We finally found a zebra crossing!

Happy Easter!  The most glorious and significant event of all eternity celebrated in Trinidad.  It was notably different from previous family memories, but a sweet experience, nonetheless.

 The Trinidad stake production of The Savior Of The World/The Resurrection was performed on Friday of Passion Week.  Seriously, when we were told by the stake president that he wanted to have it done locally, we thought there was absolutely no way! 

 It was performed with pvc pipe and metal rods across the chapel to which black fabric had been attached to make a curtain and hide the podium in the Arima branch.  The performers stayed behind the curtain and  came around in front for various scenes. 

The entire cast at the end of the production!

President Francique was Jesus.  He has the deepest, most resonant voice! It was awesome!  I have to say, although none of the voices were trained, or less, the spirit was amazing!  They had practiced soooo hard and their testimonies were evident in their sincere portrayal.  It was an amazing experience.  Much more moving than professional productions with less passion and spirit.

We love Pres. Francique!  He did a great job! He is the branch president.

The audience!  Thrilled with the production!

The performers! Out of character here, but very pleased with the result of all their hard work!  We love them and were so impressed!

 Who knew Jesus had rasta hair! The Stake REALLY wants him to cut it, but we are secretly embracing his cutural perogative! 

We had all the senior missionaries and President and Sister Mehr over for Easter dinner! Soooo fun!

 The Easter Egg rolling contest! Elder Linton won the prize!

We are responsible for all the missionaries in the northwest....... so we had a clean-the-cars day with lunch afterward.  It was fun and the missionaries had a blast!  We held it in front of our apartment and unlike youth car washes, it did NOT break into a giant waterfight!

The car cleaning assembly line!

Even the mission president joined the party!  Maybe that's why we avoided the huge water fight! Ya think???

Ready for lunch with all the cars cleaned!

Here we all are before going in for lunch! These are all our missionaries.

Feeding the 5,000 in our apartment after the car wash! Not enough chairs, but we made it work!  The Elders were raving about the feel of our tiny rug under their bare feet. They were all, "ahhhhh sister Monson, this reminds us of home!!"

Aren't they so adorable!

Lingering and enjoying the fellowship among the wonderful missionaries!  Great young men and women!

Just had to record the surging waterfall that I call my daily spit bath!  This is a good day, on bad days I call it tears!  Yeah, Elder Monson took off the shower head to see if it was worth replacing.  Nope, the water stream itself is......miniscule!!

See that bump??  It doesn't look so intimidating here but if you are going over 10 miles an hour, it can take your head off!  These are everywhere except the major roadways.  Thank goodness!  Otherwise they would all drive 120 kilometers on EVERY road!

Trinidad has aptly been described as the land of Zebra Crossings, but no Zebras and humps (see previous picture), but no camels!

This was a rather strange vehicle driving down the road! On the front it said, The Love Bug.  hummmm

As hard as I tried to avoid it, my birthday came again this year! 

We actually found an amazing restaurant!  They gave me the chocolate souffle on the house for dessert.  The spoon has berries in it, and the candle is in clotted cream.  Yeah, I'll pretty much be savoring it until next year!

Somehow, I summoned up enough air at my advanced age to blow out the one candle!  I must say that I took the entire day off work and read and re-read my gift from my family.  They sent me a book that had been made with 60 reasons why my family loves me, with pictures from the trail of our entire lives and individual letters from each one of them.  No words can describe how much it meant to me.  They had presented one to Elder Monson when we all went to Alaska, before our mission, for his birthday, so I have been waiting in great anticipation for my 60th birthday- which thing I NEVER thought I would do!!  It was soooo worth getting this old.  I can die fully satisfied now that my life had a meaning and purpose that was worthwhile. I love my family so much!

We had an amazing experience!  We traveled together as senior missionaries to see the Leatherback Turtles.  Trinidad is one of the top nesting areas in the world including Matura and Grande Riviere.  Tobago also has important nesting beaches. Each year, 3,000 nests on Matura Beach,are protected by Nature Seekers, improving the chance for survival for tens of thousands of hatchlings. 

Here we are before going to the Beach location.  We had a picnic dinner and listened to the tour guide tell us all about the Leatherback turtles.  This was the first time since we have been here that I thought, wow, this is worth traveling here on vacation to see!  It was INCREDIBLE!

Those enormous front flippers and the powerful back flippers were used to excavate and camouflage an amazing nest in which to lay her eggs.  We watched the whole thing while we were right next to her!!  These turtles are from the dinosaur age!  She weighs 900 pounds!  They tag the turtles and she was not tagged, so had not been seen there before.  She picked her spot and then used her back flippers to dig a perfect upside-down traditional light-bulb-shaped nest.  We watched those flippers dig down, scoop up, and smooth the surface with mind-blowing efficiency.   They would shape like a scoop, lift out the sand, and then flatten and smooth, alternating one side to the other in exact precision.  It was musical!  With the stars and the Caribbean warm breezes, it was dream-like! 

As we approached her, the guide had only red lights on, as she dug and prepared her nest.  After she began laying the eggs, we could turn on our flashlights, take pictures, touch her, (that is my hand and my crazy hair on the right) because she is in her trance.  I could relate.  The guide described it as being unaware of her surroundings as she buried into herself for the laying process.  Sounds like transition labor to me!  It looked like she was crying as liquid dripped from her eyes.  The guide said the salt water from the sea comes from her eyes during the process, but I believe she was crying.

 My first introduction with the white lights on.  I fell in love!

Isn't she beautiful?

You can see the eggs that were larger than ping pong balls, but a little smaller than baseballs and perfectly round.  She laid 80-100 eggs!  She will do that again in 10 days and repeat the process five times a year during this cycle.  After she was finished laying, we had to turn back to red lights and watched her fill the nest with sand, patting it down with a thud that we could feel through our feet!  Then she began moving forward and throwing sand with her front flippers over and over to disguise the spot.  It was truly awe-inspiring!  I was led to say in my heart, "All things testify there is a God!"
She made her way majestically back to the ocean as we all escorted her to the water's edge!  I felt privileged to observe a sacred event! Have a great week!

Not your first destination vacation choice!

For p-day this week, we went to another of the 4 tourist attractions in Trinidad with some of the office senior missionaries. I have already reported on two of them.  It was nice, but I'm just saying if you get to pick a Caribbean island to visit on vacation, this might not be the one!  Perfect mission to request, though!

 We passed this home on the way to the Asa Wright nature center.  It was unusual in that it had no roof.  Clearly people are living in it.  Laundry was hanging on the line, and you can see the mother and child by the right side of the house. 

 Peruse the three-lane-highway we traveled to get there.  I admit to praying along the way a few times.  We are so freaked out by the frequency of accidents; yesterday we passed a vehicle that flipped, went off the road and burned. We didn't get a phone call, so no missionaries involved.  There really are no rules on the road at all, at least that anybody pays any attention to!

 We passed an intricate system of gardening for a certain vegetable that is widely eaten here.  It was across the whole side of the mountain.  You can see here underneath the intricate wire lattice system that supports the vines.  The vegetable kind of looks like elongated avocados.  There is one here in the shade part in the middle of the photo, but it is hard to see.

 Look closely at the top of the wire structure that holds them above the ground for easy picking underneath the vines.

 We finally arrived at the Asa Wright nature center.  I loved this saying, and thought we need one up at the cabin. Asa Wright was from Iceland and very wealthy.  She visited Trinidad, loved the rain forest and purchased acres to keep safe from land development and human encroachment.  One can stay there overnight; it's touted as a bird refuge.  We enjoyed it and met people from all over the world that came to stay for days to watch birds.  We didn't see many on our guided tour, but talked to a lady from CA who said there are many other walks with unusual birds including to a cave that has very rare oil birds and other unique species, if you are a birder! 

 Here's a picture of her, thanks to google!  She lived there until her death in 1971.

 These are leaves, not flowers!

 All these colorful hummingbirds played outside the deck where we awaited our tour guide.

 Here's Elder Monson in front of a wild nutmeg tree!

 These rattan vines are found throughout the rain forest and made into furniture.  Incredibly strong, and the guide explained that the different colors of rattan wood are created from the length of time they are buried under the ground.  Less time equals a lighter color and left up to a month, a dark walnut color is the result.  They grow to huge lengths, up to 100 feet. 

 Elder Monson holding onto a bamboo cluster.  It actually grows 6- 9 inches per day!!  Someone on the tour said that bamboo has been used to torture prisoners by attaching it to their skin and letting it grow through the body! 

 A beautiful and unusual flower.

 This is a termite colony.  We saw huge ones in Caroni Swamp. (remember the birds?)  The guide  said they are loaded with beta carotene and have kept people alive by eating them.  He also let a man on the tour stick his finger inside and taste it!  He asked him what it tasted and smelled like.  The guy said, "carrots!"  Weird, huh?  Elder Monson hung back to sneak a bite for the road.  I caught him just in time!

 This beautiful archway is in front of the gift shop and registration building. 

 Here are two friends for my grandchildren to see!  #1

 #2! I'm glad we didn't come upon him unawares!  We didn't see as many birds as we had hoped, but there were some serious insects!

 A place to go for a dip at the end of the tour, if you want! We did see a huge iguana that sped away twice before we could take his picture.  Too bad.  However, we decided against a dipping after noting the plentiful insect population around. We headed out and were thrilled to arrive home without accident.

 There are tons of these stands everywhere!!  We are just dying to try pig tail, ox tail and cow heel soup!  Aren't you?

 Filling up at the gas station, we noticed this bizarre sign.  A sister explained that naked lights are front and back car lights that have busted covers, just bare bulbs that might ignite a fire when you fill up!

 The  no rules thing.....yeah, it goes for vehicle emission testing, too.  There are no regulations so all of this comes from one truck  driving down the freeway. We ride behind cars and the smoke engulfing us is blinding!

 This is, of course, the left side of our vehicle.  My relaxed posture is in stark contrast to the incredulity at my right as Elder Monson continues to repeat, "Can you believe that?; Did you see that?; That guy is really cutting in front of everybody and doing such and such!"  I've become accustomed to Trinidad! Nothing surprises me.....until tomorrow and it's my turn to take our lives into my hands!

On our way to church, yesterday, we passed this church group following after a huge sound system playing music while they walked, danced and chanted along the street for Palm Sunday!  We went to a very remote branch which took us three hours round trip and found there 8 adults and one lone 12 year old boy.  This young man never has his own Sunday School class.  We asked him after Sacrament meeting if he would like us to teach him in his own class.  He was thrilled.  We asked him if he had any questions.  He asked, "Who is Jesus's father and who is God's father."  Those were great questions which led to a very sweet lesson.  At the end of it, Elder Monson asked Shawn if he would like to say the closing prayer.  His prayer was one of those times we are so thankful we have this opportunity to serve a mission.  He said, "Heavenly Father, thank you that Elder and Sister Monson could come and teach me Sunday School today.  Thank you that I could learn new things about Jesus and thank you especially that I came today to have this experience."

This young man told us his mother was in the hospital because she drinks rum all the time.  His sister is in jail and is a drug addict.  He comes to church with his grandmother and is the only one in the family that comes.  At the end, we asked him if he had any more questions.  His response was, "How can I keep this feeling of peace when everyone around me is screaming and swearing and being mean?"  We helped him memorize a scripture: "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me."

Have a great Passion Week celebration as you prepare to remember the most significant event of all eternity!