This is the site of the new mission home at the mission office complex.  That's Albert, our guard, and that's a real CAT track hoe.  All of this area is red dirt and granite boulders.  Every time the track hoe took down a giant mango tree the mangoes went flying all over and all work stopped, including the track hoe operator, and everyone scrambled to gather the mangoes.

 Elder Richards, my companion for a day.  He's from Jon's stake in South Jordan and he's a great missionary.  He's stuck at the office while recuperating from hernia surgery so we went proselyting together.

Elder Randall and I are building some storage shelves for the office.  We had a divvel of a time getting this eight foot cabinet into the storage closet, but we finally squeezed it in.

 A monkey came to visit us at the mission office today.  He found a ripe mango that had fallen from the tree.

After munching on the mango he went for the casava plant and had a meal of leaves.  Another smaller monkey was on the compound wall behind him.

 This is our New Year's Eve party with lighted balloons and a puzzle.  The Randalls came over and we worked on the puzzle together and visited.  It was a fun evening ... even though we didn't stay up until midnight.

 The lighted balloons we got for Christmas from Ben's family were a real hit at our party.  Marlene gave a balloon to the president and his wife so they could celebrate too.

On New Year's Day we went for a walk with the Randalls.  We came across this old church in Gloucester.  It's very fancy for this area.

Gloucester still has the look of colonial Sierra Leone.

 This is Marlene's African whomping tree.  These trees lose their leaves every year.  Then they get waxy pink blossoms and then new leaves.  This one looks like some kind of a walking beast.

The kids were curious about the white people on their football field.  They had to shake hands and ask, "How de day?"