept flying in.  The guide told us that there are between 1,500 and 2,000 of the scarlet ibis who come there to roost.  They are a bright scarlet color and when the sun shown on their wings they would almost glow.  It was like a spiritual experience for me.  It was so breathtaking.

The Summers who serve in Guyana.

January 2013

Our couples mission conference in Trinidad was wonderful.  It was so inspiring to meet with all the senior missionaries.  There were 20 + couples and two sisters, our nurse and our sister who does the travel arrangements.  It was great to get to know them because we never see the couples who are on the islands or in Suriname and French Guiana.  We loved feeling the unity.  There are 12 countries in the mission and 5 different languages.  I'm sure that the conference cost a bunch just to fly everyone in and put us up in the Marriott.  Every time there are transfers, they deal with the travel plus all the immigration requirements, police reports, and visas.

All the Senior Missionaries in the West Indies Mission

President and Sister Mehr

President Goodluck, President Mehr
 and President Bennion

On the right are the Beutlers, our downstairs neighbors.

 Treseders on the left.  They just returned home.

The Cooks, Humanitarian missionaries, 1/2 time in Guyana


We had four couples serving in Guyana.  The Treseders just left to return home to Queen Creek Arizona. We will miss them so much.  The Summers serve in Linden and we are with the Beutlers here in Georgetown.  The Cooks come to Guyana from Suriname regularly.  We love our association with the other couples.  We are blessed.  Most of the couples are out on an island on their own.