Sunday, May 9, 2010

Leaving Aruba


Elder Zenger and Elder Ellis baked us a cake for our going away party. Elder Ellis will stay on Aruba until he goes home next summer. Elder Zenger will be coming back to Puerto Rico this week for transfers and we are excited to see him. I have been corresponding with his parents and have become friends with Trish. We just found out that Trish and her husband Paul will be coming to visit Puerto Rico in a month to stay with her son-in-law's parents only about 1/2 hour from here. Their son-in-law served his mission in Puerto Rico and now their son is here. They of course can't visit with Elder Zenger so he will stay focused on his work and mission, but Elder Pietz and I are looking forward to visiting with them.


This is Sherman, a Chinese, that is part of the San Nicolas Branch but just hasn't been baptized. He comes to church every week, always helps with any service projects, will do anything to help. Sherman came to lunch every Sunday and we went out for dinner with him several times. His father, a great man, and Sherman invited us out to a Chinese restaurant a couple times. Sherman flew to visit some friends in Florida a couple times and went to Sam's Club and the post office for us and brought us back lots of things on our wish list. We are hoping he will soon be baptized and receive more blessings.


One of the highlights of our mission was getting to know Gerde. Once she knew about the gospel and was going to be baptized, she absolutely just bubbled with joy. She was so excited about the gospel. Elder Pietz had the real delight in being able to baptize her in the ocean. She will always have a special place in our hearts. No one laughs or loves like Gerde.


These first few pictures were taken the night before we left Aruba at the chapel. They had a little going away party for us. This is a picture of our branch president, President Buckley and his wife Johanna. We lived at their home and they were wonderful friends. We enjoyed having Sunday afternoon barbeques in their garden with all the missionaries and some new converts and investigators. President spent months building and adding new touches to a BBQ oven/grill. They are very generous and warm loving people. They were always thinking of others. They are talking about going on a mission themselves.

















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