The Trapani's in Timor Leste

It was time again for our quarterly  trip to Bali to renew our Visa. We hired a driver for the day to take us around to some of the sites. This is the Tegallang Hindu temple in Bali. Famous because it is almost 1000 years old. The attractive skirt that I am wearing is a covering they give everyone who goes on to the temple grounds. This was a traditional fabric coloring store. By hand a wax that is impregnated with colors is dotted onto a material. The wax is then washed away in a hot bath and the color remains. This is a silver jewelry and silver Arts company. By hand intricate pieces of jewelry are made. We watched one being made that will take a week to complete. Each of the neighborhoods are organized by different trades. All of the silver companies are in one neighborhood. Other neighborhoods have stone cutting companies and still others are wood cutting neighborhoods. We went to a butterfly Park. This is actually a large moth. It was a very transformative day.

Our students took a midterm exam. Attendance was much greater in each class for the exam then it was for the lessons. For some reason in this culture tests are held in very high esteem. One of our classes has 3 Catholic sisters. After the test they asked to have their picture taken with us. One of the reasons the class interests them is that they will be serving in America for a period of time. Today at church we had our biggest attendance ever. On the front row is Warlito who is a member of the church from the Philippines. On the row behind is Janu our English class assistant, his fiance Zelia and her sister Santi. He's difficult to see but sitting behind Warlito is one of Dominguez's children. On the next row is Dominguez and 3 of her children. On the last row is Eden, Genevieve and Billy, they are members of the church. In the very back by the keyboard is Tara who is a member of the church and planning to serve a mission soon. Those who are not members are show

We had a midterm field trip for our English classes. About 95 of our students showed up for the activity. We all piled into two dump trucks. This is the typical transportation in the country for large groups of people. On the way out I rode in the back of the larger dump truck. Because I was in the middle of the truck I was not able to steady myself by holding on to the side. Whenever the truck would speed up, slow down or turn the whole wave of people would almost push you over. It took a lot of effort just to stay upright. After the one-hour trip I was exhausted. Just before we reached our destination our dump truck broke down. One of the tires went flat. All of the tires were in incredibly poor condition. Some of the tire sizes did not even match. Once we arrived at the beach we split up into class groups for English-speaking activities. The classes then put on skits and demonstrations of some of their skills. We also had a lunch of temorize food which meant it was all

The family that fills the second row are investigators to the church. The mother at the end is one of our English students. They have come for the last 3 weeks. They only  speak tetun and Bahasa. For their first two weeks we had a member in attendance who speaks both those languages. This week he was gone. None of the other members of our congregation speak those languages. We struggled on what to do to provide her with a Sunday service that would be of any value to her and her family. It was complicated. On the row in front of her family is Janu and his fiance Zelia. Janu is our voluntary assistant for our English class. He also attends church about 1/2 of the time. When I gave my talk in sacrament meeting he translated for me. As usual in our meetings we have a talk from General Conference. We played the Bahasa version and gave the English-speaking members a printed English copy to follow. After sacrament meeting we had primary and Sunday School. Cheryl taught primary with Zi

This is the Beach Walk sidewalk. Not much maintenance in the last year so things have started to erode. This is Tim Davis he is from Texas A&M University. He has an instructor and department head in some sort of agricultural specialty. He comes to timor-leste occasionally and puts on training seminars. He is a member of the church and always tries to make it on Sunday. This is the second time he's been here since we've been in the country. Two fishing boats out for evening fishing.  This is one of the open sewers by our house. They use it to wash the taxis and small buses. The washers will dip their buckets into the water and then throw it against the vehicle. Whenever we walk by we try and make sure we don't get splashed. After our Tuesday and Thursday English classes we have the taxi drop us off at a restaurant close to home. We then have about a mile walk along the beach. This is one of our walks. They are wonderful. There are lots of embassies  an