June 30, 2013

We were in for a real treat today.  The maintenance department of the Area Caribe has completed remodeling of the bathroom at the Quisqueya chapel.  Using the bathroom facilities has not been a pleasant experience.  The mops were kept in the room along with the wash bucket not, I might mention, in a clean tidy way.  There, of course, has been no running water and often the tinaca (the water tank on the roof) had no water because no one ordered water from the water truck.  Urine would often be on the floor because the little children would miss the toilet.  Also it had a bathtub that was an eyesore.  Keep in mind that the chapel was formerly a house and is a rented building.  It is not owned by the Church.  Unpleasant sites and unpleasant odors.  

Well look at these pics.  The remodeled bathroom has two stalls, a beautiful tile floor, a new sink and a lovely mirror on the wall. 

As you can see my shadows are always with me 

And that is not all.  The outside area has now been turned into a parking lot which entailed getting rid of the unsightly weeds.  That’s the baptismal font in the back.  I think I have already mentioned that water has to be ordered from the water truck when there is a baptism in order to fill up the font. 

Speaking of water, we have more good news.  There is a well on the property that has been not been used because someone stole the pump a few years ago and it was all plugged up with rocks.  It is now being fixed and this week there should finally be running water in the chapel. Whoo hoo!!!!

We were recently invited to a conference by a group from the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN)that meets monthly to discuss different historical themes of the Dominican Republic. This one was about Juan Pablo Duarte who was one of the country's Founding Fathers.  Anyway the person conducting the meeting recognized the Church and FamilySearch and all the great work the “Mormons” have done to help preserve their history through microfilming or digitizing important documents pertinent to their history and of genealogical significance.  

We thought that was kind of cool especially since the audience applauded us. 

One of our Dominican Senior Missionaries brought a cocao fruit to show us at FHE.  This is where we get our chocolate from.  It is full of seeds of cocao beans that are inside that white pulp.  That is one of the seeds that I am holding in my fingers. The pulp is very sweet and tasty. 

Tomorrow we celebrate a 4^th of July BBQ with our Family Home Evening (FHE) group.  I’m making my family favorite potato salad.  Thank goodness we found a store here that sells Kraft Mayonnaise.  Potato salad is not potato salad with any other mayo in our family’s opinion.  Hee hee  

Well the time is moving quickly. We are entering the month of July making 2 ½ months before we come home.  I’m already thinking of all the things we had to buy here and who to give them to like our blender, floor fan, iron and ironing board, clothes rack to dry our clothes on, and other smaller assorted items.  It’s interesting how you learn to make do with the humblest of things. We save things like jars and grocery bags and the plastic that the newspaper is wrapped in. The jars we use to put food away in so as not to have to buy a lot of containers that we can’t take home with us, the grocery bags line our small trash can in the kitchen and the plastic paper the newspaper comes in is good to make kites with for the Quisqueya boys and girls. I never buy baggies.  I use plastic wrap instead etc.

I will probably write two more updates, July and August, before we come home.  By the way, the mangos are out of this world right now.  mmmm mmm good!!!

Ciao

Nancy