Missionary Email #8

 Dear All -

This has been quite a week.  We had about 22 saints from Jamaica at the temple.  Historically they have come to the temple twice a year, but with COVID this is their first trip in three years.  They were very excited to be here.  Very few of them speak any Spanish at all, so most of the endowment sessions at the temple were in English this week.  I ended up officiating on many of the sessions, so worked a little more than is normal.  It has been a great experience.  Three members received their own endowments, and two couples were sealed.  A few of them went home yesterday, but seven more are coming on Monday.  One of the Jamaican sisters bore her testimony today, and shared how grateful she is for her calling as a Primary teacher.  That won my heart.

Monday I went to Immigrations to get my permanent visa.  Well, it's only good for six months, so maybe I should call it my "longer term visa".  Anyway, I had heard all sorts of horror stories about Immigrations, how crowded it gets and how people have to wait for hours.  I was not looking forward to it.  I got there at 7:00am, the lawyer the church uses for immigration cases already had a ticket for me, in 5 minutes they called my number, snapped a picture, and I was done 15 minutes after I got there.  It was pretty painless.

We went to the produce market again on Monday.  Although food shipments are getting through, compared to our first trip there was noticeably less available, it was of poorer quality, and cost more.  I got a picture of a few coconuts

along with a little garlic for seasoning.

The carrots in the foreground of that last picture were of truly impressive size, but it just doesn't show up well in the picture.

One night shortly after sundown I went outside to throw away some garbage and noticed that with the lighting and the clouds were truly lovely.  I snapped a number of pictures.  The way they turned out made me reflect on camera technology in general, and the fact that the device I used to take the pictures is not even primarily intended to be a camera.

Between having the Jamaican saints here, the number of hours I got to spend in the temple this week, and some thoughts I have had about ordinances and covenants, this has been a very spiritual week.  I want to testify that this is the work of the Lord, he is involved in the details of the work, and I feel highly blessed for being able to participate here at this time.

Love,

Elder and Sister Reading

aka

John and Delkys