Week 12 (17-23 September 2018)

                    At the hotel where we are staying in Luganville, Santo. It is called El Espiritu.

Alo evriwan!

What’s new?  A few things.  I attended a district council meeting for the first time Tuesday with our young office missionaries.  It was inspiring, uplifting, good discussions, good teachings.  Now if they apply what was discussed, it will also be a productive council.  I felt priviledged to be there among choice sons of our Heavenly father.

The senior couple working in the office returned home yesterday.  Sister Gibbs just found out her sister has stage 4 cancer and wants to spend some time with her.  They said they will come back.  In the mean time we have to organize and bring back the elders who used to perform their responsibilities. 🙁. One started training another missionary Wednesday on visas and front office and we still have to figure out what to do for our finance secretary.  Interestingly enough, Tuesday morning, Benoit received an e-mail asking who in the Pacific would need the help of a senior sister (sister Lindsey) who wants to work in the office with finances.  That is exactly the responsibility brother Gibbs had.  It would be great if this sister can come, then when the Gibbs come back there is plenty brother Gibbs could help with.  We shall see....

After some back and forth e-mails with sister Lindsey, she said she would like to come in our mission.  So Benoit called the in-field representative with the information to flag her when her missionary application is received.  Hopefully she will come and serve with us.

What’s the same ?  Plenty.  But that does not mean it is boring or uninteresting.
Zone conferences, interviews, district conference, squeezing in doing the  laundry and ironing white shirts, trying to figure out what to eat for transfer week coming up...

                                                        Zone Conference in Santo

                              The theme of this session of conference was "Taking care of each other"                                           so during the break we took a few seconds for a quick shoulder rub.

                                       Benoit in action, training.  Sorry this is a picture of the video.

                                     Walking to and from where we eat lunch during zone conference

While in Santo this week, a situation occurred with two of our sweet sister missionaries.  A man followed them to their apartment.  He then kept circling the apartment and knocking at the door.  At first the sisters ignored him but since he kept knocking they finally asked him through the door what he wanted.  He said he wanted water.  They responded they could not help him.  He replied “don’t you have pipes?”  By this time the sisters are pretty scared.  One of them had met him with her previous companion and since he was acting bizarre they had decided not to teach him.  This sister thinks he recognized her and that is why he started following them.  So the sisters, called a taxi and when it arrived the man ran away.  The sisters took the taxi to Church where we were holding the first session of district conference.  When we were informed what had happened, it was decided that the sisters move that very day to be with another team of sisters until new plans are made.  One thing is for sure, sisters will not return to that area.  Before we came to the mission, two other incidents happened to the sisters in this same apartment.  One  we were told was a robbery while the sisters were in the house and I do not know what the other one was.  Personally, that is more than enough to get the sisters out of there. The landlord has been very nice in making the apartment safer.  He lives next door.  Unfortunately, he was not home when the incident happened Saturday.  Elders will probably take that area.  Another puzzle to solve for Benoit.  Another situation that needs to be addressed for next transfer.😬

It was a good week-end of district conference.  The leaders have a lot to learn.  A program was put together for the training session in the afternoon.  Benoit was with the priesthood leaders and it was a little bit better in the organization of that meeting.  The participation was probably the same as ours. You ask a question and everyone is too shy to respond (cricket noise...). I was with the sisters.  The district relief society came to me 5 minutes before we are supposed to start asking me if I had the program.  I told her I briefly saw it and prepared my part and she said she had forgotten the program at her house.  Then she said it did not matter because I was the one doing the training.  I told her what I remembered was that each auxiliary president from the district had a part of the training to do.  She then said she did not remember that and she did not have anything ready.😳

So I suggested, what Benoit had suggested to me , to ask the three presidents to bear their testimony and do my part and if it did not take the full two hours, so be it.  At this point there are about 6 sisters in the room including the relief society president and myself.  So when I mentioned the testimonies she responded that she could not see if the other ones were there.  Then I asked who would translate for me in Bislama and she looked like "I am afraid no one can do this".  But said she would try and find someone.  I saw her asked a sister who looked scared to death.  I silently prayed Heavenly Father to help me.  The image of the sister training leaders came to mind and I hesitated to call them because I did not want to pull them out of their missionary work.  A few minutes later the relief society president was still going around.  More sisters had come in.  It was 10 minutes after it was supposed to start.  I called the sister missionaries and they answered.  I explained my need and they had just finished with meeting with two persons and were planning to visit friends to invite them to the district conference Sunday session the next day, which they could do later. So they came right over and arrived while a sister was sharing her testimony.  Then the relief society president shared her testimony, it was twenty minutes after the hour and the rest of the time was left to me.  I was pretty calm, realizing from the training I had done in two other districts that after 1 hour the attention span is gone and it is time to conclude. We had a good time together.  They are very shy and the discussion was at a minimum, but still I think they understood a little bit more about ministering like the Savior.  We are all learning but as long as we do it with the Spirit it will all be well.

                             Sunday session of Santo's District Conference. Singing intermediate hymn.

 Taking a little nap after all these meetings.  I am writing the blog to the sound of deep breathing. 😁Love y'all, On vous aime, Lavem yufala !