Week 63 inTarawa

 

Tuesday, November 24th 2015, was our school faculty and service center Christmas party. This picture shows the view out the back of our school Maneaba where it was held.  The roar of the crashing breakers during high tide has become an almost unnoticed background sound for us after 15 months here.  But it will always seem strange celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving and on such a balmy day.

The smoked barbeque chicken, pork, and lamb was delicious. We also had many native Kiribati foods served as well.

You can guess who was asked to play the piano for the program!  (Me, if you couldn't guess!) We sang every Christmas song in the hymn book plus a few from the Children's song book.  Sister Sumner, hiding behind the post, was asked to be the narrator.  All the people sitting to her right had parts to read on the program.  That was nearly everyone in attendance.

After the program and the meal, we watch some beautiful traditional dancing.  We know all these dancers by name and have grown to love them.

At the end of the program, Lita (front) was honored for her 26 years of service to Moroni High School, the last 14 as principal.  Iotua Tune, on her left, is a past principal of MHS, and now serves as the director of the service center.  He and his wife, Mai, are our wonderful home teachers.

On Friday, Sister Sumner and I volunteered to go with Sister Alldredge to do flat checks.  We inspected each missionary flat for cleanliness and left them water filtration kits good for the coming year.  The white board they are standing at lists names of investigators and upcoming baptisms.  There really are lots of teaching opportunities and baptisms on Kiribati.  On Tarawa and nearby outer islands we average around 10 baptisms per week.

These sisters' flat was very clean, but they have been sleeping on the floor because of a broken bed, which I am hoping to fix this coming week.  They have also been living with clogged drains, which we hope will soon be cleared.

Thursday the senior couples got together for an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  We had turkey legs (sorry, no whole turkeys are to be had here) with all the trimmings, including cranberry, stuffing, peas, rolls, and mashed potatoes with turkey gravy.  We then had pumpkin, apple, and cheesecake pies for dessert.  Though we were far away from home and family, the feelings of love, unity, and gratitude made this a celebration we will always treasure.

While we were out shopping Saturday, we were puzzled by store helpers carrying bags of onions out of the store to the truck.  When we asked one of the store clerks, he explained that they were returning the spoiled onions that were stinking up the store.  This scene, with dogs and kids and people riding on the back of the open truck in the rain is so typical of Kiribati.  I just had to take a picture.





Our next blog will be from Brisbane, Australia if we have internet there.  If not, our next blog won't be until after December 14th, when we return to Kiribati.  We have so much to be grateful for, and many of you who follow our blog are the reasons for much of our gratitude.  The Lord has truly blessed us this past year as we've served the people of Kiribati.  Seeing these pictures and reading our comments can never convey the depth of our experiences here.

Week 62 in Tarawa

 

Friday, November 20th, 2015 was the Moroni High School graduation.  Having attended 13 high school graduations at Northridge High School in the past 13 years, I can honestly say that this graduation ceremony was as good as any I ever witnessed.  The school held two a day rehearsals for the past 4 days.  The music was truly excellent, and the speakers weren't bad, either.  The two flag bearers in this picture are our valedictorian and our salutatorian.

Sister Sumner gave a wonderful talk about learning life's lesson of love based on Carol Lynn Pearson's book, The Lesson, A Fable For Our Times.  When she finished her talk, she presented the book to our principal, Lita, who has accepted another assignment for next year.  Lita has been the principal of Moroni for the past 14 years.  We will miss her.

 Elder Sumner spoke on service as being the purpose of getting an education.  It was a great  honor for us to be asked to be the commencement speakers.  We hope they will at least remember the grand themes of our talks: learning to love and learning to serve. The theme of the graduation was, "The Glory of God is Intelligence."

As at all graduations, the kids took tons of pictures of each other.  We took pictures of them taking pictures.

The girl on the left, Lealani, is the daughter of Tipo Solomone, our vice principal.  She was also the salutatorian.

Saturday morning, we went with Sister Alldredge, our mission nurse, to do missionary apartment checks and distribute water filtration kits.  The very first flat we visited hadn't even installed their filtration system.  They told us they had been drinking rainwater collected in a big tank filled with rain draining off their roof.  It's surprising that the missionaries are as healthy as they are.  Here we are with our first ever filter installation.

The first team of sisters joined us to visit the second team of sister missionaries who were doing a service project for an elderly member.  She can be seen just behind the two sisters seated on the front right of the picture.

Sister Baldwin is shucking a coconut for the elderly member while the boys laughed at her.  The local people shuck them so quickly and easily using nothing but a sharp stick stuck in the ground.  Watching us ematangs try it must be hilarious to them.

Their skills at many native tasks are truly amazing to us.  This guy is 30 feet off the ground and seemed totally unafraid of falling.

The milk of the coconut is delicious, refreshing, and incredibly nutritious.  Of this I can speak from direct first hand knowledge.

The next apartment we visited had their filter system connected, but the box of spare filters had been all chewed up by rats.  Notice the mold at the top of their kitchen wall. Despite the primitive conditions the elders and sisters live in, they rarely complain. We bought a new refrigerator for two different apartments when we found out that theirs weren't even working.

When we visited the next apartment, the elders were having their morning planning meeting in their back year, in full view of the Pacific Ocean.  What a beautiful place to be working!  They were in a threesome waiting for another missionary to come to replace the one who had just returned home.

Along the way we stopped at the roadside gift shop where the craft lady sells us lots of take home gifts and souvenirs.  She makes them for many of the fancier stores, but we get a much better price buying direct from her.  We also pay her more than the fancy stores do, so it's a win-win situation.

Saturday afternoon we attended a baptism in Betio where 11 people were baptized.  It's wonderful to see the church growing.  We hope they receive the three things they need to stay active: a calling, a friend, and to be fed by the good word of God.  We noticed how the stake president personally and warmly greeted each new member as they climbed out of the baptismal font.  The older man near the middle of the picture bore his testimony after his baptism that the spirit had prepared him to accept all the principles of the gospel as they were taught him by the missionaries.  He knew they were true as soon as he heard them.

This has been a wonderful week for us, witnessing some of the fruits of our labors.  We worked and prayed hard for the inspiration to lift and encourage the new graduates, the young elders and sisters, and the newly baptized members.  We feel the Lord's blessings have been poured out upon us.

Week 61 in Tarawa

This past week has flown by even faster than the week before.  We finished teaching our course on Educational Psychology on Wednesday and gave our students a take home final which we still have to grade.  On Thursday, we drove to the airport to pick up Elder and Sister Waldron, much to our delight.  They are the couple walking toward the terminal in the picture.  They were returning to us after going home last July for some health care needs.  They had to wait for about a half hour on the plane after it landed while a torrential rainstorm passed.  It was funny to watch the plane crew open and close the door 3 or 4 times while the rain was pouring down.  The Bonriki International Airport has no Jetways, only the stairway you see in the picture, for unloading passengers.  The first passengers off the plane were offered umbrellas, but the wind just blew them inside out, so everyone just waited.

After their final exams Friday morning, the dorm students packed up their things, boarded the school's bus, and went home.  This place will be awfully quiet for the next 2 months.

Saturday was the Tarawa East Stake Relief Society Conference.  Everyone comes wearing yellow tops and blue skirts, the Relief Society colors.  The sisters in this picture sang a lovely musical number.  Sister Sumner was so inspired by the talks she heard that she did something she almost never does, she posted a long commentary on Facebook.  You're welcome to go to our Facebook site to read it if you haven't already.  The name on our Facebook site is WayneJanet Sumner.

Sunday was our Seminary graduation.  The music was well done and our new couple, Elder and Sister Jenks gave wonderful talks.  The upper picture shows the graduates marching in.  The picture next picture shows a typical scene after any graduation: proud parents taking pictures of their kids and kids taking selfies with their friends.  Notice the girls all dressed in white homemade dresses.  Parents greeted them with white leis that you can see them wearing.

Elder Sumner and I taught the Relief Society and Priesthood lesson today on the parable of the Lost Sheep.  The lesson seemed particularly appropriate at this time. The message we left them with was that Christ knows us each by name and loves us dearly.  We need to feel that same love for all around us.  We don't seek to bring people back to the gospel for the sake of numbers.  We seek to bring them back because we deeply love them and the thought of anyone being lost is unbearable.

This week we will be busy preparing talks for the coming graduation.  We have been asked  to be the main speakers, representing the Area Office.  If you have any great ideas, we are open to suggestions.

Week 60 in Tarawa

 

 

Our mission nurse, Sister Alldredge, surprised us this past week with an early Christmas present.  Her hand made Christmas manger is darling.  Since we're already on the second week of November, Sister Sumner had to, of course, put it up right away.  "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...".

One of our student's aunts made these beautiful gifts for us.  The 2 shell turtles can be seen inside the shell basket.  We had been looking at things like these in the roadside souvenir gift shops, but they were way expensive.  Thanks, Retibita's aunt!  You might also notice the native handmade place mats on our island style table cloth; all things we will treasure for years to come.

This is our school librarian, Marinoa.  She is standing in front of all the book racks in our library, which hold only about 4500 books.  Sister Sumner was asked by Elder Pearson of the Seventy when he was here 2 weeks ago to assess our school's library situation and recommend books our library should have to encourage more reading by our students.  She was to focus on fiction that would interest our students and teach them about life and the world around them.

Many of the books currently in the library are not age appropriate and are in a sad state of repair.  Berenstain Bears and Madeleine books are just not very interesting to junior high or high school students.

This picture shows just how empty our fiction shelves are.  The other 3 fiction shelves in the library not shown in this view are just as empty.

 

Tioromaea, Iutita, and Gloria Richard are admiring the doll the Young Women made as part of their service project.  Sister Sumner bought this one and then we modified it to make it safe for an infant.  It's hard to believe that Gloria Richard is already 9 months old.  She has begun to see that we are strangers and acts very shy around us now.  Just a month ago she was all smiles and would let us hold her, but no more.

Our last picture today shows the first four boxes we have packed up to send home.  We still have 16 weeks left, but while we're away in Brisbane during the first week of December, the facilities people want to come in and paint our apartment, so we figured we'd better start getting rid of the stuff we don't need here but want to keep.  The boxes mostly hold souvenirs and gifts for our family members upon our return next February 29th.  Where has the time gone?  We have just under 4 months left on our mission.



We want to end today with another quote from President Holland's book, "To My Friends".
"Happiness comes first by what comes into your head a longtime before material blessings come into your hands....Henry David Thoreau said, 'Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.' " At this Thanksgiving season, we wish all of you the happiness that comes from forgetting yourselves in the service of others.



Week 59 in Tarawa

 

 

One of the more interesting things we do is observe and assess the teaching of our student teachers.  Bwereia is teaching a class on geology for Tiorika, the regular teacher.  Her subject was geological features of atolls.  This picture shows two of the four groups preparing to present their part of the material to the rest of the class.

Here are the other two groups working on their presentations.  Notice the bare feet, which are quite normal on this island. Bwereia is circulating among the groups answering their questions.  In this picture, it appears student engagement is 100%. Hooray!

On the last Thursday of each month, at 7:00 a.m. the Seminary and Institute department holds a sunrise missionary devotional.  After the devotional, which normally consists of short talks and testimonies by several recently returned missionaries, we have a light breakfast consisting of hard boiled eggs, hot dogs, bread and butter, bananas, and Milo, a lightly flavored chocolate drink.  Only the senior couples and teachers get to sit at tables.

The students sit on chairs or the floor and eat from their laps.

Once again notice the bare feet and the food on the floor.

On Friday, Sister Sumner snuck this picture of my backside while I was cashing a petty cash check for the missionaries at the ANZ bank.  What this picture doesn't show is that after taking a number, we sat for an hour and 35 minutes waiting to be served.  U.S. customers at U.S. banks would never tolerate this kind of "service", but when there's just one bank in town, all you can do is wait.

This is the spooky Halloween moon rising Friday evening.

True to my word, I broke my Fast Sunday fast with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in honor of an amazing new book coming out next April titled "The Last Great Adventure of the PB&J Society".  Notice the Skippy Super Crunch (the only "true" peanut butter) and the homemade strawberry jam made by the amazing Sister Sumner, which is tastier than any jam sold in a store.  Yummm!  We hope when we return we can persuade the author, Janet Sumner Johnson, to autograph a copy for us.

On Sunday evening Tioromaia brought over a ladies top that his wife had made.  He wanted some feedback.  Since Iutita had embroidered my name at the top front, I had to try it on, which was a great source of amusement for everyone else who saw this picture.