VISITORS, GUESTS AND TOURISTS

Having an extra bedroom means that we get an occasional visitor - some invited, others who just show up.  We are excited for every one that comes.  (That was a subtle plea for more visitors.)

Elder Rafael E. Castro, recently released Area Seventy, and his sweet wife, Norma, came to the island this past week to be interviewed for a job.  If all goes as we hope, they will soon be full-time members of the Roatan branch.  We were pleased when they accepted our offer to stay in our home.  We had a wonderful time visiting with them and chatting with them about their family.  We took them into Coxen Hole so they could visit with a former friend and ward member - Zulema Zelaya.  He was her first bishop and she was her first institute teacher.  Afterwards, we came back and barbecued some hamburgers, and dined on chips, watermellon and cupcakes - you know, good American food!  The next morning we drove them to the ferry at 6:00 a.m. 

President and Sister Veirs came for the weekend.  We have truly come to love them and enjoy their company.  It was a business trip for him, but a pleasure trip for us and Sister Veirs.  He spent quite a bit of time interviewing prospective elders, those who have lost their priesthood privileges and counseling with our branch president, but we also had time to just relax.


We took them to the iguana farm where they had a good time feeding the iguanas their favorite food -giant elephant ear weeds.  It's like candy to them.  We hated to see them go.  Sister Veirs teased him all weekend long about coming back real soon.  Hopefully, they can make it back before we leave, but he is a very busy man.

We still get a kick out of the iguanas, too.  And the people who run the farm are always glad to see us, because somehow we always seem to end up buying another souvenier at their little shop.



Knowing that President and Sister Veirs were going to be in church Sunday, we (Elder Barba, Elder Dever and us) had made a significant push to try to get as many members in church as possible.  Our attendence typically hovers around the 100 mark, but his week we had 172!  It is a new "world's" record for this branch.  We were all excited.  The Primary children came into the Gospel Doctrine class to sing a song. We had fourteen investigators there that day.  I'm sure the ones that were in this class were impressed with the little children.




























We received a call from President Veirs asking us if we could drive down to Mahogony Bay to pick up the parents of one of his missionaries.  This family, the Heberts from Indiana, had taken a cruise and had come here to bring a package for their missionary son.  We expected a box.  They had brought two 50 pound suitcases full of treats and supplies for their missionary son.  He will DEFINITELY be a popular missionary this week.  They only had four or five hours to spend on the island, so we drove them around to show them Roatan.  They were a sweet, pleasant couple and were very grateful.  They left us a package of M&M's as a thank-you.  Yummy!



Mahogony Bay is a private port owned by Carnival Cruise lines.  It is the cleanest, most Disneyland looking, high-end shops, food court and beach that we have seen on this island.  It is completely locked down except when there is a boat that is in port.  We had never seen it before.  Wow!  We are going to look for an opportunity to get down there again.

By the way, on my last P-day, I went golfing!  It was the prettiest course I've ever golfed.  It is the only golf course on the island.  It is in Pristine Bay.  Because Dustin and Lacie Mitchell live here I was able to get onto the course.  I did my best, but... wow!  This course was hard!  As you can imagine, I put a ball into the drink on this island hole - 170 yards to an island green.  Great fun!  While I was golfing with Dustin, LaRae was teaching Lacie how to decorate cupcakes.