Thanksgiving Day

 Happy thanksgiving to all of you.  If you are interested in this blog enough to open and look at it, you are one of the people we are very thankful for!  We have spent a very interesting day today.  We have missed the American traditions of home and family on this our favorite holiday.  Our favorite family tradition is our Thanksgiving candle which is basically a family testimony meeting the evening of Thanksgiving with a candle in your hands that is passed from person to person.  Here's our candle from Trinidad.  We are thankful for health and means that have made it possible to serve this mission together.  We are thankful for a beautiful family comprised of people we admire, respect and cherish for their righteous desires.  We are most especially thankful for the gift of the atonement and the plan of salvation that a loving Father put in place that we might have hope of returning to his presence.  We are thankful for friends that inspire us.  We are thankful for this world that we live in with its wondrous variety and soul stirring beauty............back to Trinidad!

 I had to put this in for my grandchildren.  We thought it looked like Aladdin's house!  The population is made up of Africans, Hindus, and Muslims.  There are some unbelievable mansions here.  This one is Hindu.  You can tell from all the flags.  They fly them in front of their houses, their small temples on their property and each one represents a different deity.  Notice the flags on the right side here.

 On the left side in this picture.

 This looks like Kauaii to me.  We are still working on being comfortable driving.  Today we drove to find all the branches we will be visiting.  There are truly no rules!  Two honks means thank you, two flashes of lights means we give you the right of way, one long honk means I hate you!  We have had many long honks!  We are getting better! Tomorrow is my turn!  By the way our car mirror is busted, the locks don't work so you have to manually unlock one door and then reach over and unlock the other doors.  Thank goodness the air conditioning works.  It has been crashed by the young missionaries three times!

 The coke plant in Trinidad.

 A typical open field between concentrations of people.

 An apartment complex.

 Very colorful people, very colorful houses!

 We drove to Pricesmart today.  Trinidad Costco!  It even has kirkland products like the chocolate Acai berries!  Yes......the good life!

 Inside Pricesmart.  You can see the makeup of the population.

 For thanksgiving dinner, we went out to a Chinese buffet.  The couple on the left is the mission president and his wife, next to them is the mission auditor and his wife, across the table are the mission nurse and office sister, then the Financial clerk and Secretary for the mission.  They are all wonderful people!  I'm taking the picture!

 This was a shock.  This is a serious mall in Trinidad!  The Chinese restaurant was in the mall.  From the outside it looked like some nondescript warehouse but wow....it was a surprise on the inside!

Elder and Sister Monson  onThanksgiving Day in Trinidad.  We are thankful for you!