Reliv Trip to Jamaica

On April 17, 2013 we flew from Portland to Jamaica with a few stops along the way. There is always so much work to do before leaving town with work and church responsibilities, so we managed to get less than two hours sleep before catching our early morning flight. We were ready for some relaxation in Jamaica! During November and December of 2012, Reliv had a promotion that the top 30 distributorships in volume of sales, would earn a trip to Jamaica. 

Those two months were very busy ones for us as I was preparing for Julia's wedding the end of December, in the midst of putting my portfolio together for the American Mothers nomination, and helping Emily to begin preparing for her mission. In the middle of December we drove to BYU-I for Julia's graduation, and of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas were in there, too. 

Crismon had his hands full with many church responsibilities, too, but amazingly we were richly blessed and we happened to be #30 to earn the trip! One of the tender mercies connected with this trip was it was just before our trip to New York for the American Mothers Convention. I contacted Reliv Travel and asked if there was any way we could fly to New York, and then a week later fly home to Portland. It turned out it was all within the budget. This was wonderful that we didn't have to pay for the flight to New York and back.

There was an opening dinner together as distributors, and then a closing dinner and entertainment, but other than that we were on our own to do what ever we would like. The Montego Bay Rose Hall was so beautiful, we just enjoyed relaxing and taking advantage of the fun things they had to do there.

The "Lazy River" where the currents would just move you along and you'd end up under some of the waterfalls.

The pool and all areas where breathtaking.

Our opening night with other Reliv Distributors

Breakfast one morning with Ryan Montgomery (Pres. of Reliv) and his wife Tracee. They are wonderful, down to earth people.

Relaxing before dressing for the final dinner with LDS friends, Annette and David Wells (MN), Karen & Ron Turner (Orem, UT)

This lady was incredible putting fire in her mouth, on her legs, etc. Really amazing!

We had a very expensive ride to church Sunday morning, a 35 minutes drive, but we didn't want to miss attending our meetings as we were flying out in the early afternoon. Of course, the Jamaican members are very warm and welcoming. We filled the room with this other company of LDS tourist there that day. One sweet sister wrote her name down on a piece of paper and asked if I would put her name in the temple when I go. She didn't have any special needs, but she just wanted the blessings of the temple. Their closest temple is the Panama temple. We thought about Bryan while we were there as he served his mission in Jamaica.

 The town was quite run down. There are beautiful mansions along the countryside, but mostly poverty.

Returning to our hotel before leaving for New York.

 We quickly had some lunch before catching our shuttle to the airport. This was the view from our table. Magnificent!