Life goes on in Guyana

Dear friends and family,
 It has been good to hear from many of you this week. Mayara, I hope that your Mom is doing alright with her surgery.  Amy, it was really fun to read your letter that Mary copied and put on the email. We were actually in the office with 4 elders when we read it so they all read it with us. They were a little jealous about the steak and potatoes that you ate at the MTC.

We have been trying to visit a few members of the church from different parts of the Georgetown area so that we would know the students who want to use Perpetual education loans and help them apply. We still don't know how to help them very well but it is good to meet them and their families, so we know who we are talking to when they call and ask for help.

We also took it upon ourselves to visit the Elders in one of the apartments because we were told that it was not fit to live in. We found that the electricity didn't work in the bathroom, the shower had to be turned of by opening the bathroom window and turning a knob outside, and there was a hole in the floor of the bedroom where rats came in on occasion. We talked to the landlord about fixing those things and don't intend to pay any rent until he fixes those things. The floor and walls are in okay shape however and so I think that they will be okay to live there after the repairs are done.

Becky, happy birthday on Wednesday. I hope you spend the day doing things you really enjoy. August 1st is a big holiday in Guyana. It is called immancipation day, the day when the black people in Guyana were freed from slavery from the British who lived in Guyana. I went shopping at the grocery store today and they took 7 % off the grocery bill to celebrate and also gave us a free t-shirt because we spent over 50 US dollars (2000 GUY dollars). Speaking of money, the exchange rate is 1 US dollar to 200 GUY dollars. So a quart of milk costs 400 dollars which is 2 dollars US. It takes a little getting used to, figuring out how much you are spending. We usually get 150 US dollars worth of money at the ATM to live on each week. That is 30,000 GYU dollars. That is a lot of bills!

So life goes on and we are learning lots of things. I have been studying my latest book "Microsoft Office 2007 for Dummies" this week and finding out how some of the commands work that I didn't know existed. Fun and games.

We love you all!

Mom and Dad