2019 Week 4 (21-29 Jan.)

This is a little late and will cover a little more days.  Our flight back on Monday from Malekula was cancelled and we had to get a taxi again.  We left Tuesday morning.



Elder and sister Anderson were with us.  They are one of our senior couple missionaries.  He was called to do audits and she helps us in the office.  He also helps with the missionary apartments.  He is a builder by trade.  So the apartments are being fixed in a timely matter.  He also came to fix a few things in the mission home ( leaky faucets, put a smoke detector)😃 He is funny.  He has those expressions that just cracks us up.  Of course it is all in the delivery, which he does very well.  Talking about the showers where we were staying, he asked us how the pressure of our shower was.  We said it was not too bad.  I guess we are just grateful when we get more than a trickle.  There is no hot water either.  Anyway, he said that he could spit farther than his shower, the pressure was so low. 😆.  Talking about one of his sons, he said he is so tall and skinny that if you put him sideways and he sticks his tongue out, he looks like a zipper.😆 You have to read this when you are tired and sweaty and battling the mosquitos and you will know how good it felt to just laugh a little.
It was nice to be stranded with them.  He made us laugh and they have great stories to tell.  They are the parents of 9 children and 22 grandchildren.

Two bishops from Port Vila were with us also and one little boy, the son of one of the bishops.

We got some good news this week:
Nambawan good news is that we have received our new passports and they are the thicker ones.  Yeah!!

I wonder how long they will last...

Nambatu good news is that a senior sister who will be in charge of finances at the mission entered the MTC Monday instead of a month later so we are expecting her here on Feb. 4.  We were waiting for her visa and she sent us an e-mail a week before mentioning that she has been feeling like she would be at the MTC January 21st.  She said that she did not know if it was her excitement to leave as soon as possible or the Lord speaking to her but she planned with her family that she would have her farewell talk Sunday January 20th and hoping all her family would be there for her setting apart if indeed she would entered the MTC on the 21st.  On the 17th , we received an e-mail advising us that she would entered the MTC the 21st.  Her Stake président probably got that information about the same time.  All her family was in town for her talk and would be there for her setting apart.  So it was the Lord granting her the desires of her heart.  I love the tender mercies of the Lord!

It is good news also for the missionary who has been doing this job since before we got here.  He did train someone last July but it did not work out.  He has been working three days a week in the office since then.  So we are all excited about that and we hope it will work out.

Nambatri good news is that we were told that the next Pacific Area Seminar will be the first week of May in Sidney, Australia and the first day there, we will be able to do a session at the temple!  Youhou!! I am so psyched about that.  I miss the temple and I did give a suggestion to Elder Nattress who came to visit the mission in December that it would be really appreciated if a temple session could be organized when we meet where there is a temple.  I don’t know if I am the only one who has requested that but I am very happy it will happen.  And if it doesn’t for some reason, just the thought of it was a boost.

Nambafoa good news, papa/grand-papa was busy organizing a coming mission tour with Elder Haleck 8-15 March).  He is a member of the Quorum of the Seventy serving as president of the Pacific Area Presidency.  It was a lot of planning and figuring things out with the travel elders and finally it is a go.  Because of the mission tour, we will not hold any zone conferences in February and we did not have zone conferences in January because of our waiting for passports.

 Although we had a lot of planning to do for a district conference with the members in Malekula, it was nice to stay in Port Vila and not travel so much.  So the interviews with the Solomon Islands missionaries was done over the phone.  We are now planning for a one day trip to Tanna, Saturday
 ( I have decided not to go to Tanna.) another one day trip for Santo next week ( I will go for that one) for interviews plus interviews in Port Vila for the next two weeks just before transfer week.  Then we will go to New Caledonia for a day of interviews.  We will see how that goes.

 

This week, I checked on the booboos of some missionaries.  And I am sparing you the other not to nice to look at wound.

One new sister missionary came to join us.  She is from Tahiti and is french speaking but she is called to serve in Vanuatu. Usually, the missionaries coming from Tahiti are called to serve in New Caledonia.  She came 3 weeks later because she stayed in the New Zealand MTC to learn English.  Now she will work on learning Bislama.  She is ready to work and is excited to learn.  

  

CAN YOU FIND WHERE THE BUTTERFLY IS IN THESE TWO PICTURES?

This is the District Office in Malekula.  The District President, President Vanu, is coming down the stairs.

Holiday villas where we stayed

That rooster there and a few of his chickens were very loud very early in the morning but they ate centipedes so they are my friends.

Popo (papaya) tree

We had the garden view with the bathroom inside the house.  Unfortunately, the Andersons got a bungalow with the bathroom outside.    Next time we go, I will make sure to ask for the same one we had this time.  Do not want to do the bathroom outside with the bugs and mosquitoes.  It is the season for mosquitoes and they were eating me up.  Even after I put a ton of mosquito repellent.  I did not feel clean the whole time we were there.

The people here are very handy with weaving. 

Thank goodness for the mosquito net.  One morning I went to the bathroom and saw papa/grand-papa was half way inside the net and it was almost time to get up anyway so I just slipped in half way to.  Bad decision.  In a matter of a few minutes I was hit three times.  one under my chin, one on each arm. Grrr.😠😠  

The district conference was great.  I am so thankful for the Holy Ghost helping me with my talk in Bislama.  I wanted to do the training in Bislama but I am not there yet.  Papa/grand-papa puts a little more Bislama in his talk.  I am sure eventually, he will be able to do it all  in Bislama.

The view was amazing leaving Malekula.  Look at all the coconut trees!  Malekula has the biggest plantation in Vanuatu 

Arriving in  Efate where we live.

One of the bishops had such a cool t-shirt:

It will be my new moto now when things go wrong

"KEEP CALM AND HAVE A COCONUT"

I read a great talk this morning that was given in October 2001 " Beware of murmuring" by Elder H. Ross Workman 

He quoted a parable in Doctrine & Covenants 101: 43-62 to explain  three steps, each leading to the next in a descending path to disobedience.

Step 1:  The servants began to question and felt to exercise their own judgment upon the instruction given by the master. : And what need hath my lord of this tower?  And consulted for a long time, saying among themselves: What need hath my lord of this tower, seeing this is a time of peace?"(47-48)

Step 2: They began to rationalize and excuse themselves from doing what they had been instructed to do.  Thus they made an excuse for disobedience.

"Might not this money be given to the exchangers? For there is no need of these things." (49)

Step 3:  This step inevitably follows: slothfulness in following the commandment of the master.

"And while they were at variance one with another they became very slothful, and they hearkened not unto the commandments of their lord."(50)

 In Doctrine & Covenants 58:26,29, the Lord says: 

"  For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.

"But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded and receiveth a command

ment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned"

Damnation is the opposite of salvation and exists in varying degrees.  All who do not obtain the fulness of celestial exaltation will to some degree be limited in their progress and privileges and hence be damned to that extent. (Bible dictionary)

I think I will use the 3 steps to teach the missionaries and it was a good reminder for myself.  It is so easy to murmur and not do what is being asked.  My commitment is that I will pray my Heavenly father to help me accomplish what is hard and when I feel some murmuring coming in my mind and heart.

Yufala gat wan gudfala wik.  Mifala lavem yufala tumas.

Keep calm and have a coconut!  😘😘