Easter, Good Friday, Easter Monday - We celebrate it all

Happy Easter to all of you. General Conference was wonderful. It holds so much more meaning when you are sitting in a little branch building with a few saints on Saturday and about 80 from various parts of the northern branches on Sunday. For all who are not here, image sitting in this little building watching the prophet and others speak to us - we are one hour ahead of Salt Lake - and every time they mention missionary, service, love, humanitarian efforts, etc., your heart races and you feel like they are talking to you about your work. It was great. The marvels of technology. Elder Anderson of our Area Presidency spoke on Saturday and addressed some of the 'tings' (that's Jamaican for things) about Haiti.

The senior couples in Lucea (Lucy), MoBay (Montego Bay) and Ochee (Ocho Rio) and of course us from in the south had a great conference weekend. We stayed with Elder and Sister Russell in Lucea. Each day, we drove to Montego Bay because that was where all the action was. There was a baptism on Friday night and then branch game night. Saturday was conference all day and priesthood in the evening and Sunday we attended the morning session and left for home a 2.5 or 3 hour drive depending on potholes, which road you travel on, whether you get lost, etc.

On Friday at the baptism, the elder's quorum president conducted and kept changing the program. Some of the unplanned things were the sister missionaries being asked to sing "I am a Child of God" - that was fun. The Bradleys (from Ochee) bore their testimonies, and Elder Schaefermeyer gave the closing prayer. It was great being involved. They have two very strong sister missionaries (Sister Wilkinson from Morgan and Sister Smith) and their trainer (Sister Meddows from Jamaica) in MoBay and this was their baptism.

Perhaps you remember the plane crash in Jamaica where the plane slid off the runway, there was a returning missionary on that plane, Sister Meddows. She was asked by the mission president here to train the two sisters (the first north American sisters to serve in Jamaica). See the picture below, boy what a team these three sisters make.

We were able to talk with two branch presidents who have humanitarian projects and look forward to pursuing these. If we can get this going, we will be back in MoBay and the northern coast many times.

These are the senior couples - are (LR the Schaefermeyers; Sister and Elder Russell in Lucea; Sister and Elder Smith in MoBay, they leave us next month; and Sister and Elder Bradley in Ochee, they were the first black couple baptized in the Philadelphia Mission and live in New Jersey.

Just a few pictures of the country, also.