Week 51 in Tarawa

Sorry we didn't publish our blog on our usual schedule.  We had several unplanned things come up Sunday morning, afternoon, and evening.  In the morning, we received a visit from Tioromaia, Iutita, and their 7 month old daughter, Gloria Richard.  This picture shows me giving Gloria her very first piano lesson.  She had never touched a piano before, and it was obvious she was delighted.  Once she figured out how to make sounds by pushing the keys, she pushed my hands away when I tried to play along with her.

 Later that afternoon, while Sister Sumner was cooking for the sister missionaries' dinner that evening, Tioromaia came over so I could help him with the conference talk on which he was to base his high council talk, Elder Nelson's talk "Call the Sabbath a Delight.  Then we had Sister Tiatia and Sister Pasina over for dinner.  It wasn't our dinner sign up date, but we noticed that morning that no one had signed up for Sunday.  Once again, we've had a busy week.




Monday and Tuesday Sister Sumner and I presented discussions on the Seminary and Institute training talks given in Salt Lake in August. These next two pictures show some of the discussions involving our teachers hamming it up.  Boutara is playing the guitar while singing a song she made up about SIOP.

 

Titeebwa, on the far left, had everybody cracking up with her antics.

I always get asked to be a recorder.  The teachers were amazingly frank about the lists of things they are not doing that they should be doing, like coming to school on time.

We had a gigantic visitor in our kitchen this past week.

Well, OK.  He wasn't so gigantic after all.  We actually were glad he was just a cute little feller.

 

We had a regional youth conference on the school campus this past week.  It went very well until the closing dance on Friday evening.  Right in the middle of the dance, a heavy rainstorm suddenly hit.  At first everyone scattered to take shelter, but within a few minutes, everyone was back on the basketball court dancing in the rain.  This is a sight we would never see in the U.S.

With all the rain we've been having, the delicate pink flowers that make up the Moroni H.S. emblem were in full bloom again.  We hadn't seen these since last spring.











Finally, while we were in the S & I training last Monday, the Elders and Sisters went on a P-day hike to Broken Bridge.  In this picture they are pretending to be jumping off the bridge.  Fortunately, no missionaries were soaked in the filming of this picture.
One last thought from our S&I training. As we seek to come closer to our Savior, we should often ask ourselves these 2 questions:
1.  What am I doing that I need to stop doing?
2.  What am I not doing that I need to start doing?  We pray our mission is blessing us to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ.