How Do You Spell...

This is how you spell Elder and Sister Luke. 

Do you understand?

Me either. 😉

Enjoyed our night teaching English at the church.

Just think teacher friends, if you lived in Sri Lanka there would be no school on a full moon day. Yep, the kids had no school today.

Tried to see the eclipse but it was too cloudy. 

Kandy War 1939 - 1945

 

After our visit at the University we stopped by this Kandy War Cemetery.

This war was during World War II. They were defending their island from the Japanese. They had support from different countries such as Canada, UK, Africa and Italy.

There are 203 burials here:

16 Navy

151 Army

32 Air Force

1 Merchant Navy

1 National Fire Service

2 unidentified

107 are British

6 Canadian

23 Indian

26 Ceylonese

35 East African

1 French

3 Italian

The UK still maintains and takes care of the grounds.

S

Some pictures from Peradeniya University. 

A rainy day in Kandy! 🌧🌂☂️☔

Who Knew?

Sure didn't think that we would rely on technology as much as we do. It allows us to talk and see our children and grandchildren.

We print many pages of lessons, documents and notes.

We have 2 phones from the United States that we use the What's Up app. Plus 2 phones that we purchased from Sri Lanka to use here in the country. We actually have 3 computers and my ipad. Pretty crazy!😲

When we teach English classes we rely on the computers, projector and speakers. We have powerpoint presentations that have been developed for us to use.

The internet box is portable. Sometimes we take it with us when we need internet service. That's pretty convenient!

So grateful that we live in an age of technology!

Happy Sunday!

Congratulations to Hasitha (12 years old) and Pujani (10 years old)! They were able to get baptized today. 

Here they are with Elder Karunarathne, their grandmother and Elder Abeythunga.

When I Am Baptized

Children's Songbook page 103

I like to look at rainbows whenever there is rain.

And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again.

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.

I want my life to be the best I can and live with God again.

I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away.

And I can be forgiven and improve myself each day.

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.

I want to be the best I can and live with God again.

Today in Relief Society we talked about the Sabbath Day. I sure enjoy the Sabbath Day and being able to go to church. Here is a quote from President Nelson, April 2015.

"I believe that He wanted us to understand that the Sabbath was His gift to us granting real respite from the rigors of daily life and an opportunity for spiritual and physical renewal. God gave us this special day, not for amusement or daily labor but for a rest from duty  with physical and spiritual relief."

Visiting Day

Had a great day visiting with these two families. They live next door to each other. The gentleman holding his daughter is, Mindapala. His wife is next to him. She is so sweet. He is one of the security guards for the church. 

You will recognize the young man on the right. He is Ishan who sometimes goes out with the Elder missionaries. He is standing next to his mother who is recovering from a head wound she got at work.

They live in a very lovely village. These are the stairs we had to climb down to get to their home. They shared with us crackers and lemon water. The lemon water tasted so good! 

We are truly blessed to be around so many wonderful people.

Happy Birthday Shantha

Today we celebrated Brother Shanthas birthday.

He drives us and the Elders wherever we need to go. He is the best because he knows so many people and where they live.

A birthday celebration is the best by making a wish, blowing out the candles and spraying snow! May your wish come true.

It takes many hands to get the cake all ready.

First bite of the cake.

Elder Luke was next.

Eat up Elder Abeythunga. 

Open wide Elder Karunarathne. 

Take a big bite Ishan.

Seneca gets a bite too!

After our little party we went and visited Sister Chandroni and Sister Ilani. Sister Chandroni (in the middle) has a heart of gold. She fed us cookies, cake, bananas and soda. She also had a gift for us, a small hankerchef. What an example of giving your all. 

Last we stopped at this home. These three shared their talent and sang for us. Two of them are going to be baptised this Sunday.

We had a great time at their home.

Here is a picture of them earlier in the week.

Sakunthala

Visited this sweet lady today. Her name is Sakunthala. She has been a member for just a little over a year. Her husband passed away over 18 years ago. Tonight she was very emotional about it and missing him. She knows that after we die we can be together again. She has a goal to go to the temple and be sealed for eternity. What a blessing for us to get to know her and feel 

her love. 

You will notice that she is holding a magazine. It is the Ensign that talks about the Savior and we gave her a Book of Mormon. She was so happy because they are both in her native language of Tamil. We were happy to give them to her because we just got our supply order yesterday. We sent the order in to be processed in November. It just takes so long for the shipping to reach us here in Sri Lanka. 

I Like!

Today in our English class we talked about things they really like, like, don't like and really don't like.

We really like this fruit 'n nut ice cream.

I like their fried rice.

I don't like the house lizards.

I really don't like the wood apples.

We ended the English class singing,

Reading a book is fun to do, 

Fun to do, to do, to do.

Reading a book is fun to do,

To do, to do, to do.

Gave All That He Had!

Today we had our District Meeting at the church. We arrived early to meet with a lady and do a few things before the meeting. At the church there are two security guards. They take turns cleaning the church and grounds. Today the guard on duty asked if we could watch the church while he went to get some lunch. This is something he normally doesn't do because he doesn't have much money.

We told him that it would be fine because we were going to be there for awhile. When he came back he had the biggest smile on his face. He bought us two milks and two doughnuts. It was very humbling to take them from him. I know he spent all that he had just for us. I was very touched by his generosity. We are so blessed to be around such giving people.

Mark 12:44

"For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even her living."

UNO!

Today we went to the University to get our teaching schedule worked out. Not quite ready yet but we will start next week.

 

While on campus took a few pictures of how beautiful it is here.

Enjoying the warm weather!

Love the trees.

The Elders are spending one more night with us while Elder Karunarathne recuperates. After dinner Elder Abeythunga was so kind to do the dishes. Elder Luke said he will make some young lady a fine husband after his mission.

Ended the evening playing "UNO!"

It's A Sleepover!

We have these fine young men in our home tonight. You would never guess that Elder Karunarathne (the one in the middle) just had surgery today! Yep! It started yesterday. They have been teaching a family that needed some help getting water to their home. So the Elders, Brother Ishan and Brother Shantha bought the supplies they needed and headed to the home. Once there they had to hike up a hill and work to get the water hooked up. It was very hard work and very hot. 

When they finished Elder Karunarathne said his back was hurting and he needed to go to the hospital. Thats when they called us. We were thinking he must of strained his back, or pulled a muscle. 

At the hospital they took x-rays, gave him some pain relievers and told him to go home and rest until they get a chance to look at the x-rays. 

The x-rays reviled that he had not one but two kidney stones. He needed surgery to remove the large one. Surgery was scheduled for Sunday so his companion, Elder Abeythunga and Brother Ishan spent the night in the hospital with him.

As you can tell the surgery went well! He had many people from the Branch come to the hospital and check on him.

This is the waiting area and check in.

Checking out of the hospital 5 hours after surgery. He is standing and talking to some of the family members that they were helping.

Before heading home we needed to get his prescriptions. 

The number 1 thing that he needs to do is drink more water. We are grateful for priesthood blessings and the power of prayer. Grateful for good doctors. It is going to be hard to keep Elder Karunarathne down to rest. By tomorrow he will be out taking care of others. We are glad he is doing so well!