We attended our first Zone Conference and listened to the Mission President and his assistants teach the young Elders and Sisters how they can better touch the lives of those they come in contact with. Most of the teaching was done in the chapel but some of the role playing was done in the cultural hall after lunch.
Later in the week we went with the students who were competing in the Commonwealth Days competitions in Bariki. There were 2 categories, 1- The reading of the Queen's Message, 2- The reading of a personal poem pertaining to Commonwealth Days. In each category there were 2 levels of competitors, Juniors and Seniors. Moroni High won 3 of the 4 competitions against a total of 10 schools. We were very proud of them.
Susan rode with the kids in the bus.
This was our Senior competitor in the reading of the Queens Message. She won.
This was our Junior competitor in the reading of the Queen's Message. He won.
This was our Junior competitor in the reading of a personal poem. She was wearing a tradional outfit and performed a small dance before doing her reading. The Judges gave her 101%.
One evening our neighbor came by and gave us these 2 fish as a gift. He said they were a member of the snapper family. I cleaned them and cooked them. They were delicious.
On our day off while we were in Betio Shopping we stopped by one of the old Japanese artillary bunkers and took a couple of pictures. I was looking for the American memorial but could not find it that day.
On this day I had finally had enough heat and left Susan watching the events while I went back to the apartment to cool off.
All the students are divied up into 6 teams named after prophets. Susan was assigned to the Joseph Smith team and I was assigned to the David O. Mckay team. This is part of my DOM team. They are practicing team cheers and yells. Each team is lead by one of the Student Body leaders. Our leader is the young man in green whose name is Lars. He is very energetic and also competes in 4 events.
The day of the High Jump finals we had this storm roll in in the morning. It dumped quite a bit of rain but after about an hour it cleared up and we proceded on with the competitions.
This young man won the senior division.
This young man did not win in his division but I love the facial expression I caught on camera.
It rained again later that night and we could hear a bunch of laughing and yelling. When we looked outside we could see some of the students running around in the pouring rain having fun. They were using the basketball court as a slippy slide.
Finally Friday came and we all headed to the Bariki Sports Field for the track events. This was an all day affair. This is one of the trucks used to haul the students to the event.
Susan and I sitting under the shade of a tent and we still got sun burned even in the shade.
At the end of the day and all of the students are assembled in each of their teams.
The next week the Church had a Stake Music Festival. There were 3 divisions of competitors. Primary kids, Young Men & Women, and Adults. Each ward (congregation) competed against each other. These were the primary kids from our ward, Moroni.
These are the young women from Moroni ward.
These are the Primary kids from Eita 2nd ward.
These were the young men from Eita 1st ward.
A view of everyone attending the Festival.
At the end of the festival Susan was asked to hand out the awards and prizes to the winners.
During the week while shopping for some material with the fashion design teacher I was able to finally find the American War Memorial. It sits right by the Betio Sports Stadium.
Because of the very limited bandwidth for live video streaming the General Conference of the Church has to be downloaded and saved on the servers in the Service Center for later playback. This weekend was our conference weekend. While the men were in the chapel watching the priesthood session the women were outside in the maniebo watching the Womens conference.
I was in one of the classrooms listening to the priesthood session that was setup as an english speaking broadcast room. In this room was where Susan and I also listened to the other Conference sessions.
I worked with the carpentry shop in building 3 of these tables for some of the missionary apartments. The missionaries have just been sitting on the floor eating and doing their studies. I asked them if they needed a table and they gave me a very enthusiastic yes. Also one of the sisters apartments have a new gas cook top but have no stand or table to put it on. So we will be building them one this coming week for them to put their cook top on.
With all of the electrical work I have been doing lately I really miss having my own electrical tool bag shown below. I don't know how many times I have thought to myself, " if I had my own toolbag I could do this or that".
But I have been able to put together an assortment of tools that I can get by with.
I had been thinking about the changing seasons during the week and had wondered what it was like back in Colorado. Then my son sent me this picture to remind me of the seasons that I love and miss.
Yet driving down the one road on Tarawa I see the simple life that many of these people live and hope they understand how blessed they truely are. Their lives are not cluttered with stuff and they find happiness in the simple things of life. They are always happy and give you a smile when you greet them.
As a parting note Susan has had a pain in her back by her left shoulder blade that doesn't seem to want to go away. One of the other senior sisters gave her a good massage that helped some but it is still nagging at her. It may just be due to stress. Her father has had some medical issues recently and she has been worried about him. I am sure she will recover.
I was also able to keep Uncle Sam happy by getting my taxes finished. Thank you Douglas for sending me all the info I needed to finish them.
We love all of you and hope this finds you all in good health and good spirits.
