The Sabbath Day

Today we had our first experience with the tiny branch but since this is a three day weekend, it wasn't very tiny. I think there was about 50 people in our rented hall. The Ribet's have 4 adorable sons and one small daughter. Their oldest son Alvin, is 12 and is the only Aaronic priesthood holder. He is also beginning to learn piano but only does a small intro for the hymns and then he leads the music. He also bore his testimony, set up and took down chairs and helps with his siblings. Obviously, I was very impressed. Here's a picture of the hall that is rented for us to have Church:

It's in the back of a city community center but very nice with plenty of chairs. Tonight, the Ribet's invited us and all of the other branch members to their house for a barbecue to introduce us. We had two less active members with two small children and a nonmember there. Pretty good for a group of only about 20 people. It's very easy to love these sweet people and I already fear our stay will be too short. Tomorrow we're going out visiting which may not be too productive since it's the last day of a three day holiday. Then Tuesday we get to seriously work on getting an internet service. I hear even after you're signed up, it takes a couple of weeks to get installation. Right now we're using a hot spot that's a couple of blocks away so it only works well when the sun is down. I'm realizing how spoiled I am by the ability to have information at my fingertips. I feel like I'm back in pioneer days or something!

 Kia ora

-Elder O'Neal