Adventures in childhood begun

“In the spring of 1967 that my dad was working for Alcoa. That's an aluminum company of America. He was given the opportunity - he was asked if he would be willing to go to Suriname a country in South America to work there. My dad's an engineer by trade and they needed him to be a site assistant construction manager for the buildings there in Suriname. In order to make aluminum, you have to have the ore called bauxite, which is a red ore. When you take the bauxite, you mine it, get it out of the ground, you have to put it through a smelting process, and part of the smelting process produces this white powder called alumina. There were huge amount of bauxite there, in Suriname and they needed my Dad to go down and help them with the construction of this huge plant site that would be bringing the bauxite in on these big huge trucks and they would do part of the smelting process there, and then they would put this white powder, the alumina, on the ships and send it to Corpus Christi Texas, to the plant there and they would finish the process and get aluminum. My mom and dad were quite adventurous, and they said why not, sure, will do for several years it will be a wonderful adventure and our kids are still small and that would be great. They decided that they would take the company up on that opportunity to go to South America.”

Suzanne was around six months old when the family packed up and drove to Utah to say goodbye to family there and in Idaho. 

Lisa was almost eight years old and would turn eight after the family planned to be in Suriname. She had her interview with the bishop and was found eligible to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as soon as she turned eight. Since the family was going into an unknown country Lisa said, “They went into church headquarters to talk to them and say, “We are moving down to South America to the country of Suriname. “Is there any church down there?”  I don't remember who they were meeting with at the time, but that he kind of leaned back in his chair he looked up in the air, he thought about it for a minute and he said, “You know, we haven't even drawn boundaries down there.” He did tell them they would be under the auspices of the San Jose Costa Rica mission and that Ted E Brewerton was the president. That is where they sent their tithing and fast offerings, that was the contact they had with the church.  The family spent the night in a hotel and the next day they flew to Suriname South America. 

Because church membership and activity were important to the Bills, Lisa explains, “We were the only members of the church in the whole country. Every Sunday we would have church in our front room. We would have a Sacrament meeting and my first calling at eight years old was to be the chorister. My mom would play the piano I would lead the music and my dad would conduct a meeting and we prepared talks; my dad would give a lesson/talk to us. And remember oldest child was nine and eight, and then five, three, and zero. It wasn't like we were super reverent, but we were able to partake of the sacrament.  My dad when he worked in the Philippines 15 years before, he got a coffee table that was beautiful and carved from the Philippines, and we use that as our coffee table – (I have it in my home now). My dad had picked up sacrament trays and we'd use every Sunday, for the next five years as we lived there, and also as we lived in Jamaica. We would use those sacrament trays that my dad would pass the Sacrament to us every Sunday. Of course, there was no primary organization, my parents would pick up some primary manuals and they would teach us the lessons and throughout the week as we had the opportunity. My mom wanted to make sure that I was working on the things that I needed to do for my bandalo, I was a Merry Miss and a Firelight, I don’t remember a whole lot, and she would help me with all of the requirements, I memorized my articles of faith, I memorized my scriptures - for each of the Scriptures you got a jewel to put on your bandalo. I would do different activities and my mom made sure that I got all that done, I’d go sit on her bed and dad would watch the other kids while we went through the lessons and memorize things and worked on things and we just got it done. Because that was important.”

So, back to this young girl who turned eight a few weeks after they arrived in Suriname. “Saturday morning dawned, and it was my birthday and I was eight years old and it was time to be baptized. My mom had made a beautiful white dress and we drove out to Peranam, which is where my dad's office was, it's just a straight shot into the jungle – there are no mountains! Suriname is flat, flat - we drove on this road that had been constructed through the jungle they just had to go through and tear through the jungle and build this road. We got on this road and we drove out to Peranam, so that I could be baptized in a swimming pool out there. The coastline of Suriname is not a very pretty coastline, it’s not a beach where there is beautiful sand, where we could be baptized there - no it just gets kind of marshy and soggy and the next you know it's ocean. So, it was not an appropriate place to be baptized. We drove out to Peranam, and we got out there and there were already a lot of people swimming in the pool. And I was so sad because we just thought it probably just wouldn't be very appropriate to do a baptism, which is such a sacred experience while these other people are laughing and playing in the pool. My dad just gave me a hug and said we’re just go find a place and see if we can find a river or something. We started driving back through the jungle and we were looking to see if the road crossed a river someplace that we could stop and sure enough we found a little river. We stopped and went down and looked at it and my dad said, “you know I think it's deep enough that we can do this.” And so, we gathered together there and on this little side of the river and my dad through the power of the priesthood, which he held so worthily, he baptized me a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And I was actually the first member of the church baptized in Suriname. It's on the church website I looked it up one time and there it was - Lisa Bills baptized a member of the church. That was August 26, 1967. The next day in our little sacrament meeting I was confirmed a member the church by my dad. I like to joke every once in a while, that there were no priesthood witnesses for my baptism, but it’s not gotten me out of any important Callings and it probably won't ever so that’s okay it works. My baptismal certificate is from the San Jose Costa Rica Mission it’s in Spanish and it signed by Ted E. Brewerton.”