Week 4 Jul. 22-29

One month done, 35more to go but who’s counting, we’ve been too busy.



  At the beginning of the week, we welcomed 3 new sisters from the Island of Tanna and one elder from the island of Malekula.  All four have received their call to serve a mission.  The 3 sisters in Guam and the elder in Papua New Guinea.  So they come over to Port Vila for immunizations, shopping for clothes and receive their patriarcal blessing.  They will all leave on Aug. 1st for Fiji to go to the temple and the sisters also have an interview for their visa for Guam.  Then they will leave Fiji on August 8th to enter the MTC in New Zealand.

  Sister Tucker, Sister Fau'onuku, Sister Duquette, Sister Andon at the  Black Sand Chapel

So our nurse, sister Tucker was very busy this week.  She is the one that makes sure the ni-van missionaries  newly called missionaries from Vanuatu) have all they need to go serve on their mission.  She is the best and works so hard.  Besides being the nurse and helping the missionaries with their health, she also takes care of housing in Vanuatu.  Making sure the apartments are clean, well furnished etc.  She looks after new apartments to find when we have an influx of missionaries and we open new areas.  When it’s tranfer times she makes sure the apartments are in good shape (the leaving missionaries have a clean apartment and do not leave anything behind) for the new missionaries coming in.  We would like to keep her as long as we will be here but her mission will conclude at the beginning of November.  We received a wonderful e-mail this week from a sister who has served in this area in 2003-05 and has pretty much the same experience as our Sister Tucker.  She expressed her desire to come and serve with us and had some questions.  If all goes well, she could come before sister Tucker leaves and the transition would go smoothly.  It is truly an answer to our prayers and we are so thankful.

Wednesday was our first mission wide Mission Leadership Council (MLC). This council includes the mission president and his wife, the zone leaders of the 6 zones (12 missionaries) the sister training leaders (6 sisters) and the two assistants to the mission president.  We held it at the mission home.  Sister Tucker took care of lunch by bringing all that was needed for sandwiches and dessert and I made part of the dessert for lunch and dinner and dessert.  So I was busy a good part of Tuesday cooking and baking.  Benoit helped me a little when he came back home.  It was a little but it really felt like huge.  I am thankful for sister Tucker’s help as well.
We were looking forward to this council to discuss the training plan for the rest of this year and also train the leaders on effective goal setting.  They will now bring that information to their respective zones.  We accomplished a lot and we had a good feeling about it all.

Thursday and Friday, we were busy with all kinds of things like test driving a new car for me (that I should have in a few weeks), Benoit had a lot of interviews and phone calls.  We have a struggling new missionary that we are trying to help, interviews with the ni-van missionaries and starting to prepare the next round of zone conferences and a district conference in Santo.  I have 2 talks to prepare for that district conference and Benoit has 3 talks.  That does not include what we need to prepare for zone conferences.  Never a dull moment.

We did have a very restful preparation day on Saturday.  We went over to the island that we see from our back porch.  It is called Erakor Island.  It was very relaxing.  We saw so many star fish and sand dollars.  It was really nice.

Back home I experienced my first earthquake.  This time we both felt it.  About two weeks ago, I did not feel it but Benoit did.  This time we both felt a rumble then a quick and loud thud.  I barely had time to call out Benoit’s name and it was over.  Let’s hope it will not be anything bigger than this ever.

We tried out the pool for the first time this week.  I tried it Friday for my morning exercises and then Saturday we got in after our trip to Erakor Island.  We did not stay very long, it was windy and a little cool.

Sunday we flew over to Tanna for Sunday meetings and some interviews.  A lot of interesting and new things for us.  The gas station on Tanna is a lady at a shack with a gallon of gas and a funnel.  The serpent road that we drove on to go to the White Sands chapel is very very winding and we were glad it was a beautiful day not raining.  In the background is the Mount Yasur volcano.  What you see are not clouds but smoke from the volcano.  The branch president told me that " she will be quiet during Sacrament meeting and will let us worship"  speaking of the volcano and she was.  We can see the volcano from the chapel.  As we came out of the truck, walking towards the chapel we could here the members, especially the children singing hymns loudly and with all their hearts  as they were waiting for us.  I was so moved that I could not restrain my tears as we walked inside.  Benoit was choked up also.  I heard angels today in Tanna.  210 members were in attendance today and it is usually around that number that comes to church on Sunday.  No one has a car and they all walk to church about an hour walk.  The little chapel was packed.  The children were sitting on the first rows and some on the floor, not even a foot in front of us.  The children sing without an hymn book.  You can see they love to sing and they know all the words.  They sang a hymn that we never sung before. #295 O Love that Glorifies the Son.  The children and the adults even harmonize.  It was heavenly.  The children go to a french school so when I was asked to speak during church I did a little bit in Bislama, French and English.  The District President translated for us.  Benoit said he saw some members outside looking in through the open windows to hear what was going on.

We will come back long enough so we can visit the volcano.  At least Benoit wants to.  I have not made up my mind yet.  You can stand on the top pretty close to the opening.  Who am I kidding, my mind is made up.  I am okay seeing it from the distance we saw it today. 😜

Benoit had a lot of interviews to conduct so we had to rush back to the airport (but slowly on the serpentine road)  At the airport we saw another meaning of "Jack in the Box"

Yes that chicken traveled in the bagage compartment of the plane.  And it was not alone in that box.
Luckily the plane was bigger coming back to Port Vila.  A different world.  A very simple, uncomplicated world over here.

Well those were our adventures this week.  Lukum yu Bakagen!  See you later!