This past week is the first week we picked up, husked, cracked open, and scraped our own coconuts. We found three newly fallen ripe coconuts as we walked behind the Maneaba on campus. We went online to see how to husk them, but decided not to use the teeth or the butter knife methods. We decided to use the machete the Rasmussen's left in our apartment. No senior missionaries were harmed in the husking of these coconuts!
I opened the coconuts the way I had seen my dad do it. I used an electric drill to drill two holes in the "monkey face", poured out the liquid, and then tapped them around the middle with a hammer to crack them open.
I used our "katuai" to hand scrape and shred the coconut meat. It's hard to see in the picture, so I will describe it: a katuai is a sharpened, fluted blade mounted on the end of a saddle that you sit on. There a many forms on the internet, but ours is made of welded rebar. I cut a piece of wood to put on top of the rebar so it would be more comfortable to sit on. I had seen a local use one, so I imitated her technique of rolling the coconut while scraping the meat inside the coconut shell. I was more wasteful than the local, however, because I stopped scraping before I got all the way to the shell. Our shredded coconut meat had very little brown pieces of shell in it. Sister Sumner wrapped the shreddings in a towel and twisted the towel to squeeze out the coconut milk. We haven't yet decided what to make with our coconut, but macaroons sound awfully good to me. I mixed the juice with my orange juice to give it a nice coconutty flavor.
On Monday, the 19th of January, Dr. Wayne Chisholm, Dr. Ian Shields, and their team arrived in Tarawa. Dr. Chisholm has been coming twice a year to Tarawa (as well as several other south Pacific islands) at his own expense for the past 12 years. He does dentistry for the senior and young missionaries, the young prospective missionaries, and as many of the Moroni students as he can fit in during their 3 week stay. They cleaned our teeth and did a fine job using tools and techniques very much like those used by our dentist and hygienist in Utah.
One of the chairs had a broken support, so Dr. Chisholm asked me to make a brace to hold the chair back at the right level. I was able to find some wood and make the chair support shown in the picture. I was wishing I had the tools in my own shop, but it came out alright anyway.
Saturday evening, January 24th, we witnessed three baptisms performed in the ocean right behind our apartment. Something wasn't working right in the on campus baptismal font, so they came walking behind our place when we noticed them. The surf was heavy at nearly high tide close to a new moon, so they had a hard time getting out to where the water was deep enough.
This wide angle view shows the beautiful sky that served as a magnificent backdrop for the baptisms. You can also see the heavy surf coming in.
The 9 year old girl was carried out by one of the missionaries to a small pool right next to the sea wall where the surf was less rough.
The sister missionaries on the left and right are the ones we had over for Sunday dinner two weeks ago. Seeing this baptism helped us remember the true purpose of our service here as ITEP missionaries: bringing souls unto Christ. Preparing education lessons, we sometimes forget that we are here for more than just teaching education classes. While our immediate focus is on building the capabilities of our teachers and helping them receive their Teaching Certificates, ultimately we are here to build God's kingdom.
We listened to talks from our Bishopric and their wives in church today. We will be getting a new Bishop soon since Bishop Banemone was just called last Sunday as a counselor in the new stake presidency. One of them referred to the General Conference talk by Larry S. Kacher entitled "Trifle Not with Sacred Things". You may remember how he spoke of nearly getting swept out to sea along with his wife. The couselor had had a similar experience, and talked about the importance of not being swept away by the currents of the world. He had grown up on an outer island and thought he knew the ocean well. He would have been lost had he not been rescued. Stay away from worldly currents, he warned us. Having just seen the baptisms the evening before, his talk really struck home with us.
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