Pen 3 hike and barbeque April 4, 2009

On Saturday, April 4, after the morning in the temple with the Filipina and Chinese saints, we spent the afternoon with the Pen 3 branch. Today was a holiday and so the sisters didn't have to work. The branch planned an activity at Gold Coast, near the home of our branch president, President Balad. He planned for us to hike and then have a barbeque back near his home. We started our hike on the Gold Coast and took the last part of stage 10 of the Mclehose trail. It was a pretty level hike and mostly on pavement, but we did get out of the city. The girls wanted Kathy to be protected and so provided an umbrella. I found a place to prop my camera and was able to get a group photo. Obviously this isn't the whole branch, but it is the group that went hiking.
Kathy is like a magnet and the girls want to be with her. We had some great views of a local reservoir and here I climbed a hill off the trail and got a good shot of some of the group.
Kathy, not sure that she wanted this picture taken.
This was a view from the top of a hill off the trail. I stitched two pictures together to get the full effect of the countryside and the reservoir. We had a beautiful day for hiking.
After the hike, we went into the small village where President Balad and the Jacinto and Wen families live and had a barbeque. Some of the girls who didn't hike had prepared a great barbeque and while we waited for it to finish being grilled, the girls played games and had a lot of fun together. It is amazing that they can have such difficult struggles during the week and then just seem to forget about it when they get together. They are fun to be with.

After the meat was cooked, they laid it all out on a couple of big banana leaves. Then after the meal, the girls each started tearing the leaf apart and wrapping up the leftovers for a later meal. Banana leaves are good for a lot of things. They wrap food in them and then cook the food, using the leaves like we used to use tin foil for tin foil dinners. We had a great time.