The Trapani's in Timor Leste

First thing we have to do is unlock the gate. There is a lot of loitering in the church area overnight so we have to secure the building whenever we leave. Cheryl on her way to pick up the Cockroaches in the bathrooms. We have a three person speaking rotation for sacrament meeting. Today was Cheryl turn. We had 100% attendance in our Ward today plus two investigators. Some of the kids go off to the side and play Cheryl is the chorister. We sing from recorded music. We also include vocals with the music so we have enough voices.    After sacrament meeting, which lasts about 45 minutes Cheryl teaches the combined primary. There are four children. She keeps them occupied for about 30 minutes.

We start off our Sunday Services by first unlocking the gate. The gate and front fence are topped with barbed wire. It's not an indication that the church is in a terrible neighborhood but just that almost every building in the city has a fence and barbed wire  Sacrament meeting starts at 10. Today we had two investigators, two adult members and Cheryl and I. Cheryl, a member named Warlito and I take turns speaking each of the Sundays. For a second speaker we play a recording of a general conference talk. Warlito and I take turns blessing the sacrament. The ordinance goes by so fast that we have to pause in between blessing the bread and the water so members have more time to reflect.  After sacrament meeting all of the children go in a single primary class. One of the members has three children and one has only one. On some Sundays there are no children.  Today during Sunday school we had the first ever investigator class. Benny and Janu today re...

We have some of the best sunsets here. If you can overlook our complexes 12 foot high wall with barbed wire you will see a very nice sunset Even though we live in a nice apartment complex the road to it is down a dirt alley. This is what it looks like after one of our daily rainstorms It was pouring rain on our way to a restaurant for dinner. Because it's warm kids just continue playing outside in the rain Today I became a warden for the US Embassy. I am in charge of looking after all of the Latter-Day Saint United States citizens on the island. If there are any emergencies I would be the link for communications. If I became aware of any problems concerning the citizens I would report that to the Embassy. Right now it's a very easy job. All I have to do is watch over Cheryl. The helmet law requires all adults to wear 1 when they operate a motorcycle. I have never seen a youth, child or baby with a motorcycle helmet on. Quite often there will be a small bab...

 Not only do they drive on the other side of the street, but I have no idea what some of the traffic signs mean. We've even asked some native drivers about this one and no one knows  This one means don't use your horn in this area. Horns are well used in the country. A tap of the horn rarely needs danger or get out of the way. It almost always means I see you, how are you doing, or thanks for acknowledging me and now I'm acknowledging you. Horns are so well-used that most of them are broken on the steering wheel and now they use a switch on the dashboard.  This sign is a general pay attention warning  There are no standards for vehicle maintenance or visibility. Almost every windshield has something on it to block out the Sun from coming in.  The blue vehicle is called a microlet. They are on predetermined routes throughout the city. Depend upon the number on the vehicle you know where it's going. It cost $0.25 and it stops when you tap your qua...

 We've had the busiest 4 Days of our mission. We were visited by our humanitarian leaders and then by our mission president. We had to schedule appointments and show them around. In the middle of all of that we began our English classes. We have four english classes that are each twice a week. On our first class we had 57 signed up. We had no idea how many would actually attend.  We had 42show  up.  An ideal class size is 20. We had never taught before. The curriculum is a little bit difficult. We were remarkably calm. We could only laugh at the prospects of no one showing up, too many showing up, us doing a horrible job and people walking out, or anything else unknown for the first time. It went remarkably well. We actually enjoyed it. We were exhausted at the end of the day but remarkably unstressed.  We had a team teaching approach. We would each go for about 10 minutes. The class lasts for 1 hour This was the larger class. It was very difficu...

Our charity had contracted with a rural Water company to provide water systems to 12 remote villages. We visited the last two of the 12 installations. In each of these Villages the water systems brought water faucets to within 100 yards of each of the homes in the village. Before the systems the villagers would have to walk sometimes up to an hour and collect water in containers. Often times the water was also polluted. In this instant a plastic water tank was installed because of the difficulty of getting a cement truck into the village. Cement tanks are preferred because of their durability. The fencing around the water tank is to keep animals from  damaging the system. Most particularly the pigs. This is one of the typical water stands in the village. Some Villages had up to 12 of these. The design is mandated by the local Water District. These are typical dwellings in the district. Almost all of the industry here is local farming. This is a view from one of the...

Malnutrition is a major problem on the island. Over half of the population suffers from it. The problem is a lack of food volume but also a lack of variety. LDS charities helps fund programs to educate and enable rural food producers. Here is a sample of one of their Farms. The growing process includes compost pits. The farm produces its own seedlings. LDS charities has funded one Farm project in this area each year. We visited all three and found each one still operating effectively. At one of them the farming group had prepared a thank you dinner and traditional presentation of appreciation scarves for Cheryl and I. The meal was interesting. Bananas were prepared some way that made them taste bad. We had some sort of pickled papaya. Rice was prepared the traditional ways. Part of it was cooked in banana leaves. Another part of it was cooked inside of bamboo. There was of course the traditional greens and cut up chicken. It's always frightening to eat these meals. Fli...