Each morning is a beautiful day coming to life. Many people pay a lot of money to go on vacation and see what I see each day. When you live it everyday it makes you appreciate the life God has given us. The experiences I have had throughout my life have been truly grand. I have seen so many wonderful places, experienced so many wonderful things. But most of all I have met some phenomenal people along the way. This mission has been another one of those experiences that words alone cannot explain. You have to live it to understand all the small nuances of life here.
With our added housing duties we stay pretty busy. Here are a couple of examples.
The Elders in Betio called one day and said that the water in their bathroom was not working. They also informed me that it had not worked for the last 3 weeks and that they had been hauling water to flush the toilets and taking bucket baths. We were getting ready to bring all of the missionaries in from the outer islands for the Mission Tour Conference. That meant that there would be 10 Elders staying in that house instead of 6. So we went there to see what the issue was. After some trouble shooting of the syatem I found that the water lines going into the bathrooms had been disconnected on the outside. I contacted the landlord and he stated that he had just had a contractor replace the well pump and a cracked water line. The contractor had installed the new pump and water line but had not connected the bathrooms to the system. The landlord contacted the contractor to go back and connect the lines.
Got a call from the Elders in Eita saying they had lost power in their kitchen and living room. I went over to see if I could find the problem. As I started to check their breakers I could smell something really bad. The Elders told me that they had been smelling something dead for about a week. I took the cover off of the breaker box and found a dead rat inside. I shut the power off and had the Elders remove the rat. I found a loose wire on one of the breakers and tightened it. Power was restored to the kitchen and living room.
We usually perform Flat (house) checks every other Friday. We split the Island and do the west side one Friday and then the East side the next. One Friday we were at the Betio Sisters house and as I was leaving I backed into a coconut tree. It didn’t seem like I had hit the tree very hard but the bumper look worse than I thought it should. Later I took the bumper off and found that it was made out of plastic with a thin metal frame to hold it in place.
The Reese couple have come to the end of their mission. They were the Humanitarian missionaries here in Kiribati. We had a nice farewell celebration for them here at the school. They flew home the day of our Mission Tour Conference. We will miss the Reeses. They were great examples of hard work and perserverance. Their replacement has already arrived, the Kitchen couple. The Kitchens are from Utah.
Tabuaki from the FM group invited me to go fishing with him one saturday. We started at 3:30am and headed south to the Island of Maiana. It took about 2 hrs. To get to our fishing spot. We started out fishing for Trevele using topwater plugs similar to fishing for largemouth bass. Simone caught one but the rest of us got skunked. So Tabuaki and I switched over to drift fishing the bottom for grouper, red snapper and other reef fish. We did fairly well and came home with a few fish. Got home at about 3:30pm.
We have gotten to know this young woman well. This is Sister Petersen from Manti Utah. Her family lives next door to our good friends Paul and Denise Hagemeister. It’s a small world in the Church. Sister Petersen was just sent out to North Tarawa to the Tearinibai area. It is the only outer island area that Sisters work in. We know that she will do well working in that part of the mission. So Denise if you read this share the pics with her family.
So here we now have Elder Boiteux from Herriman Utah. He arrived just a week ago and is doing well. My son knows him.
Elder Ardern of the Seventy recently annouced that he was going to do a Tour of all the missions here in the islands. He flew into Tarawa on November 9th for his first Mission Tour Conference. We had a wonderful Conference and were taught some remarkly teachings. We held the Conference at the Temaiaku Chapel which sits right on the ocean. All the missionaries were asked to sit quietly and read while waiting for the Mission President and Elder Ardern to arrive.
Once they arrived the training got underway. Then at 4:30 we took a recess to eat and take pictures. All of us Senior Missionaries had prepared the food for the meal.
After the meal we went back in for the last session of the conference. By the time it was over we had all been spiritually fed.
We then spent the next few hours getting all of the missionaries back to their apartments. Then we spent the next 3 days getting the outer islands missionaries back to their island homes by plane and by boat.
The school had a farewell celebration for Tipo Solomone one of the Vice Principals who is retiring. It was a fun celebration until it ended up getting rained out.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter in my blog. Susan and I are doing well. We love the work we are doing and love the people here in Kiribati.
