The Lord did teach us a lesson on priorities, patience, and collaboration, however, which is ironic because Thursday's SPED 200 lesson was on collaboration. Because the internet in our ITEP office is so poor and so slow, Sister Sumner and I decided to finish preparing Thursday's lesson in the apartment. Minutes after we got there, a recently returned sister missionary knocked on our door. She was desperate for help with her BYUH application because the deadline was the next day. So while I helped her, Sister Sumner waited and waited and waited. During the 3 hours I helped the sister RM, she mixed, raised, panned, raised, and baked another batch of bread. Needless to say, she was frustrated. After a quick bite of supper, she sat next to me on the couch and announced: "We need to talk". It was not in her normally sweet tone of voice. Taking my cue from her, I put away my cell phone on which I had been reading and responding to emails, and said, "Yes we do".
Her lesson preparation had not been going well, and now the afternoon she had planned to work on it was gone. We talked about the lesson. We COLLABORATED! Between the two of us, we were able to come up with some good ideas, find the resources we needed, prepare a handout for the assignment, and still have time for a good night's sleep. Our answer to our frustration came from "The Leadership Pattern", a graphic put together by the church for the use of its CES employees. At the center of a circle are the words "Lead like the Savior". One of the pattern skills in the outer circle of skills surrounding the middle is "Counsel Together". It was humbling for us to realize that we had not turned to our leadership training sooner. We were able to bear witness to our teacher-students that the Lord will bless us when we act under the direction of the Spirit and follow the counsel of the brethren.
We had the wonderful opportunity today to witness a gathering at Moroni High School of teachers from many other local schools to celebrate "International Education Week". After an LDS opening prayer by our principal, Lita, the Minister of Education spoke. Since the celebration was all in the Kiribati language, we didn't understand anything. Then teachers from all the island schools marched out onto the field. (See attached video) The teachers competed in a variety of games such as sack races, kangaroo races, and volleyball before sitting down to eat their lunches. Just like we heard from the UEA at home, we heard the teachers chant in unison "Invest in the future, invest in teachers". It made us smile.
That afternoon, for the very first time, Elder Sumner borrowed the school truck and drove us shopping. Sister Sumner is sure she has a whole new crop of grey hair underneath her recently colored hair. The road is amazingly bad. Vehicles swerve all over and around the road to avoid the potholes and lake sized puddles which are worse than ever after the recent heavy rainstorms we've had. (See attached video) Our average speed was less than 10 miles per hour. It took us 45 minutes to go the 5 miles from Bairiki back to Moroni High School. We managed to spend $400 AUD on food, but that includes $195 AUD on a blender.
Last night as we were getting ready to go to bed it started to rain really hard. We were surprised to hear the sound of students still out playing on the basketball court. We stepped outside, and to our amazement, dozens of students were playing soccer in the rain on the basketball court. They were slipping and sliding and having a grand time. We tried to remember the last time we had ever gotten soaking wet playing out in the rain.
We're grateful that our apartment has two air conditioners because the one in the living room just quit working today. On a better note, we finally got back our repaired chest freezer so we are able to buy larger quantities of food when we find things that are not always available.
It is now Saturday evening local time, and we have started our fast. We pray the Lord's spirit will bless all of you. We love you and miss you.
Elder and Sister Sumner.
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