January 20th

Haiteses Nat'l Park

Wow! I am getting behind, like a month behind. I'll see what I can do about it. We went to Samana over the four day holiday with the idea to see the whales. They are seen from January to March on the north east side of the island. We went with Daniel and Rebecca Mehr who are the Public Affairs Missionaries here. They do a wonderful job. They are here through April but will return for a 6 month new mission (technically) to Puerto Rico in the middle of the summer. Anyway, we stayed at the Bannister Hotel, which had only been open one month. Ihave never seen anything like it here on this island. It is an exclusive marina/ resort. The down side is, no beach but the up side is beautiful, cleanrooms, good food and an infinity pool.

We rented a boat one day to take us across the bay to Hiateses Nat'l Park. You can really only see some parts of it by boat. Many little islands with dense vegetation and unique birds. The bad news is that one of the twin engines went out on us half way across and it slowed us down immensely. The good news is that going so slow we saw many flying fish, stingrays and dolphins. It was pretty amazing even though we thought the other engine might go at any time. The boat was a beautiful clean boat which goes to show you that you can't tell a book by its cover or is it beauty is only skin deep but in this case, paint deep. We did have a wonderful day and I will post a few pictures of our adventure we saw some interesting birds and even a cave.

Because our boat ride got cut short we decided to take a trip up to Salta de Limon ( a beautiful waterfall in the mountains. We rode horses not because it was so far but it is so muddy and all of the mud is not mud. It was interesting. The water did not look all that clean to me but Ed and Daniel had a good swim. We also road over to Las Terrenas a beach resort town along the Atlantic. The next morning, Sunday, we left early to get to church in Gonzalo where the Joneses served in a small branch. It was the best part of the trip. About ten people in this little ply-board church, but such faithful, faithful members. The Lord loves these very remarkable people, I know he does. Elder Swapp and Elder Mehr spoke at the meeting but only after a 16 year old gave a talk, quoting memorized scripture as if he were a returned missionary. Sister Mehr and I each bore our testimonies. The people in the small towns have very little but they do have families and for the most part they are a very happy people. It was a memory not soon to be forgotten.

Gonzalo Branch!