Week 14 in Tarawa

You would think that with all the students and faculty gone, it would be a quiet and boring week.  Not so. When we woke up Monday morning, we found this 2 inch-long nearly dead cockroach lying in the middle of our kitchen floor.  Yuck!  We had been warned about them, but this was the first one we've seen.  Elder Sumner keeps the doors and windows, which don't seal very tightly, well sprayed with Permethrin, a church-issued bug spray.





 Last week we received an invitation to attend a reception at the National Maneaba for the retiring U.S. Ambassador, Frankie Reed.  They invited all the American nationals on Tarawa. The church was well represented with the senior missionaries and young elders.  We traveled to the reception with President and Sister Weir and  really enjoyed the opportunity to visit with them.  The reception was not actually in the Maneaba, but on a beautiful patio next to it.  We have been past this area but had no idea that a spot so beautiful was there.  We had the opportunity to meet the ambassador, and also the President of Kiribati. They were both warm and gracious people. The hot topic  of the night was global warming.

Wednesday evening President and Sister Weir took all of the senior missionaries out to dinner as a Christmas gift.  We went to our favorite restaurant, the Golden Restaurant, where we had our first romantic dinner out.  Again it was sunset and so beautiful.

Friday we went into Betio to do some shopping.  We were looking for a coconut shredder, called a kautuai (pronounced cow-too-eye), and were told to go to the stadium to the TTT office.  We found one which you can see sitting on the stove behind Sister Sumner in this picture.  When we got to the stadium, we discovered that there was a trade fair going on.  There were all kinds of little stalls set up both inside and outside of the stadium. It was fun to wander and look. We even found booths selling soft ice cream cones and popcorn. 

We also found some Christmassy place mats and a table runner which you can see in front of the lovely Sister Sumner.                                                                                                                                                                              
When we returned home, the stake primary was having a big celebration.  The children were so cute.

On Saturday we had our ward Christmas party.  It was a pot luck dinner featuring a roast pig.  For a while there was more food than people,  but the people came on Kiribati time, an hour after it was supposed to start.  Sister Sumner made some delicious BBQ meatballs which went very quickly.  There wasn't much food left when it was over. From left to right are Elder Bogh, Sister Bogh, Sister Sumner, and Sister Aldredge, our mission nurse.







Our final adventure of the week took place over two days and involved a very persistent crab in our toilet.  We tried flushing him down with bleach, but he kept coming back.  Finally we snuck in without turning on the lights and caught him with a pair of long tongs.  Unfortunately we threw him back into the ocean without taking another picture.  The result of this experience is that Sister Sumner no longer reads her Kindle in the bathroom and turns the light on when getting up in the night.

We wish you all a most joyous and merry Christmas!  Love, Elder and Sister Sumner