Mission Fun!

They passed out mustaches at Elder Grange's birthday party.

Cutting the rug at the Institute social

President and Sister Douglas at their going away party.

Bringing the baby - yikes!

This street light is hooked onto a tree

The beautiful flamboyant trees are in bloom

The local auto parts store

There are lots of cashew trees here. They call it cajuil. The fruit is bottled and the nuts are roasted and sold along the highway. They use old mayo jars. We tried some nuts. They taste a little smoky but not bad.

This little donkey was by the side of the road. This is what the saddles look like here.

The pig is roasting. Can you see it's tail?

Nice truck at this poor little house.

A truckload of cantaloupes.

A roasted pig - the face is to the right. These are all along the streets. They will just chop off a piece for you.  It's unusual to have any kind of a covering. They usually just wave a branch over them to keep the flies away.

One way to get your stuff around.

Trip to Constanza and the waterfall

Artist rendition of the waterfall in the town by the highway.

Beautiful view of the Dominican Republic

These 2 boys on their homemade skateboards. This was a very steep sidewalk. We had to jump off while they rode down. Although they had pretty good steering skills.

Harvesting potatoes. Notice the oxen and the man sitting on the plow.

Loading potatoes on the truck.

Not a great picture -too much of our dashboard, but all this stuff on a moto!

A man outstanding in his field.

I think they are growing strawberries under the plastic.

We took this trip in the back of a big truck. The red is part of the truck. The men are spraying the field with insecticide. All manual labor.

Hot houses (cool houses)

Crops grown on the side of the mountain.

Pretty steep fields

We can sure be thankful for where we live!

The beautiful waterfall

Our tour bus!

This isn't the greatest picture. A man with his plow and other farm equipment.

Now that's some carrots

Crops

Riding on the carrots

Beautiful valley

Getting back into town.

This is a very steep mountain. They are loading bags of potatoes on the horses and then running up this mountain to load them on a truck. Then they run back down with the horses to pick up more.

Cabbages and a chicken

Mission Life

A friend serving a mission in Santo Domingo shared this picture with us. We have seen the same thing a couple of times but never got a picture.

This spider was in our Sunday School class. It was HUGE and was running all over. Everyone was watching it through the whole lesson. The bishop came in and tried to catch it with his bare hands. We found out that it is a teen age tarantula.

All the senior Elders with the President at Puerto Plata. President Douglas is 3rd from the left.

The senior sisters with Sister Douglas. Sister Douglas is sitting on the left. The chefs are fixing our dinner in the background.

The back yard of our villa at Puerto Plata (in the rain).

This is how they park on our street. The white building is our apartment building. Our bedroom window is the one in the middle. We are on the 3rd floor.

These are mosaics - pretty cool.

Beautiful park near the mosaics. We see bridal pictures being taken here quite often.

Flowers are sold just outside the church fence.

This picture was taken our of our apartment window. I was fascinated watching this woman doing laundry. There is a plastic surgery center next door. She is pouring detergent into the agitator. I think the other side spins. The white line at the bottom is water spinning out. We have a washer/dryer stacked combo but this is the way most people do laundry (if they have a washing machine and that is a big if.) Almost all laundry is air dried on fences, lines or trees.

The Guard at the gas station.

Me at work! Yikes!!!

This is a very common sight although usually they are carrying much more bread.

One of our students was sweet enough to bring us cajuil. It is the fruit of the cashew tree. They boil it up and then squeeze out all the water and then make a syrup of fresh water and sugar and cinnamon and spices and then cook it again. It has a very different texture.

Elder Walters on his birthday. They have very amazing candles here!

Some students celebrating with birthday cake!

This was in the chapel. It is about 2 inches long. The awful thing was that a group of toddlers were playing with it. I hate cockroaches!!