Camouflage

Have you ever noticed that things that can hurt you usually try to blend in with their surroundings so they won't be noticed?  A rattlesnake blends in with the ground.  An alligator blends in with the swamp.  We went to a swamp this week and our guide showed us something.  Can you spot it?

There are actually two things on the big trunk.  If you look closely, you will see two tiny bats!  They are flat against the tree and upside down.  They are "spread eagle".  Can you see them?

They live deep in the swamp.  It's dark and and bit scary in there.  They only come out at night and spend the night feeding on insects.  I don't like bats much, so I'm glad I'm not an insect!  The insects don't like them much either, because they know they could be eaten!  If they could see the bats, they would have a better chance at survival.

Now look at this picture.  What do you see?

If you said you saw a bunch of red birds flying around, you are right!  When we got through the swamp, we got into some open water and sat and waited.  These birds fly in to roost every night at sunset.  There were hundreds of them!  They are of no danger to anyone or anything so they don't have to try to conceal themselves.

What kind of person are you?  Do you try to camouflage what you are doing?  Are you doing things that should be hidden?  That could hurt you or others?  If so, then stop!  Be like the red birds!  Be proud of who you are and what you are doing.  Be the kind of person that has nothing to hide.

Can you find Gremma and Grandpa in this picture?  Of course you can!  We have nothing to hide.  We are happy to be serving the Lord with these other wonderful missionaries here in the Caribbean.

We want you to know how much we love you and pray for you always.  We can't wait to see you in a few months and see the good people that you are!

We love YOU!

Oops!

We were driving down the road in St Lucia the other day and we came upon this site.  Yikes!  A gas truck had tried to get into the gas station to fill the underground tanks.  It must have cut the corner a little too close and the pavement over the ditch must have been a little too thin.  The pavement actually collapsed under the weight of the truck and the wheel fell in the ditch!  They brought in a front end loader to try to lift it out of the ditch.  That didn't seem like too good of an idea to me.  One spark and KaBoom!!!  We got out of there as fast as we could.

How does this apply to you and me?  Well, it is never a good idea to cut corners!  We need to stay as far away from danger and temptation as possible.  We also need to stay on firm ground.  Make sure that the path we are taking is solid.  Another thing we need to remember is that we can make a bad situation worse by trying to rectify the situation in the wrong way.  If you find yourself in trouble, stop and think.  Pray and ask for help from people who know.  There is a solution to every problem.  And with the help of the Lord and those who love you, all problems can be fixed in the right way.

We love YOU and hope you are keeping the commandments.

Bamboo

The other day I was talking to Kade on the phone and I mentioned the bamboo plants growing outside of our apartment.  He said he had seen bamboo before.  They had it growing in their house once.  It probably looked something like this:

When I realized what his frame of reference was, I decided to take a picture of what bamboo looks like here in Martinique:

All of that is bamboo!  I was standing on the second floor of our apartment building when I took that picture.  The bamboo is taller than our 3 story building!  The stalks can be 6" thick!  It grows very fast.

I got to thinking about perspective.  This bamboo kind of reminds me of how the church is.  Here in our mission, the church is much like the first picture.  It is very small and takes a lot of care and "babying" to make it grow.

Where you live, the church is flourishing!  It is strong and healthy and needs almost no effort to keep it running.

Sometimes we forget that there is new growth that needs babying along...even in wards where the church is flourishing.  We are here on our mission to help those new, young members set deep roots and flourish.  We pray that you, too, will look for those who need a little extra nourishing and help them to become tall and strong.

We love YOU!  (And hope you aren't freezing this winter!)

PS
On our morning walk, we noticed this plant with giant leaves.  Do you know what it is?  It's a philodendron!  I have had one growing in my house for years and years!  It has often been on top of the chiffarobe.  At home, it doesn't have the same opportunity to grow.  There is not as much sunlight, or heat or water.  Here in Martinique it has plenty of all those things so it can flourish.  We hope that someday the church will do the same here.

We give our lives to that which we give our time

I just read this great talk. If you are looking for ways to be better and do better, you might like to read it.  We have been living an "uncluttered" life for 9 months now and I can honestly say that there are only a few things I really miss.  I miss all of you!  And I wouldn't mind having a sewing machine for a few days, but when it comes right down to it, we have everything we need.  I hope we can continue to live uncluttered when we go home.  And we pray that you will continue to do the important things in life.

We wish you a Happy New Year!  We love YOU!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1992/04/unclutter-your-life?lang=eng

We are so lucky!

We are so blessed to have people in our lives who are hard to say goodbye to!  We had a wonderful time with Steve, Heidi, Ridge, Nali and Trek and look forward to spending similar time with Doug, Sarah, Isaac, Kade, Kristi, Peter, Eliza, Max, Hyrum and Clara!

We love YOU all!