Hermana Y Elder Borup

It's hard to believe that this episode in our lives is coming to a close so quickly. As we make plans to visit people in the coming week we realize that it might be the last time we will see them. Of course, the follow-up question after we tell someone we will not be able to come back is "Will you ever come back to this country?" Our answer is that when they are sealed in the temple if we can come back we will. It is hard to say good-bye. We have made some great friends here, people we have served, people who have served us and people we have served with. One of the harder good-byes this week was to the daughter if Isidoro. If you remember Isidoro is the 92-year-old man that we have visited 2-3 times a week since we started helping him recover from a hip injury. His daughter is the most loyal, kind and patient daughter I have ever seen and I have some sisters that have shown me a very high standard. We will miss her. As we try to wrap things up we have been traveling a

We had many wonderful experiences this week. I want to share a couple of them with you. As you can see from the pictures, we went to Monte Bonito (a small town outside of Padre Las Casas which is the town where Ramon's family lives). The main purpose of our visit was to work a little more with Ramon and help him gain a little more confidence in making things out of coconuts. He lives in a very small home in Padre Las Casas that does not have an outside area where he can cut and sand. His parents live 8 kms away in a beautiful town on the top of a very steep mountain. They live as farmers and have a lot of outside space. Power or "light" as they call it here, is a problem. It has a way of not being there when you need it. When we left Padre Las Casas there was no power. On the way to Monte Bonito, we noticed a power line that had been knocked down. So, of course when we got to Monte Bonito, "no hay luz!". This turned out to be ok. We got to spend some time

Things are starting to feel a little weird because many of the things that we have been doing for the last year-plus, we are doing for the last time. This week we went into the Capital and helped out with transfers for the last time. Hermana Neria came in the first group that we helped train as new missionaries was in the group going home. She got here 2 weeks after we did but she was in the MTC before she got here. Elder Clark went home and he was in Nizau which was the first Branch we attended while we worked in the office. Elder Tuddenham got to Nizau just as we left and he went home as well as Elder Castco who served in the office, as an assistant for what seemed like forever. Elder Falls served with us in Azua for 4 and a half months. We got to know him well and already miss him. Also in this group was an Hermana from El Salvador Hermana Quijano (who was a great missionary but we really didn't get to know her well) and an Elder that had to go home early due to health reasons