Our Time in Vanuatu

What a week!  Some spiritual growth was necessary for me so you can guess that we faced some challenges.  And it also was Thanksgiving week.  Good timing!  It helped me to concentrate on what I was thankful for.  I can honestly say I am thankful for all the challenges we had this week and what I have learned from it.  If I keep it up, I should be a better person when we return home. 😁 We came back from New Caledonia on Monday.  Before we took the plane papa/grand-papa had some interviews with the New Caledonia elders while I was meeting with the sisters for a special training.   We did that for the other two zones where we have sisters.   We discussed President Nelson’s message to the women.   Tuesday, I met with the 4 sisters from New Caledonia who are going home so we could have the special training they had missed. We also met with all the missionaries going back home, including the mission nurse. A total of 12 missionaries.     Since I did not have time to cook

Writing this blog is helping me sort out the days and the weeks and seeing the hand of the Lord in this great work.  We started the week arriving in Santo for zone conference.  I enjoyed spending some time Monday with the sisters for a special training.  We are discussing President Nelson’s prophetic plea to the sisters of the Church.  I am so excited by the wonderful experiences and understanding they have received as they applied his teachings.  Since we are not a media mission, these sisters have decided to apply the fast to listening to music.  They made a concentrated effort to listening less music and closely following the directions on Music in the missionary handbook.  They reported feeling the Spirit more and receiving His help in their missionary work.  They could help the people they are teaching much more.  They have felt more unified as they have helped each other with their goal. Tuesday was zone conference and we love feeling the Spirit together as we discuss and le

A few pictures from last week.  The download was so slow I gave up.  But I wanted you to see the last minute of a huge spider, it's on the outside by the way.  Not long after I took this picture, I heard a bang on the patio door of our room and when I looked up a bird was hopping towards the door and picked up a dead spider where I had just taken it's picture. I also took some pictures of the plants in Solomon Islands Well, here we are at the airport in New Caledonia on this Sunday afternoon going back to Vanuatu.  It was a last minute decision to come here to support our missionaries who have been cooped up in their apartments these last few days because of the referendum.  It was very nice meeting with them on Saturday.  We had a few things to attend to as we were here.  We wanted to be with one sister missionary to support her as she had a video call with her mother who was informing her about her grandmother’s health.  She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  

Monday:  we are starting the week with some banging on our heads.  Yes, they have started replacing the roof of the mission home.  I was told the project will last 4 weeks. 🤪.  They started at 9:00 am and were leaving at 4:00 pm. It is good that we will be out of the house travelling about 15 days here and there starting this Wednesday. So I got a good scare tonight.  I was washing some lettuce that I bought this afternoon at the mama’s market.  There was a centipede in the last big leaf that I was washing.  I drop it so fast and got a pair of tongs to grab it but the centipede was not there anymore.  I am in a state of total panic by now only it got worst when I saw it going in and out of the holes in the strainer that was in the sink next to the leaf of lettuce.  I am still freaking out about it.  I got some killing bug spray and sprayed it directly on the strainer.  And it disappeared again.  I assumed it went in the drain and I sprayed the drain inside like crazy!  Then I thought