Week 28 in Tarawa

This past week has been taken up with doing DIBELS reading timings, teaching ED 385 Assessment, and preparing for the New Beginnings program.  We drove to Betio on Friday with Sister Alldredge and Sister Wier, our mission nurse and mission mother.  We were glad to see local workers repairing the damaged causeway between Betio and Bairiki.








While in Betio we stopped by to visit the sister missionaries.  We were impressed with their cleanliness and organization.  Notice their goals on the wall behind them.










On the wall behind the door were their lists of investigators and baptisms.

Here is yours truly making little sailboats with the 8 Young Women's values on the sails.  We borrowed the idea from our Principal's Conference.  The Theme this year is about embarking in the service of the Lord.









These next three pictures show the decorations for the New Beginnings program held in the chapel Friday evening.  The Young Women did a beautiful job singing "Walk Tall, You're a Daughter of God" and "I Walk by Faith".  I got to play the brand new piano which I helped assemble just 2 hours before the program started.

The tallest young women on the right is Leilani Solomone.  She is a senior at Moroni High School and also the Young Women's President!
(NOT the Laurel President, the YW Pres.)








We knew the Young Women had planned a dance after the program, but we didn't know that the Bishop had arranged for the young men to perform.  The Young Women seemed very pleased.  We also didn't know until the very last minute that the Bishop was providing a very nice dinner.  Sister Sumner had baked 8 dozen cupcakes thinking that was all there would be for refreshments.





While shopping in Betio, we stopped at another trade fair and happened upon a real treat: Nestlé's Quik!  That was the best chocolate milk I've had in at least 7 months.  It's funny how sometimes you miss the little things.

Weeks 26 and 27 in Tarawa

 

These past two weeks have been filled with reading fluency timings (DIBELS), classes, church assignments, Relief Society birthday celebrations, a field trip, a baptism, and even some shopping. We managed, however, to go to the Golden Restaurant with Elder and Sister Waldron and Sister Alldredge for a wonderful meal at sunset on Friday, March 20th. Even after being here 6 months we still can't help but be amazed at the beautiful sunsets.

Many have inquired about storm damage here.  Typhoon Pam passed 1000 miles south of us, and heavily damaged Vanuatu, but the high tides and swells still caused some serious damage to the roads on Tarawa.  The first picture shows half of a main road eaten away between Eita and Bairiki.  The second picture shows huge concrete blocks tossed clear over to the other side of the road on the causeway between Bairiki and Betio. 

On Wednesday, March 11th, the Taiwanese ambassador spoke at our student officer induction assembly after pinning the officer's badges on each new student officer.  He gave a very interesting talk about how students can achieve much more than they think they are capable of.  Note the new piano in the lower left corner of the picture.  This is the piano I brought back from New Zealand.  The school finally has a piano that works in the chapel.

On Friday, March 13th, the Tarawa West Stake Relief Society birthday celebration was held on our campus.  This was the booth for having your picture taken.  We had ours taken but decided we've already posted enough pictures of ourselves.

After refreshments, the dancing began.  We liked this picture because it conveys the exuberance of the people for their dancing.  Even the little kids get out and dance.

The next day, Saturday, March 14th was the two-stake Relief Society birthday celebration in Bairiki.  These are all the senior couple sisters who were present.  From left to right they are Sister Baber (she was visiting with her auditor husband from Majero), Sister Waldron, Sister Bogh, Sister Wall, Sister Sumner, and Sister Alldredge.

Here is one of the many birthday cakes served at the 2-stake celebration. The two pictures below show more of the traditional dancing.  Each ward was assigned one of the Pacific island dance styles.  Our ward was given Hawaii, so our sisters did the Hula.  Our ward was assigned the colors yellow and blue, hence the outfits above.

 

 

After returning from the Relief Society birthday celebration, we were able to witness another baptism in the ocean behind our apartment.

On Thursday, March 19th, the Interhouse track and field day was held in Bairiki. This picture shows the 6 teams lining up for the parade past the stadium where we sat and judged the marching.

Weeks 24 and 25 in Tarawa (and New Zealand)

 

On February 26^th we left for the Principal’s Conference with our principal, Lita Iabeta.  She is an amazing person and has done much for the church as well as for Moroni High School.  She even assisted with the translation of the Book of Mormon into Kiribati.

We rented a car and drove down to Hamilton only to find that the temple was closed for cleaning on Friday, Feb. 27th.  We had a wonderful visit with the senior missionary couple from Farmington, Elder and Sister Monson, in the visitor center.  A week later, after the Principal's Conference was over, we again rented a car, drove the hour and forty five minutes and attended a temple session.  Sister Sumner was also able to do some initiatory work.  The temple was small but beautiful.  At the temple we met another senior couple serving in Auckland as name extractors.

 

Since the temple was closed, we drove in the rain to Rotorua, New Zealand’s “Yellowstone”.  We walked around looking down into bubbling mud pots, one of which spit some hot mud on me (no harm).  We walked along the lake edge and came to a Mauri exhibit of a war canoe that was pretty amazing.

Saturday morning, Feb. 28th, we decided to ride up on the Skyride tram and try out the mile long luge run.  Actually, I purchased the tram-luge run package without Sister Sumner knowing.  She was a good sport, however, and agreed to give it a look. You can see Rotorua and the lake in the background.

We took a picture of a family getting ready to go down the luge run.  Seeing little kids and grandparents going on the run gave Sister Sumner confidence to give it a go.  Afterwards, she wished I had bought more than a single run.

One of the attractions at the top of the tram was a jelly bean store.  These three pictures were made entirely of jelly beans!

There's Gollum admiring my precious!

We drove from Rotorua to Matamata to see Hobbiton, the set used for the Shire in the Hobbit movies.  We stopped at this visitor center in town and were informed that the tour would take three hours and cost $75 dollars each, so we took a few pictures and left.

The theme of the Principal's Conference was "Embark", the same theme for Young Men and Young Women this year.  We heard from the area presidency and our ITEP and Seminary and Institute leaders during the 3.5 days of the conference.  We came away recharged and refreshed to return home and fulfill our callings as ITEP missionaries.  We found it so helpful and enlightening to meet and discuss our efforts with the ITEP couples from the other islands whom we had never met before.  The "Embark" theme fit so well with the island schools in the South Pacific.

We loved all the decorations, but especially loved these table centerpieces.

This shows the layout of our conference meetings as seen from where we sat.  The principals sat in a large U in front of the ITEP couples.

Thursday afternoon, we went as a group to the marine museum in Auckland to learn more about the history of South Pacific island boats.  We toured this replica of a twin hull boat that was used to cross the Pacific in ancient times.  This replica was actually manned by a volunteer group from Hawaii who were sailing to many locations in the Pacific.  This replica, however, had very modern navigation and communication equipment on board.

We took a brief boat ride around Auckland.  This is a view of the city from our boat.

We were told to be sure and try the local fish and chips meal.  The meal was delicious for both of us and a handful of seagulls.  They would come right up to us at the table and take a French fry right out of our hand.

The Auckland skyline is famous for this needle-like structure, which can be seen from 30 or more miles away.  We could see it from the balcony of our hotel, the Spencer on Byron, in Takapuna, and even got to watch some fireworks launched from the needle to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Takapuna is known for its relatively recent volcanic activity. At low tide we went walking out on the lava flow where we could see the remnants of trees that had been destroyed by the lava flow, leaving circular rings and holes.

Being in New Zealand was a lot like being back in the U.S.  We realized, while there, that this was most likely our last excursion from Tarawa before our mission ends about a year from now.  It's hard to believe that our mission is one third over.  We feel so very blessed and privileged to be able to serve the Lord here.

We've been incredibly busy since returning, but will try to post a brief blog for week 26 in a day or two. 

Week 23 in Tarawa

Since school started, we have been very busy  so we have missed some time.  Right now we are in Aukland and can't download from our camera, so we will only talk about week 23 until we get back to Tarawa.  We put in this picture that we call our "Village Inn Breakfast.  Real eggs with real cheese, American Hashbrowns, and genuine bone in ham.  It's not so primitive as we thought.

Week 23 was Zone Conference.  This is always a treat.  The seniors cook the meal for the missionaries and enjoy the meetings.  I baked 36 hamburger buns. Betty will be happy to know that I used her roll recipe.  They were delicious.  We had Sloppy Joes on them. The missionaries were thrilled to be shown the movie, "Meet the Mormons".  The seniors had already seen it earlier.  President Weir gave a beautiful talk on obedience. You may be interested to know that in Kiribati, we are not "seniors" we are couple missionaries.

 

During the week we had extremely high tides, causing floods all over the Island.  I included a few pictures of some of the flooding we saw when we were out and about on Friday afternoon.

 I included this picture to show some of the debris that washed up with the waves. We actually saw the ocean washing over the road on one of the causeways.  It was pretty scary to realize the power of the sea, even with as small waves as we were having.  The kids, though, were having a wonderful time playing in the surf.

 

 

This is the water washing over the sea wall across from the I-Mart store we like to shop at.

Below are the decorations for the school opening social.  The students prepared all of the decorations, planned the food and the entertainment.  They did a great job.

Weeks 21 AND 22 in Tarawa

This rainbow welcomed the students back to school this week (yes, it rained the 1st day of school).  School was supposed to start a week earlier, but on January 28th the principal announced that school would start a week late!  We were shocked.  Such a thing would never happen in Utah.  We started teaching a class on assessment (testing) on Feb.10th, and we've been very busy also preparing for school wide literacy testing, coaching new mentor teachers, and preparing to teach a student teaching class.  We also serve as part time Sunday School teachers and YM/YW advisors.  That's why we missed last week's blog. Sorry about that.

We continue to eat well as attested by our lack of weight loss.  Sister Sumner threw together a wonderful Nacho Grande for lunch last week when we didn't have a lot of time to cook.  I can't believe we ate the whole plate.  We've been able to figure out how to make some of our favorite dishes such as pizza, spaghetti, cinnamon twists, cookies, and even fruit salad despite having to substitute for many ingredients that are not available here.  I'm getting spoiled by Janet's homemade bread.

On January 12th a volunteer group of dentists and dental hygienists from the Deseret International Foundation arrived.  They not only cleaned our teeth but even cut our hair.  They have been doing this at their own expense for a dozen years.  We often took them thank you treats for family nights.  What a great group.

John Millar and Ameet Kumar arrived here on Thursday, February 5th.  John has served as the TVET area director for several years but is now retiring.  Ameet is his replacement.  The dinner and cultural presentation was to honor John and the dental group.

The traditional Stick Dance is always fun to watch. I would attach some video but our internet is impossibly slow.  These dances are usually performed by members of the Service Center and school faculty and their wives and children.  We can tell by their facial expressions that they truly enjoy doing this despite the many rehearsals in the heat and humidity.

Of course the ladies put on fascinating dances that usually involve a lot of hip shaking.  If you look behind the dancers, you can see a large wooden box laying on the floor.  The men beat on this box amazingly hard with their bare, flat palms.  It has got to hurt, and the sound can be heard all over the campus.

We had to change our 45th Wedding Anniversary plans to Saturday, February 7th because of the celebration for John Millar and the dental group.  We went to the Hotel George restaurant in Betio.  The atmosphere and music were lovely, but next time we'll eat at the Golden Restaurant.  We were less than impressed with the food here.

On sun shiny days the glare from the roof of the adjacent building is blinding, so I put up some curtains in our office which can be closed to take the edge off the glare.  Sister Sumner reluctantly made them with a lot of pressure from me since she didn't think we needed them.  Our office, however, was the only office without curtains.    I had to improvise a way to hang the curtains, but so far they are hanging just fine.  We've had some nice compliments on them already.  We couldn't help but notice last Sunday that many of the girls' white Sunday dresses were made out of the same material.

When we go walking early in the morning, the students are busily engaged in cleaning the campus grounds.  We had to smile at this group of girls all dressed in their shiny new school uniforms carrying new pink brooms to sweep around the dorms.

The Young Men/Young Women's opening social was a bust and a blast at the same time.  It was a bust because just before the start of the meeting, Microsoft decided to start downloading updates to my Windows 7.  By the time I borrowed another computer to show the new YM/YW Theme Song video "Embark" the meeting was nearly over.  After the meeting, they played "guess the name on my back" game.  Sister Sumner baked over 12 dozen cookies and Sister Alldredge, the mission nurse cooked another 5 dozen for the refreshments. Needless to say, there were no cookies left over.

The young ladies you see in these two pictures are NOT the MiaMaid or Laurel Presidencies. They are, in fact, the Young Women's Presidency.  The Young Men's Presidency is also composed of 17 and 18 year old students.  We are just their advisors. It is neat to see them start to learn about leadership.  We try hard not to take over from them so that they can grow in their callings.  The Kiribati culture makes them painfully shy around us.

This picture was taken in the front of the school office.  There have been lines of new and hopeful students filling out lots of paperwork.  There are many more applicants for Moroni High School than there is room for.  The kids know this and it helps them to realize how blessed they are to be here.  We feel the same way.  It's hard to believe we have been here 5 months already.  What a joy it is to teach with the Spirit helping us understand each other.  It's a good thing, too, because sometimes we have a hard time understanding their English.  We hope we can help them learn to speak more clearly.