Baking
So I have NOT done any baking yet and I'm not sure why except that the oven is gas and the temperature is Celsius!!!  And then I had to find some simple recipes that didn't include sour cream or cool whip or cheese.  I couldn't believe how much I used those ingredients.  But I finally decided it was time to bite the bullet and do some baking.  So I was able to bake Swedish meatballs and then I made banana bread.  It only took us 20 minutes to figure out how to light the oven.  But after that, it was great and tasted sooo good.  I just need to remember to bake in the morning before it gets too hot.

19 Jul
Today we had lunch with the Elders and I ordered a burger!!!!! Yea.  It tasted soooo good.  Elder Sanders ordered a fish (red snapper) burger and it tasted good too.  So now we know one other place we can enjoy eating at.  The restaurant is owned by an Australian.  It sits right by the ocean's edge and was so pleasant to feel the breeze and hear the ocean.

YUM

white thing is war relic

20 Jul
Elder and Sister Sampson had a little going away party for the security and grounds crew and us.  They had banana bread and ice cream.  Nesta had made the beautiful lei's for us.  It was fun to enjoy being with them.  The lei's smelled soooo good.

Princesses

Notice the amazing work 

I  spent the morning in our flat while Consita took her English test.  It took her 2 1/2 hours!!! Before she started I told her that for her to go to BYUH, she needed to have 1 yr. of USP foundation courses.  I think that was a little hard for her even though she said it was ok.  I advised her to quickly sign up for classes, hoping that this would help.  I'm not sure if it is too late.  Consita did really great on her test, scoring 63 and 68, and needing only 53.  I hope she will get her USP classes done and go to BYUH.

21 Jul

One of the students schools was having a cultural night, where each province would share a dance from their area.  We were so excited to go and see some of the local dances and costumes of the islands.  But first we had to present a short training for the District Branch Presidents meeting.  Then we went to the celebration.  It was so fascinating to see the costumes and watch the dances, which were all similar but had their own variations.  The first group did the pan pipes.  The student, Clement, who goes to this school (Don Bosco) didn't perform until the next to last number.  So it was a long time sitting but it was so fun to see him and see how excited he was that we were there.  He even found us as we were leaving to thank us for coming.  A little background on Clement, his mother ostracized him when he went on his mission.  So now he has no family but is going to school, which he walks to (2 1/2 miles away) and he is the clerk in the White River Branch.  So you really want to support anything he is doing.  I was so excited to see him, I didn't get a good picture of him in his costume.  There was an accordion group from Germany that performed that night.  I have never seen or heard an accordion band before.

pan pipes on left

pan pipes

tribal dress

tribal dress 3

Accordion group

tribal dress 2

22 Jul

We went to the Tank Museum today.  We picked up a member of the Burns Creek Branch presidency, Simon Peter and his wife, Ethel, because they are related to the people who run the museum.  Simon Peter used to be a minister for the Jehovah Witnesses before he became a member.  He was asked by some area authority to move to Burns Creek and help them.  This was 1998.  He showed us his "temporary home" and many of his grannies.  What a faithful member he is.

Simon Peter (hat on) and family

Simon Peter & Ethel

Simon Peter's home..see the water tank

inside the amtrak

one of many Amtraks

more Amtraks

Elder Sanders' fishing buddies

bush knife that everyone has

The tank museum was at Tetere Beach.  It has many American troop transports that were just left there after the war.  This beach was called Red Beach because of the blood shed that occurred there.   I remember right, the Japanese had 10,000 men on one side, and 6,000 men on the other side, and we Americans had 6,000 men in the middle.  There was a place where 3,000 Japanese are buried in a mass grave.

Today the beach is beautiful, black not white sand (yes is was sand not coral) and the breeze blowing was nice.  I could have spent more time there.  We both had to finally put our feet in the ocean.  It was a great temperature.  Elder Sanders asked about fishing and they let him know that they will be happy to have him go with them soon.  The fishing is done in a canoe with a net...interesting.  Simon Peter said he had a friend with a boat and motor that he could line up, hopefully.

Tetere Beach

Tetere Beach

23 Jul
We had one baptism today.

We went to see where an unfinished water tank is located and what needs to be done to finish the work so the people can make use of the tank.  Water is such a precious commodity here and with the rainy season coming soon, the tank needs to get on the foundation so it can be used.  I have no idea how the tank got down to its location but we are going to get the branch to help us finish the project.

one more row of  blocks & wiring &cement

water tank

We took Leonard and Joyce Kuse to the wharf so they could send something to a relative on another island.  It was pretty interesting to see all of the ships and see the ocean.  The waves were coming over the dock and the ships were rocking quite a bit.

While there, I saw this young man...notice his hairdo and his teeth...that is from the betel nut.

check out the hair

check out the red teeth

July 12, 2016

We went to the airport today to take Renee Solomon (our trainer) and see a missionary off, Leon.  Here are pictures of Leon.  These young people are so brave to fly off all by themselves, never having been on a plane and then having to transfer planes and all.  It is a wonder that they make it to their mission.  Leon was flying to Auckland and so was Renee so she helped him the whole way.  From what she said, Leon was pretty cold during the flight and amazed at the size of the Brisbane, Australia airport.  And his mission people were waiting for him at Auckland.  So he is in good hands.  His mother, whom he just baptized two months ago, was so happy about it all.

Leon and mother

At the airport, there is a memorial garden there.  I thought it was for the men who died in the war, but there are trees planted and anyone can buy a plaque and put a name on it and it is placed in front of a tree.  Then in the center of this memorial are several plaques in honor of the Marines.  I was quite impressed with it.

Memorial Garden

Memorial Garden

Memorial Garden

We did some driving around in the White River village.  This gentleman is the Sunday School president and helped us find the Relief Society president's house, which was on the other side of the mountain.  He was so excited for us to take a picture of his family.

typical kitchen

Relief Society pres White River..Surina and 5 of  her 10 children

We did a little shopping on Friday and found a piece of pumpkin pie at the bread store.  So of course, we had to buy and eat it.  The crust was pretty thick and had a lot of cinnamon so it was hard to taste the pumpkin.  Not as good as Costco's but it was fun to try.  I wonder if there is pumpkin here, fresh or canned.  

On Saturday, we had 14 baptisms!!! Wow that was pretty great.  And then there was a marriage performed after.  

Sunday was not too bad.  Our usual 3 hour block meetings.  And then there is our self-reliance groups that meet for two hours.  We have members that facilitate the meetings so that helps but we still have to help set up (which involves taking tables from our compound and a TV and the books for the class).  The biggest thing that happened was that I forgot some water so I was pretty thirsty by the time we got home.

The Primary

 

Today was our p-day so we thought we would head to the office and take care of a few registrations for students for USP (University of the South Pacific) that we received at church.  We have to send them to New Zealand for approval so we can pay for their classes.  We ended up being here all day.  We we able to help David Ifuna'au finally get his all completed.  We have been working for about two weeks for it.  He originally applied for a P-13 scholarship but was then told to apply for the Returned Missionary Scholarship.  He has been pretty patient about it all.  The money needs to be paid this week, so students are trying to get their apps in so we can pay...only problem is we can't sign any checks yet.  The banks are pretty slow at changing signatures.  I'm not sure what will happen.

David

We are working with Consita to see if she can get into BYUH.  She has to pass an English test that I will give her on Wednesday.  I hope she does well.  She is so motivated and smart.

Consita

I mentioned, when I was teaching institute on Saturday, that I thought we needed to have a movie night.  I don't know if some of the students knew what I was talking about.  Consita sure did.  She had a Star Wars pencil holder and wanted to watch Star Wars.  So I had to go home to see if I have a Star Wars movie and sure enough, I have all 6! (not the newest one)  It was so fun to tell her that we could watch them.  There are no movie theaters here and most students don't have electricity in their homes, so I'm sure they wonder what a movie night is.  It will be a fun activity.

I have been coveting my library at home and the availability of books.  I think about teaching English and wanting them to read....but what?  There aren't many books at all.  I wanted to help the students with their classwork but there are some words they don't quite understand and we don't have a dictionary here so that I can teach them how to use one.  Kind of frustrating.  We (Americans) are so truly blessed.

Jul 12, 2016

This week has gone by pretty fast. We had our trainer for self-reliance come Saturday and she flew out today. We learned a lot from her about what we are supposed to be doing. And of course we have felt overwhelmed with it all. I think we could handle the self-reliance part but here in the Pacific there is a program called P-13, which is school subsidy funds to help pay for children's education if they are active members. There has been one payment made per student, then the parents need to pay some (whatever the branch president feels like they can afford) and then this program pays the rest by the second half of the year. The school year is January to December so the next payment is coming due. So we have to go to each school (which there are probably 25 or more) and find out how much to pay them. The schools don't give receipts unless asked; so it is kind of tricky. And then to find the schools is going to require a lot of time. There are maybe 4 roads with names so the directions to the school might be “turn right at the green building, then follow the road for 10 houses, turn at the big rock,...etc.” Sounds fun? Then there is funding for USP (University of South Pacific) that we have to take care of each semester (which is right now) and then there is the RMS (returned missionary scholarship) that we are in charge of also.

We are training the branch self-reliance committee. It is pretty tricky because these people have no idea what a committee is and have a hard time comprehending it all. So we have to make it very simple and go very slow.

Joyce and picinini's

police formations

On Thursday July 7 we had heard there was an independence day ceremony. We found our self-reliance specialist was going so we asked if we could go with her. We got up and ready to go by 6 a.m. And waited for her to come to the church compound. We finally get a call at 7 saying the transports weren't running yet. So we went and picked her up, with a little help from one of our security guys. We arrived at the arena by 7:30 and it didn't start until 8! We did have a seat in the shade but it seemed really early if we had gone at 6. We thought we would see some dances from each of the tribes and all but the program consisted of the police marching, a band playing and speeches from the mayor and prime minister. And every dignitary was scheduled 5 mins apart to arrive so each one took 30 seconds so there was a lot of waiting. I was impressed with the mayors talk about trying to clean up the city. And the prime minister talked about how important Jesus Christ is for everyone. What a change from the USA. We then went to some food booths and a craft fair.

The beaches aren't white sand

Cute family in White River

Family in white river...had to use 4 wheel drive to get there...

the picininis...

another shot of the beach

  

Later that day, the Sampson's took us for a ride out to see a tank. It was located in a palm oil plantation. So I guess the Solomon's best export is palm oil. It was pretty interesting to see the plantation (which was just 1 of 3 on this island). They have a village for the workers to stay at. It was out in the country and a very pleasant drive.

notice the red pods...that's the oil

palm oil plantation

big business...1 of 3 plantations

The tank was pretty amazing even after all of these years. There is a tank museum farther out but the Sampson's said we need to have a member, Simon Peter, take us there because his family runs it and we would get a better tour. I asked about hunting for WWII relics but Sister Sampson said we are forbidden to do that. Even if we buy something to take home, we have to go to a government office and tell what and why we are taking it. 

WWII tank

WWII tank 2

picinini's at plantation village

Jul 8

There was a missionary that came home and we went to see her be released also. She had been to England. She is so cute and had a slight accent. It was hard for her to be released. She is a pretty sharp girl and wants to go to BYUH. So we needed information about that.

Jul 9

I went up to institute from 9 to 10:30. They have it on Saturday because it is easier for the students to attend. I will teaching the class this coming Saturday. Most of the students that come to class are the ones that we see in our little self-reliant center, using the laptops and helping each other. It was fun to be there. Leon, who is leaving this week for his mission, bore such a humble, simple but fervent testimony.

We attended a wedding after that. The couple had been married in their tribe but needed to be married by church authority so they can be baptized next Saturday.

Jul 10

Sunday's are pretty crazy. We attend church from 10-1. And then we had a meeting at 2, self-reliant classes from 3-5, and a meeting with the district president at 5. We were tired and hungry by the time we got home. We had Renee with us so we fixed dinner at our flat. 

young women at White River Branch

Relief Society at White River.  The front row 3rd from left is the RM.