Me sweating again

I am cutting 2x8 lumber to make raised garden containers. We have a lot of these to build while serving in Jamaica but they are fun to do. With the help of the young elders and family members, the work goes fast and they start their gardens as soon as we leave. Each family had to attend 3 classes on gardening and pest control.

Something besides chickens

You probably thought that we only worked on chicken coops. We also are helping dozens of members build raised garden beds in their back yards. This is Sister Sousa who was delighted that she could plant several vegatables in such small areas. We teach the people to plant and fertilize the correct way so these little gardens will provide a fairly large quantity of produce.

Honored helpers

The senior missionaries in this picture are the Smiths. He is the brand new Patriarch. Jamaica has never had a Patriarch before so he will be busy. The Smiths love to help us on their days off and we love to have them help us. We are building raised garden beds for a member who is a single widow who needs a lot of help.

Finally

There is a group of 11 farmers in one of our brances that had the Church lease 5 acres of ground so they could plant various crops to supplement their income. We had a lot of issues such as distance from their homes, water, clearing of the ground, plowing and making furrows and security. Since the Church gave this group a lot of tools, it was decided to purchase a 20' used container and convert it into a secure storage facility. The truck delivering the container had trouble delivering it because it broke down several times and probably wasn't adequate in what it was designed to do.

Where's OSHA

After a long struggle, they finally unloaded the container but had to move it around a lot to find the most level spot. The next problem is getting a welder there repair the doors that were damaged in shipment. We have to weld large metal boxes over the areas where the door locks are so thieves don't break in so easily.

Thousands of school kits

The Church gives numerous containers full of supplies to Food for the Poor here in Jamaica. We are allowed half of what we give this organization if we want it. We decided to take a container that was full of school kits (assembled in Boise by the way) and distribute them to the various branches and organizations that need these kits for school children. Whenever we travel to a town that has a branch, we take a hundred or so of these kits and let the Branch President distribute them. This picture shows one of 12 pallets we unloaded at the Spanish Town Branch building. This building has a large storage room in the basement.

Hard working Sisters

This is Sister Whitehead and Sister Flake taking one of the boxes of school kits into the branch basement for storage. They were tired because we stored over 5,000 kits that day.

I asked the Elder to show me his shoes because they looked like they were worn out. Sure enough, you could actually see the sole of his foot through his shoe. His socks had large holes in them besides. Most Elders shoes look like this after a while.

Almost home

Here is a picture of a typical Elder right before he goes home. He is very slim, has a short hair cut and tanned. We have very good Elders here and are blessed by their desire to help us whenever we ask them.

Banana spider

This spider is about 5" in diameter and scared me to death when we ran into it's web. I don't know if it is poisonous or not but I wasn't about to find out. Double click on the picture so you can see how colorful it really is.

We have eggs!!!

This is Sister Grant with a large pan full of eggs from the layers we gave her. She gets between 30-38 eggs everyday and takes them to her neighbors or to the market to sell them. She gets about $2.25 a dozen and it really helps with her bills.

Another great sign in Jamaica

Jamaica has dozens of interesting highway signs throughout the country. I think they must have had a contest on slogans.