2020 Semaine 33 (10-16 aout)

August 15, 2020

Life in Vanuatu

On our way to district council last Tuesday, the road was closed and we had to find another way. This is good because we got to see another corner of the island.

with beautiful views and trees

Following Google map we can see street names but there are no street signs.

But wait... some street signs!

It's a good thing we had Google map for the names. We could not get them from the signs.

District council with the Ohlen District. We love to attend these district councils.

Here are some leaning trees of Mele.

We went to Mele to visit a new house where the missionaries could stay. We went with the three elders who will stay there. It was a little tight at the back of the truck. It's a good thing it was not too far.

Elder Nikolao from Samoa, Elder Okka from Myanmar, Elder Teriitaohia from French Polenysia

As we drove back, it was time for students to return home.

This is how Vanuatu repairs the many potholes. It is not permanent though. After the next big rain, the rocks and sand they fill the potholes with will be cleaned out of there.

We found out Tuesday that there was a plane from Samoa that would be flying in Vanuatu to bring back some students from Vanuatu. We are thankful to doctor Matt Cornish, who has been living in Vanuatu for a year now with his family, who told us about the flight. Tony, the Pacific Church Travel Manager, got busy to contact government officials in Samoa and Talofa Air in Samoa so that one of our elders who was finishing next November could fly home while he could. And lo and behold, Friday morning we received the confirmation to take him to the airport that morning. They told us to be there at 10:30

am. We got there at 8:45 am. Always get there earlier. The fight arrived at 9:30 instead of an hour later. He was in the plane around 10:00 am. It gave us hope for our missionaries who have been waiting for more than 3 months that they will soon be going back home.

When people are repatriated, they close the gate at the airport entrance until the passengers to be quarantined have left in a bus.

So we waited for a good while until we noticed there was another way out. 😏

As we were waiting for Elder Sevao Falanai to board the plane, we were looking at this sign we see in other areas. We both made the comment that we like that sign so I took a picture.

This week was transfer week. It was the first time since February that we had new missionaries coming in and a missionary leaving.

All four sisters are from Vanuatu. One is assigned to the UK and three are assigned to

Vanuatu. We are excited to have them with us.

Some of these sisters saw this picture of Audrée and Jason's family and they thought it was grand-papa and me when we were younger with our family. I thought that was funny.

Thursday, I went with Sister Coyoca from the Philippines and Sister Singo from Vanuatu to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to this cute couple. Sister Coyoca was explaining what the gospel of Jesus Christ is and sister Singo was talking about faith in Jesus Christ. When I go with the sisters, it is almost always with someone that speaks French. This time it was only Bislama. After Sister Singo spoke, Sister Coyoca asked me if I could explain repentance. I did not prepare before but I did it all ...in Bislama. The language was for sure not completely accurate but the doctrine was. I felt so much joy to be able to teach the doctrine of repentance with a bonus of being able to do it in Bislama. What a wonderful blessing to know about repentance and to be able to share it. I am very thankful to the Savior for making repentance possible thanks to His Atonement.

La fête

The celebration

Yesterday, Saturday, there was this big celebration on a street close to the mission home. When I asked what it was I was told it was a community's celebration.

This one was running up and down. Too precious, I had to take a picture.

We had planned to go around and take pictures of the beautiful trees on our p-day. I was able to take a few ones during the week.

Like the mango trees in the backyard:

and the one with all the flowers walking back to the mission home.

The following pictures are very interesting indeed.

Kind of a Jack-in-the-box hard boiled egg. 😁

It was very tender to see Sister Basil ( she is the mother of the Stake President) with that little baby. I wish I could have taken a video but the meeting was about to start so I snapped these quick pictures instead.

In this one ward we have 13 missionaries. 7 are assigned to go home...one day ( five of them are working in one big area, one is training the new missionary and one is helping in the office), one is doing his online MTC training, one just started her mission this week, two are working in the Pango area and two are helping us in the office. Interesting times. We never have so many missionaries in one ward but since March we've had 7 new missionaries coming and only one leaving this past Saturday.