Happy 4th of July

Dear Family,

This week, one of the highlights was to attend a 4th of July party at the home of the Ambassador of the United States. It was hosted by the US Embassy, and as far as we could tell, we were the only missionaries from the church who were invited.  There were lots of Americans there who work for the Embassy and many dignitaries from other countries who are associated in one way or another with the Embassy.

We had lots of conversations with people and most of them have moved from one country to another to do their jobs.  The secretary for the Ambassador has moved about 13 times I believe to various countries for her job.  It seems like everyone had a story to tell about their life.

We dressed like cowboys and the band did an excellent job of playing country music. We even danced for a couple of minutes to the tune of "Achy Breaky Heart".

As we were leaving, we met the Ambassador of Sri Lanka.  His wife told us that she had been at the Assembly Hall in Salt Lake City and had performed as a drummer at Christmas time.  She had a great experience there, not only as a performer, but also going on the tours of Welfare Square and Temple Square. 

We also enjoyed hearing from you as you shared your week and told us about the 4th of July celebration in Dayton.  It made us grateful for your willingness to continue the celebration so that the children could have the fun that goes with that day.

Congratulations to Jacob for his outstanding run, and Happy Birthday to Gideon and Joseph this week. 

Today we attended church in Demerara on the East Coast. They meet in the newest church building in Guyana. It was dedicated the first month we were here. We attended branch correlation meeting after the block. The church is very young here. The leaders could use lots of counsel on how to counsel together to bring the unity in the branch the gospel requires. The main focus of the meeting was visiting and fellowshipping the new converts. No home teaching is taking place and little or no visiting teaching. The auxiliaries are weak and partially functioning. There is lots of need for senior couple shadow leadership. That is hard to do without a strong relationship with the leaders, so they don't feel threatened or offended. I think we can lend some help. 

It is a mammoth job to run a functioning branch here. There are so few who are really committed enough to follow through with assignments.

Anyway, we press forward and hope that we are doing some good. 

Love to all of you, Mom and Dad