Our Crazy Weekend

We had quite the crazy weekend here in Portsmouth! It was so so busy, mostly with church stuff.

(Clarification: Our little branch is stationed in Portsmouth, but there is a small group of members that meet in Roseau- the capitol city, which is an hour away. The group in Roseau is still technically part of our branch)

Our branch hosted a "family fair" in the field by the church on Saturday.

It's an effort to try to spread the gospel a little and help the community like us more.

We had a bunch of local kids there that thought the games were so fun,

and a few adults came and were able to talk to the missionaries.

See the banner around the little fair, kind of containing it?

Well Chase felt strongly that he should only be on the outside of this banner.

Hence, Ben spent the whole time following our independent boy around the field

while I manned the ring toss game.

And despite our best efforts with the sunscreen, all three Hugos came

home a little burnt- the summer heat and intensity has arrived!

I think the event was a success!

Saturday night we got a call from our Branch President informing us that there had been a change of plans, that instead of normal church in Portsmouth we would all be heading down to Roseau for a baptism of a new member at 8, followed by church afterwards. We were supposed to meet at the school at 6:45 am. Our whole branch was packed into this bus, the picture doesn't do it justice- what you can't really see due to the angle is that almost every person also has a child on their lap. Ben and I had taken dramamine since we get very carsick on the long drive, so we were extremely drowsy and just out of it- which does not do great things for our people skills.

We made it in time to see Cathy baptized, in a beautiful river not far from the building where the group meets. Cathy was baptized by her husband who was just baptized himself a few months ago. As I sat there watching from the rock I was perched on, I thought that this must be the type of setting that they baptized people in the Book of Mormon. It was a sweet, spiritual moment and I'm glad we got to witness it.

And here we are all crammed into the small space for sacrament meeting. By the time we finally got home several hours later we were all tired, hungry, hot and a little less than cheery. Traveling around on a bus, in the heat, with a bunch of people, when there is lots of waiting around between things is hard anyway, but it is especially hard with kids. At times, it was almost so miserable that in hindsight it is comical! What an adventure we have had in Dominica! In a few months we will be back to normal church meetings, in a chapel with a foyer, carpet, classrooms, and airconditioning/heating, which sounds lovely, but I'll never forget these funny/miserable/quirky little things we did down here and all the memories we made!