We have arrived!

 We got up at 3:00 am and were on the bus from the MTC with several young elders and sisters. This was our parting view as we drove out of the parking onto the road.  Perfect for a picture!

 Not much has changed yet!  Notice what Elder Monson is playing on his computer as we got closer to our mission! 

 Two views out the window of the plane as we neared Trinidad!  One with the wing and the water, the other with the city lights coming into view.

 Here's Elder Monson pointing out our arrival.  Later on we saw huge signs that said no photograhy!  Oops!

 Elder and Sister Andrus, from Saint George, and no, we did not know them previously......picked us up.  She had warned us ahead of time that we might have difficulty getting through immigration.  We were told we might need to pay a bribe, to not give out any information, etc. etc.  We were a little nervous. We just decided to take off our name tags, smile and act comfortable. We got through without one problem and they were waiting for us.  They said it was an absolute record getting through. One set of Elders they actually sent back to Miami!  We were thankful.  They took us straight to our apartment.  Here's our home for the next 18 months.

The view from just inside the door to outside.

 The kitchen.

 The spare bedroom.  Wanna come visit??

 Our bedroom.  Elder Monson found a dark sheet and we used our handy sewing kit for the first time to pin up a piece of fabric. He would have awakened at 4:00 am otherwise.  There were tons of barking dogs that I thought would take care of that anyway!

 Here is the gate over our front door.  Basically you padlock yourself into your house at night, then in the morning, you reach your hand through the wrought iron and unlock the padlock before you can go outside.  The crime rate is pretty high...... we are told!

 The elders lived in this apartment previously......hence the picture of Jesus on the wall.  This is when we first walked into the living room. We were exhausted after traveling all day so we unpacked our bags and went to bed......to not sleep very well!

 This is the picture from inside our house in the morning.  Notice the effective weather stripping around the bottom of the door.

Brother and Sister Andrus picked us up at 9:00 am and we went to the mission home and had breakfast with the mission president and his wife.  It is a beautiful home with barbed wire, a swat security team and a whole bunch of beautiful Christmas decorations.  Oh yeah, it is Christmas.  Apparently we are going to a Chinese buffet for Thanksgiving.  We really really like our mission president and his wife.  We feel privileged to work with them.  He asked us to accept the assignment to work with the YSA and youth as our calling.  It will be across the whole mission, twelve islands.  We will be working with the branch and stake leadership and under his direction but they really need programs to strengthen the youth here and get them on missions.  We are a little overwhelmed and disoriented since we don't even have toilet paper but we trust we will get settled eventually.  We're off to a truly glamorous start after stealing a roll of toilet paper from the mission office!

This is the car that we were assigned today.  I let Elder Monson have the first go at driving on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car.  When we came home tonight after trying to figure out our phone and internet etc, Elder Monson came to get in the car on the left side and almost sat on my lap before he remembered!  It's been an interesting day!  We love the Lord and are excited to find, teach and work with young people in Trinidad and a whole bunch of other islands.  We will be located here and get the ysa and youth programs up and running and then travel for short visits.  Until the next post from Trinidad!