Sri Lankan sunset

It seems our weeks are getting busier and busier.  We love it!
On Monday we were invited by our dear friend, Maljini, to go to High Tea.  She was a little apprehensive about inviting us to tea.  She quickly explained that tea and coffee would be served but there would be other drinks to choose from also. 
When we arrived at Galle Face Hotel, we were amazed at the atmosphere.  They had a live saxophone player that played lots of songs that we even recognized.  High Tea started at 4 pm and ended at 6 pm. We were there a few minutes before 4 and all the tables were full except for one.  There were 72 tables in the area.
There was a sign with names of all the important people that had visited. Among those names were Richard Nixon, Gregory Peck, Prince Charles, King George, and many others. We figured our names would be added after we left.(ha ha)
Along with drinks there were all sorts of food to eat.  Some were western foods such as pizza, hamburger, pastas, and others were Sri Lankan foods such as cutlets, curries, and etc.  They also had a wide variety of desserts.
It was beautiful to sit under the covered area of the hotel while eating and watching the ocean with the sun starting to set. We had to leave the area at 6 but we walked out and sat in the chairs on the lawn and finished watching the sun set as a cruise ship sailed in front of the sun.  We are grateful to be here and partake of such beauty!
Brother Kumar is having many difficulties as he is taking the discussions.  We have taught him his third discussion and will meet with him again on Wednesday to review some of the things that we have discussed with him.  He drinks and needs to overcome that before his mind is clear enough to do what he really needs to do. He is unemployed and needs to find work but his drinking is getting in the way of finding and keeping a job.  He is the only one that can stop the drinking and commit to the gospel.  We are doing what we can to help.  We ask for your prayers for him to overcome this addiction.
Friday and Saturday we were involved with the Distribution Center Display.  Brother Sunil and Brother Sundar came from India to set up the display and train the clerks in each branch so that they could do the ordering for the members.  Right now Elder Meyers is the Distribution Center in Sri Lanka.  He does all the ordering of books, pictures, DVDs, garments, or anything else that the Distribution Center sales.
On Friday we traveled to Negobo.  We left here at 10 am. Many of the members came and ordered lots of items.  Elder Meyers attended the training and worked with Anura, the clerk, to help the members fill out their orders. We finally got home around 10:30 pm.  We started all over on Saturday and did the same display and training in Colombo. 
After the display we attended the wedding dinner of Shilo and Niranji. In Sri Lanka the bride and groom to be go and register with a registrar and they are considered married.  I think this couple registered in March of 2011 but didn't perform the ceremony until Saturday. They are going to be sealed in the Philippines Temple on Monday. 
We just skyped with the Kellerstrasses who are still in India.  They want to come back to Sri Lanka but their visas have not been granted yet.  They are very discouraged.  The lawyers are now involved and they say the only way to overcome this is to get the Church recognized as a church in Sri Lanka. That will happen but the Kellerstrasses will probably be reassigned somewhere else in the process.  It could take a year or more to get the Church recognized.
Pray for the Kellerstrasses, the country of Sri Lanka, and the wonderful people who live in this area of the world.  May God bless us all!

Live saxophone player

Sri Lankan chef

Galle Face Hotel

Looking south along the ocean front

Beautiful sunset

Cruise ship in the sunset

Wedding dancers at Galle Hotel

Bro Sundar & Bro S.V. Sunil from India

Shilo & Niranji at wedding dinner

Bro Shilo & Sis Niranji with cake

Where has January gone?  We have been very busy and the time is flying.  We love it when that happens!
This week we were able to visit several families.  Some of them are families that we have already seen but we did visit a few new families and were able to take their pictures. 
We saw Sister Emily Mary Amerasckara.  She is 86 years old and lives in an elderly home.  She has been a member about 26 years but is now less active.  She enjoys us and we love our visits with her.
Brother Jeffry took us to one of his friend's home for a visit.  The mother is Nancy Fernando.  As we walked into the small neighborhood, young children were all over.  They stared as we passed them and then they began to wave, smile, say hello, and follow us.  We felt like we were on parade. When we found the small home, we went inside and the children stood in the doorway until they were told to leave. Nancy and her three children were home.  Her husband came in for a few minutes but had to get to work driving his tri-shaw.  We enjoyed our visit with Nancy and the children.  We invited them to come to seminary.  Since we are teaching the Old Testament, Brother Jeffry thought they might come.
Sister Ann took us to Sister Munjubhani's home.  Sister Munjubhani is a member of the Church.  She has two daughters and a son.  She loves animals and has at least 3 dogs and 2 cats.  She is a marriage registar.  In Sri Lanka when you register to marry you are considered legally married. 
Elder Meyers was asked to run Mutual for the Colombo Young Men since their leader couldn't be there on Saturday.  He helped the young men make cookies.  They loved it!  The fun part was watching how fast the cookies disappeared.  It was like magic! 
The big event this week was having Matthew Wilkinson come from Alaska.  Matthew was introduced to Sister Premila, our primary president, through face book and they are now engaged to be married.  Matt arrived in Sri Lanka on Wednesday.  He and Premila toured several sites in Sri Lanka on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday they called to see if Matt could stay here for the night.  The heat was unbearable for him at Premila's home.  He stayed here Friday night and Saturday.  He loved having an air conditioner in his bedroom.
Saturday evening we were invited to Premila's home for dinner. Premila, her mother, and aunts provided a feast for Sister Ann, Sister Sherine, Matt, Elder Meyers and Sister Meyers.  We enjoyed meeting Premila's family.
While at Premila's we had Matt demonstrate how he proposed to Premila in a small cafe here in Sri Lanka. It is hard to see Matt and Premila struggle with the cultural differences.  Matt tries to be a gentleman by opening doors, pulling her chair out, and using his manners.  Some of these things clash with the Sri Lankan culture.  Premila has a hard time holding his hand, hugging him, or showing any kind of affection toward him.  She wants to but it is so hard because Sri Lankans just don't show affection for their mates in public.
Matt and Premila have had a great visit! Matt will leave this evening and return home.  Now the waiting begins. After Matt turns in the paper work for Premila's visa to the USA government, it could take up to a year for Premila to get to the United States.  Once she is allowed to enter the United States they will have 90 days to get married.  They hope to be married in the Salt Lake Temple by this time next year.
It is wonderful to be the Lord's servants here in Sri Lanka!

Niccoliyan, Nancy Fernando, Sarana & Asha

Sister Munjubhani. Harith and daughter

Emily Mary Amerasekara

Elder Meyers teaching YM to bake cookies

What a spread of food!

Matt, Premila and her family

Matt proposing to Premila

Matt & Premila

The great news of the week is that we have another religious visa in our hands!  President Anton has worked very hard to make this possible.  When he delivered them to us he jokingly said, "Now you are called to extend for another six months so you can use up all the visa."  He has put much time, effort, and prayer into our visas.  He and his wife, Ann, were both fasting for our visas to come quickly.
The Kellerstrasses are still in India because their visa hasn't been granted yet. We are grateful for the Lord's tender mercies in our behave.
We have experienced a busy week.  All our classes are back in full swing.  We have four English Classes this year.  One is held on Sunday after church for the Relief Society Sisters.  We hold two on Tuesday and one on Wednesday.  There are two seminary/institute classes.  One on Friday, that one is usually just one young man that can't make it to our regular class on Saturday because of his work.  Saturday is the main seminary/institute class.  We were excited to have eight students there on Saturday.  We have a few others that have asked to come.  Some are older than institute age but we welcome all who want to attend. This years course of study is the Old Testament.  We are excited to learn more about the Old Testament for ourselves.
Thursday we delivered a Book of Mormon to a young man that had requested one online.  We located his address and discovered his mother was the only one home.  We couldn't speak the language so Anura, our tri-shaw driver, repeated what we said to the mother.  As we were walking back to the tri-shaw he said, "You are like angels."  I replied, "We are definitely no angels."  He went on to explain that this might change this young man's life forever, so he considers us angels. Just as Anura made us feel special for doing what we needed to do, all the members encourage and help us daily.
Saturday, Sister Kanthi and her daughter, Sandreen, invited us out to their home for lunch.  They live about an hour out of Colombo.  Sister Kanthi had gotten up early to have lunch ready by noon.  She had so much food.  She kept dishing more and more food on our plates. We were so full when lunch was over.  They all enjoyed looking at my Grandma photo album.  While we were there Sister Kanthi's daughter-in-law who isn't a member of the church asked  Elder Meyers to give her son a blessing.  He isn't speaking at all.  He is only a two and a half years old but she is concerned. Elder Meyers gave Shanilka a blessing and told his mother to relax, that the Lord would bless her son. As we went to get into the tri-shaw Aveesha, Sandreen's year and a half old son, climbed into the tri-shaw and snuggled up to me.  He waved bye to his mom.  After a few minutes Sandreen took him out. He had tears in his eyes because he wanted to go with us.  Sandreen told me at church today that he cried really hard after we left.
At church today we both spoke.  I spoke on how the scriptures are important in our lives and how they can be personal revelation to us.  I want to thank my children for giving me experiences to speak about today.  Many people in the audience were touched.  Elder Meyers spoke about seminary and institute. It is wonderful to see how meek, mild, and Christlike that Elder Meyers is in the mission field.  He has always been that way, at times, but he is constantly that way now.
Know that Heavenly Father lives.  He wants us to be happy.  He provided us with Jesus Christ to help us return to Him. 
Love those that are around you.  Forgive those that have hurt your feelings.  Life is too short to be angry and upset.  Forgive, forget, and move on in your life. Remember the Lord is always there for you.

First Seminary/Institute class of 2012

Aveesha and Shanilka

Sister Kanthi

Sis Kanthi's daughter-in-law and Sis Sandreen

Kumar

On Monday we were able to teach the second discussion to Kumar.  He is a wonderful man.  He is reading and praying but not ready to commit to anything.  As we talked about The Plan of Salvation, I could feel Asher's spirit.  I shared my feeling with Kumar and testified that I knew that our grandson would be resurrected and we would be able to see him again someday.The Spirit was strong and we were able to schedule a third discussion with him.
Wednesday we left home around 6:45 am and headed for Kandy.  Sister Ann, Milli, Codi, and Anjini went on the trip with us.  On the way I asked Ann if we would see any monkeys.  She said we need to go higher into the mountains to see that.  Just as she got the words out of her mouth the driver is saying something and pointing to the side of the road.  We look over and there are two small monkeys playing. 
The mountains (hills is what we called them) are beautiful.  They are covered with trees, shrubs, and all kinds of greenery. When we left to come home it was raining and the mountains reminded me of the Smokey Mountains with a haze hanging above them.
Our first stop was the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage. It is one of most popular tourist attractions in Sri Lanka.  The elephants are controlled by their mahouts(keepers), who make sure they feed at the right times and don't endanger anyone,  but otherwise the elephants roam freely around the sanctuary area.  There are usually 60 or so elephants in the sanctuary.  We saw the elephants go bath in the river, feed, and just roaming in their area.  There are men all over the place trying to get you to buy bananas, shirts, cd's, or anything they can get you to buy.  You learn just to shake your head, no! 
The most exciting part of the orphanage for me was to get to ride the elephant, Calmily. Reece had me promise her before we left on our mission that I would do that and now I have kept that promise.  It was a little scary.  Anjini and Codi rode with me.  Ann and Milli went after we came back.  Elder Meyers didn't want to ride.  He took lots of pictures. Calmily loved it when we fed her the bananas.  Her mahout said that she knows 57 words.  He kept saying, "De Ha." (that means elephant move)  It took 10 years for her to learn that many words.  She is 25 years old.  The mahout said that elephants usually live 120 years.  Calmily was very friendly to us.  She loved to be petted.  Her hair was stiff and her skin was leathery.
The other fun part of the orphanage was seeing how they made elephant dung paper.  The elephants eat a diet high in fiber so they take the dung boil it, blend it, and then make it into paper.  People there make the paper into items to sale.
Other than being a little hot, the day was wonderful!  A once in a lifetime experience.
After leaving the orphanage we went to Kandy.  There we stopped at a Buddhist Temple.  It is called The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic(Sri Dalada Maligawa). This temple houses Sri Lanka's most important Buddhist relic- a tooth of the Buddha.  The tooth is said to have been snatched from the flames of the Buddha's funeral pyre in 543 BC, and was smuggled into Sri Lanka during the 4th century AD, hidden in the hair of a princess.
We were told that cameras weren't allowed so we have no pictures to share.
We stayed over night in a hotel by the Mahaweli Ganga River.  The hotel had a restaurant so we had dinner and breakfast.  The most fun part was watching the people the next morning in the river.  They were bathing and washing their clothes.  Three women were beating their clothes against a huge rock to wash them.
On the way home we stopped at the Peradeniya Botanical Garden. It was beautiful.  It started to rain on us but that kept us cool.  We enjoyed the area with hundreds of bats in the trees.  They were all hanging upside down.  The other item we enjoyed was the suspension bridge.  Codi and Milli were apprehensive about walking on the bridge but they finally did it.  We loved watching the man bathing.  You should be able to see him in the picture.
It was hard to come back home and start on our assignments once again.
Saturday we were suppose to have two discussions but both called and canceled.  That was a big disappointment but that is how missionary work goes lots of times.
The other missionary couple, the Kellerstrasses, have to go to India for a couple of weeks.  Their visas have run out and they don't have a new one yet. We hope they are able to return. Our visas will run out on Thursday and we pray that we won't have the same problem that Kellerstrasses are having.  President Anton thinks ours will go through since we have already been granted a residence visa in the past.
Today we started an English class for the Relief Society Sisters that have trouble speaking English.  We were impressed that we had 8 sisters attend.  They speak much better English than I thought.  Many pretend they can't speak to me but now I know they can.
We pray that we will be allowed to continue our mission here in Sri Lanka but we have learned whatever happens is in the Lord's hands.

Elephants at the river

Anjini, Sis Meyers and Codi on an elephant

Sis Meyers feeding her elephant

Milli, Elder Meyers, Codi, Sis Meyers,
 Anjini, Sis Ann, Calmily with trainer

Sis Meyers & girls on the suspension bridge

Elder Meyers, Milli, Anjini. Sister Meyers
and Codi

Dam on river near hotel

Peradeniya Botanical Garden



Colombo Post Office Nativity

Last week we posted our blog before we had the opportunity to skype on Christmas Day with our children and grandchildren.  We had the privilege to see Jason's family, Mandy, and Parker's family opening their presents on Christmas morning.  We spent almost an hour with them watching and talking to them.  Then Kyle and his two boys, Wesley and Jonathen, skyped with us.  Wesley had a bag that his mom had made for him.  Inside the bag he had his Book of Mormon.  He was excited to take it to church with him.  I was touched that Wesley was so excited about his Book of Mormon.  We thank all of our children for making it possible for us to see and talk to them at this special Christmas time.  It made the distance seem not so far.
We have given two discussions this week.  Both men have been raised as Hindu.  It is interesting to teach someone who doesn't know about a God.  Robbie is 26 years old.  He has had two discussions and seems to be interested in the Church.  His girlfriend from India came so we will be unable to continue the discussions until his girlfriend leaves on the 7th of January. The other gentleman, Kumar, is around 50 years old.  He is a nice man but it is hard to read what he is thinking.  We ask for your prayers to help these men feel the Spirit.  We know if they feel the Spirit they will know what we are telling them is true.
We went with our friend, Maljini, to dinner on Monday night. We went to an India restaurant, Amrith.  We had Naan Bread with several different curries. I enjoyed it, I'm not sure about Elder Meyers. Maljini is a Buddhist.  She has made friends with several of the missionary couples that have been here.  She ask lots of questions about the Church but says she isn't interested in joining.  We met her at the Colombo Branch Christmas Party and we hit it off.  We are learning a little about the Buddhist also.
Brother Merrill was having chest pains so the doctor put him in the hospital.  We went to see him and he asked Elder Meyers for a blessing while we were there.  Anura, our tri-shaw driver, and Elder Meyers gave him a blessing.  Merrill is in a ward with 48 people.  There is no privacy so everyone is looking to see what is going on.  Even though they don't understand, they all get quiet as the blessing is given.  On the way back from the hospital Anura took us by the Buddhist temple.  We were there a few months back and took a picture of an old elephant.  That elephant died shortly after we saw him and they now have a new younger elephant.  I feel sad for this elephant because he will live the rest of his life in that one place, chained by the ankle.
New Year's Eve was an interesting night.  We attended the branch party that was held.  No one seemed to know what was happening.  When we got to the Church we saw a program.  Elder Meyers was on the program for a talk.  He quickly came up with an idea and did just fine.  I played the piano since no one else was present that could play.  There was no one to lead the music so we just sang.  After the program a dinner was served.  Sister Visaka had made all the food.  There were about 50 people in attendance.  We left around 9 pm and came home.  I think they were going to dance but I'm not sure.  Fireworks were being let off all through the night.  At midnight I got woke up by something that sounded like a bomb.  I am told that was the big fireworks display that Colombo does.  This morning as we went to Church we saw paper all over the streets from fireworks.
Tonight we had dinner at President Anton and Sis Ann's, we would say with them but really it was just us eating and them watching.  That is the custom here.  We had potato curry, chicken, fried rice, cucumber olive salad and ice cream.  We talked and played with Milli, Codi, Anjini and Jared.  We enjoyed the evening with them all.
We wish each of you a happy and prosperous 2012!

Robbie

Maljini

New elephant

Visaka