Florida Summers Last Forever!! YAY!!

This picture was taken on my birthday.

Sisters Wright & Clinger sang to me a Spanish birthday song 

that the Spanish always serenade for people on their birthdays.

They were so cute!!  I loved it!!

I have fallen in love with the Florida sky this summer.

The clouds are so beautiful here.  

Hopefully you'll be able to enjoy them too.

At the Celebration Hospital, where Melissa goes when she is not well.

She has some very serious health issues.

This is an outside garden there in a area surrounded by the hospital.

It is of the Saviour healing the blind man in John.

This picture goes with the statues at the Celebration Hospital.

The new oranges are growing so quickly.

On the 4th of July we went to the Bishop's home for the celebration.

The evening ended with fireworks of course.

They were very pretty.

I tried taking pictures of some of them.

We surely enjoyed the evening.

This is the evening of the 4th of July at the Bishop's house.  

These are the Baptists across the street.

These are flowers that Sister W. is growing.  

They are plumeria I believe and smell so good!

They come in different colours.

This is a LARGE fly!!! .... and I mean BIG, GIGANTIC!!

You can see the reflection of the camera in the window (Elder Draper too).

This is on the car window (outside) on my side of the car!!

Sometimes I just put the camera outside of the car and point it upwards and see what I get.

It's so pretty.

This is Elder & Sister Tuft.

They served among the Haitian people and loved it.

It is a lot of work.  

You could compare it to working with the Lamanites I think.

President Summerhays is always smiling!!

He loves life!!

Elder Satchel on the left is an office Elder in charge of bills and apartments.

The bunny ears are on Elder Leavitt.

He is the Institute Director here at the University in Tampa.

This is Elder & Sister Knight.  

They also work in the office doing the mail, supplies and taking care of the cars.

Sister Knight always has her camera out.... a woman after my own heart.

Tufts, President, Whites

The Tufts go home this week and the Whites go home in September.

It's hard to see them go.  We get together once a month for an activity.

The Whites got here just before we did.  There mission is for 1 year.

Having them go home makes us think about how quickly the time is passing.

We're sure glad we have been able to be on an 18 month mission.

These couples have served so well!!!!

This is a restaurant that we all ate at.  The scenery around is so beautiful.

Here I am just outside the restaurant at some little shops around.

It's been a great day!!

At the same spot, Elder Draper shows how big "HIS" fish is.  haha

The tree just ahead has grown around the wires.

This is how they take care of the trees so the wires are not disturbed.

They just cut a big U in them.  They are so funny!!

What a beautiful moon in the middle of the day!!

These clouds are typical.  

They start out small on the horizon and then just grow tall up in the sky.

There must be a wind up top to shear them off and make a flat top.

Beautiful billowing clouds.

They seem to come out of nowhere every day.

This is advertising the Trailer lot just up ahead.

Another picture of a gorgeous cloud at dusk.

It's great to be out driving and just keep flashing pictures so we can get the best ones.

I love digital cameras.

Isn't that beautiful?

The vines grow on anything and everything.  

This is an electrical wire.

These pretty little flowers are in our back garden.

They are so dainty and beautiful!

More flowers from the garden.

They are so petite and dainty.

A beautiful Hibiscus plant is just outside our bedroom window.

This is another flower from the garden.  

I don't know the name of it but the blossom is so fragile!

Papaya plants at the side of the car port.

They sure grow quickly.  

There are blossoms on them now but not in this photo.

I love that the leaves are so big and spread out.

These are white peaches and boy were they good!!!

Here are some little sand pears.

The texture was a little different.  

They are quite hard but the flavour was great!

A water lily.

There are tons of them here in all the lakes.

It's fabulous when they are all in bloom.

I should find out the name of these trees. 

 When we got here they only had the trunks with a little knob on the top for the branches to grow from but there weren't any branches yet.

For the longest time we wondered what the were.

They must cut them back at the end of the season but the season hasn't ended here yet.

It is still very warm and humid.

I thought this rainbow was beautiful and the colour of the sky is too.

Can you see?  It is a double rainbow!

A beautiful sky at dusk the same night as the rainbow.

There are lots of parasites that grow in the trees killing them.

This tree is dead but the parasites are thriving still!

I love the palm trees down the streets.

You can see the seeds growing in them.

There are so many different kinds of palm trees!!

When the oranges stay on the trees too long they begin to turn green again.

They will all fall off before the new oranges which are now getting ripe.

Isn't this a beautiful butterfly?

He let me get very close to it to take this picture.

I didn't even use the zoom lens.

There are lots of these butterflies here and there are also some brilliant yellow ones.

I haven't been able to get a picture of the yellow ones yet.  We'll see if I can.

Late in the season (July) some of our trees started to blossom again.

We don't know why and when we asked Brother King, our landlord, he didn't know either.

It must be very rare.

It was all over the tree but just on a branch or two.

Interesting.

Here is a tree with only one branch in blossom.

Elder Draper is in front of a banana plant.

The one with the big leaves.

It was so humid this night that we had to wait for a while for the camera

to quit fogging up. 

 Here our glasses fog up when we go outside, just like going inside in the winter there at home.

The camera lens is the same.

The same evening in the same spot, just a different tree.

Aren't they beautiful?  .... no bananas yet.

Here is a little snail on the underside of a banana leaf.

Another palm tree with seeds coming out.

When it rains, the papaya  leaves repel the moisture.

The leaves are perfectly dry.  The drops of water just roll off.

What a spectacular cloud!!

Two tiny pomegranates.

They are also pretty dried up.

Our Sandhill Cranes.

Is this awesome?  A BABY!!!!!

This is just on the side of the road.

A cloud-covered sky over the orange groves.

This was a shot outside the car window with the camera pointing up.

Good shot, eh?  I thought it was beautiful!!!

I love the clouds to billow up like this! ... and to be so white!!

This is a home that has been damaged.  

People can't afford to fix them so this is what they do in the meantime.  

It might stay like this for years.

The louvered windows are called "Florida Windows".

There are only single panes of glass in these areas.

This is how many of the people garden here.  

All those pots are the garden.

They line them up by the house.

Sometimes they line them up out in the yard in the grass.

We teach the people in this home.

This home is a cute little blue house.

It's more blue than it looks.

It was raining one day when we arrived here.  This is the front entrance.

We had to wait a moment for the rain to stop.

Blossoms are on the cactus.

I liked the clouds and the palms by the house.  

The seeds on this palm grow up from the top of the tree.

Here are some other vines growing up the pole.

It looks like we might be driving into rain!!

When the rain comes sometimes you can see a wall of rain as you hit it.

Clouds at dusk.

We watched these clouds grow as we traveled this night.

We were coming home from the temple in Orlando.

Here's another shot of the same sky.  Isn't it great???

The very top of this cloud is still reaching the sun. 

 It almost looks like a big moon behind the cloud.

That same cloud moments later from our place from behind a tree.

It keeps changing shapes.

Another beautiful sky!

The colours of this sky are not conveyed very well here.

It was a gorgeous sky with deep blue sky changing into orange.

I love it with the palms!!

Shouldn't I win a prize for this??

We had just taken the Elders home and stopped to take this picture of the sunset over the lake.

My goodness I was pleased to see these.

It's amazing how such beauty can come for a moment then be gone.

Notice the cloud growing on the horizon.

Isn't it spectacular?

Here are the vines growing in the evergreen trees.

I love how green it is here.

The vines cover everything.

The vines have covered the bush underneath and are growing up into the trees.

Elder Draper is being smart so I took his picture.

Isn't the a beautiful sky?

It's another out the window shot.

.... and another.

There is such beauty in Florida!!

These "Bird of Paradise" are growing outside of the "Celebration Hospital".

More of the flowers there.

Looking up over the roof of the hospital.

The sky can always be so different.

Isn't that great??  Can you tell I love the sky?

Coming home from the hospital here is the evidence that we are close to Disney World.

More beauty.

The palms in the clouds.

So pretty as the sun goes down.

We got home after dark to see this little gecko hiding under the light cover

Can you see his tail and one foot sticking out?

District Meeting - We take pictures at the end of the transfer.

Elders Palmer, Boehme, Prescott, Sisters Wright, Clinger, Draper, Elders Draper and Glover

On the floor is our District leader, Elder Call and then Elder Butler is hunching down in front of us.

We made a pyramid just like the Elders did.

Sister Wright on top of Sister Clinger and me.

I love these Sisters.... actually Hermanas (Sisters in Spanish).  

They are Spanish missionaries.

Okay, the Elder did do a bigger and better one.

Elder Palmer on the floor with Elder Glover in the middle and Elder Butler on the right.

Middle row:  Elder Prescott and Elder Call

On top is Elder Boehme, he's a bull rider at home, can you tell?

Elder Boehme is bailing off the top now.

We took Sister Wright to this baptism of a man that she found in another area.

This was an exciting day for sure!!!  

The other Sisters names are: Gallegos on the left and Remington on the right (also Spanish speaking).

Elder Palmer is being transferred today.

He came over to our house last night to make sure 

he had all the advice we had given him for life written down correctly.

He sat down and started reading. 

 I couldn't believe it.  

He's recorded everything we ever said I think!!!

Elder Palmer loves Elder Draper.  We love him too!!

The oranges are growing!!

Sister Clinger was transferred.  

On our way to taking her to her new area we stopped to make a visit.

We visited the Hunts and their grandson had this dinosaur.

Sister Clinger LOVES dinosaurs!!!!!

She was happy and entertained!!

Sister Clinger.  I'm so sorry to see her go!!!

These Sisters have come to mean so much to me.  

They treat me like their mother and I love it.

They are like daughters.

These are the seeds on those big palm trees.

(a close-up)

Here is another picture of them up in the tree.

We go to the mission home on the evening before the missionaries go home for dinner and a nice testimony meeting and music.

Elder Draper with President Summerhays.

Elder Johnson.  

He was our Zone leader but was then called to be an assistant to the President.

He is a wonderful leader.  He'll go far in his life.  

He'll make a wonderful husband and father for some lucky young woman.

Sister Satchel just resting the evening of the dinner.

Transfer time is so busy for her.  She's the mission secretary.

She is so fun to be with.

This is the same tree that I took pictures of before with the bright yellow flowers.

Here are the seed pods that are left after the flowers finish.

Another wonderful cloud!!

What a beautiful sky.

This was right when we came out of Walmart.

The colours in this sky are amazing!!!

I took pictures of it all the way home.

Can you see the green and purples?

Same sky.

More of the green and purple!

The one stroke of green in the middle of the wires was amazing.

A great evening sky

Another day and another sky

Am I a fanatic yet?

Isn't that a beautiful white cloud?

This is Goya who was baptized in her pool.

She is deathly afraid of the water and she did it!!!!!!

She even wears a mask and ear plugs in the shower.

It was the first time she had ever even been in the pool the night before and she only got her ankles wet and couldn't go further.

What an amazing woman she is!!!

We were all there to witness this special day!

President Rameros (branch president), Brother and Sister Hernandez (our neighbours), Sister Clinger, 

Goya and her husband, Andy, Sister Wright with me behind her, 

Sister Vincent in front of the brother that baptized Goya.

Sister Remington is in front with the woman who drove 

Sisters Clinger and Remington up for the baptism. 

Sister Clinger had taught her and our Mission President, 

President Summerhays lets them return for baptisms.

Sister Wright, Andy, Goya, Sister Clinger

Andy will be next to be baptized hopefully.  He sure is supportive of Goya getting baptized.

She would have never been able to do it without him and his encouragement.

Just hold the camera outside the car and press the button.

You can see the clouds billowing up on the horizon.

Can you believe the size of this grass hopper?

It is beautiful but huge.  

I was knocking on Teri's door when I heard some clattering at my feet.

Boy did I jump!  There were about 3 of them.

We got to go to a Professional Baseball Game.

We took Teri and her grandson with us.

Another shot of the baseball game.

I don't know if you can enlarge this picture but if you can you can see the ball.

It has been thrown and it is in mid-air coming toward the batter.

Great picture, Elder Draper!!

Teri, her grandson, and me in our BOX at the game.

We had a good time.  Our Bishop got us these great seats.

He also got seats for President and Sister Summerhays right behind home plate.

Our seats included free drinks of any kind but their seats included free drinks and food too!!!

It's September now but it is still very warm and I think we'll have good weather for a bit yet.  

It doesn't get bitterly (haha) cold until December usually.  We'll see.

Hope you enjoy the photos.  

Sorry if you feel I've been neglecting you but work is always in front of us with so many people to see.  

We are loving our mission.

Love you all!!!  The Drapers