Adjusting to life in Dominica

This is the view from right behind the medical school

This is such a beautiful island! Yesterday I went out with my next door neighbor and got a little more used to the island and figured a few more things out. Maybe it's the exhaustion from being up at all hours of the night with my baby, or just pure laziness, but I've had a hard time getting motivated to learn where everything is, how to handle all different types of situations, but even though I'm taking it slow, I am learning and we are all adjusting.

Here is my handsome little guy before church this morning

Here is Chase enjoying church Grandpa Smith style, asleep.

We had our first time at church today. There is a branch here with about 40 members, mostly students, quite a few who graduated from BYU. There were about 4 new families today that will all be starting school with Ben. It was a nice meeting, so different from what we are used to, but I liked it.

Ben starts orientation tomorrow- I'm excited to get this medical school ball rolling! He has orientation all week then starts classes the following Monday. I've got a few activities this week for spouses and our ward is having an opening social on Friday. Chase and I have a goal to get out this week in his brand new stroller and explore a little more.

A few luxuries from home that I now appreciate:

• A stove/oven that lights itself. I have to do it with a match. I have yet to do it successfully- so far every time I've tried Ben has had to come do it for me. I'll get it one of these days.
• Box Elder bugs- I know they are everywhere in the SWKT and at my house in Kaysville- they are no big deal compared to the bugs here. We sprayed around with insecticide and are trying to clean up any crumbs, but still we've had a few cockroaches....
• Teflon pans- I feel like we've jumped back to 1940 with our cookware. This will take some getting used to.

Overall, I like life here. I keep telling myself that lots of my friends have gone on missions to remote places like Indonesia, Brazil, Ecuador, etc. where conditions were probably much worse than this. I can do this!