Tired? Ha ha!

Hi to all,

Surprise! Bonnie said she was tired of doing this weekly update (not really), and so it is my turn to put pen to paper so to speak. Another day, week, month, and year has come and gone here in sunny Turks and Caicos. There seems to be some new event or adventure to overcome each step of the way as we continue to figure out which direction to go in service to the Lord. Tomorrow we do a full court press on the local DMV office in pursuit of obtaining local drivers licenses. Bonnie takes her first in a series of tests (this is the international road sign test) When she finally gets her driver’s license we will be made whole after our break in and robbery a few weeks back. We finally received our replacement credit cards and a new PIN so we can again get cash from the local ATM. Of course the banks here would not cash “off island” checks for us, and they won’t let us open an account without depositing tens of thousands of $$$. That’s just not going to happen. Here’s what I’ve been going through to get the church vehicle registered and get a local license....

Experience #1.... Registering the car.... I can’t tell you how many trips to the Dept of Motor Safety to get this done. Finally and only with the help of a local member, it is legal to take it on the roads

Experience #2 ... Local Driver’s Lisence ..... I made no less than 10 trips so far to get the license. The computers were down, their copy machines aren’t working, I needed cash and only had a credit card, I needed to go to a different office to pay the fees, etc, etc. It took three trips for them to figure out Alaska was part of the United States...so he had to have special signature in order to proceed. Finally after all the running around and days of returning to visit our new (and becoming very well acquainted) friends, after paying the standard $125.00, I have to go back in tomorrow ( two weeks later) to pick it up. What do you believe the odds are that I will have the license this time tomorrow night? I’ll never complain about the Alaska DMV office again!

On another front, we had more vandalism done to the church building yesterday. We have been trying to get some fairly extensive remodeling done on the building. One of the members runs a small construction company and he got the job to do the work. Apparently one of his workers (not a member) was mad at him because he has not been paid. Anyway, this worker paid a visit to the rear of the building and brought along his handy-dandy cable cutters and cut the 220V wire bundle to the building in 3 places. When we discovered the damage, I called our member “boss” and told him what happened. He said he would come right over. In the mean time I made all the appropriate notifications by phone. However, when I tried to call and report the incident to the local sterling police department, I tried for an hour to reach them by phone (911 and local numbers) but never got an answer. Kind of makes you feel really safe and secure doesn’t it? By the time I returned to the rear of the building and talked to the “boss” he said he knew who did it and he had called him on the phone and confronted him. The worker admitted doing the damage because he was mad and said please don’t report it to the police, and he would come right over and repair it. He did. That took a bit of the sting out of knowing the entire T&C police department had apparently taken the day off. That’s the way things happen on this island.

On a more positive note, the work continues to move along here. Today was testimony meeting and several of these sweet and humble people stood and shared the contents of their hearts with the rest of us. Bonnie’s twice a week ESL class continues to be very popular. There now seems to be more non-church members than members. However, that fact continues to generate new teaching pool leads for our elders. I think most of them simply come to see the “cheer-leading white lady” bounce around the room on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It’s a fun sight as you might imagine. Our Mission President is paying us a visit this Friday and Saturday. It’s always fun and uplifting to visit with him and his wife when they visit. Although the local elders go into a panic each time.

I have rambled on enough for this installment. We feel very blessed to be on the Lord’s errand. thank you for all your support, emails, and prayers. They really do make a difference. Bye till next time...

Mike and Bonnie

Below are pictures of non-members learning the Articles of Faith and Family Night Bingo with Elder Herbert!