Saturday, December 31, 2011

Beauty of Tarawa

As the New Year approaches and 2011 draws to a close , I wanted to share some of the beauty of this tiny isolated atoll called Tarawa.  I could take a picture a day and still not show the beauty.  





We have spectacular sunrises....
beautiful beaches....

 ocean front views





 breathtaking sunsets....
 a boat or two for the taking....


 a sandy beach with no crowds...

 an island fit for a king...













flowers for the senses

waves for the boogie boarder...
and ocean breeze dried clothes....

May you and your family be blessed as much as we have while serving this mission on a little spot on the earth.  There is a special spirit about the Kiribati people.  We have a testimony that we are in the right place at this point in our lives.   
Ti ataia bwa E koaua te ekatetia aio, 
(We know this church is true)

Ti kakoaua bwa Iesu Kristo boni ngaia ara tia kamaiu.  Bwa e a tia ni mate ibukiira,
(We testify that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and that He died for us)

Ti ataia bwa Iotebwa Timiti bon ana burabeti Te Atua.  Ao Ana Boki Moomon E boni koaua.
(We know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God, and the Book of Mormon is true)


Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Christmas is Tarawa




We can safely say, this was the most unusual Christmas we have ever had.  We have spent Christmas in Hawaii and the US Virgin Islands, so we know what a warm Christmas can be, but a Kiribati Christmas is like no other.  The first glimpse of Christmas Decor was found in the Moel Grocery store in the form of an Island Santa.  



I think this was just an old manikin that was made into a "very young" Santa 


Every week usually starts out with a trip the the Immigration office.  This is Ruta.  We have become good friends.  She has been so helpful in getting the Missionary work permits.  Is is a very labor intensive process, that if I had a few extra bucks and time, I'm sure I could streamline the process in a heartbeat.  
Package delivery day.  
We have been waiting for the "plane" to come since November 10 with packages from the Marshall Islands.  Our packages make a stop in the Mission office in the Marshall Islands which is about 300 miles of open ocean away.  It is another country, but there is a Airline called Air Marshall (which is dubbed Air "Maybe") that is suppose to fly every other Thursday, but has had engine trouble and hasn't been able to fly.  We were told it would fly on December 15, but it didn't.  I came on December 22 and we were expecting a Christmas Miracle.  There are over 140 packages in the Mission office waiting to come, but only 14 made it.  There were 5 lucky missionaries who got Christmas.  The rest...we hope for Valentines Day.  


On P-day this Monday, the Sisters were invited over to make Christmas cookies.  
This is Sisters Rebeta, (hard at work), Barlow, Gardner, and Valo.  Sister Bonnemort brought her cake decorating stuff and has put it to good use.  You can see the Elders in the background.  Although they weren't invited to the "all girl" party, they crashed in anyway.  

Sister Barlow, with Sisters, Ogborn and Thorne making tiny little black eyes out of old tired licorice.  
Sister Barlow with the finished product.  Note how beautiful they are....but they didn't look this nice after a few minutes in the heat and humidity  
We attended another baptism this week.  It was cool because Elder Everett (third from left) taught the man next to him on the right when he was here before he went to an outer island Makin.  Elder Everett was here for Christmas, and it just so happened that he was ready to be baptized.  So Elder Everett was able to perform the baptism.  With Elder Everett are Sisters Gardner and Rebeta.  I can't remember the names of all those baptized, so just know that they had really hard names to pronounce. 
 Elder Enrie carving the Turkey
On Friday, we cooked the Turkeys (3) for Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve.  Elder Enrie got more meat off this turkey than I have ever seen.  We also were going to have Ham, but we had a problem with the Thorne's oven, seems it has an auto shutoff and sat for hours without cooking.  That was ok cause we used the ham for sandwiches the next day.  Speaking of problems, Friday started out with a bang, our internet service went out, and we had all the missionaries coming the next day to call and skype with their families.  Took us a few minutes after calling for backup to figure out that the switch for the server had been turned off by the guards by accident.  The next problem we had was our oven ran out of propane, but again we improvised and stole (borrowed) a propane tank from the flat down the road a bit.  Finally, we ran out of hot water, (solar powered) but can be run by electricity.  Seeing as it was a holiday weekend, maintenance just plugged it in.  Problem was that there was no thermostat, so late in the afternoon we had a steam engine on the roof with boiling hot water like a Old Faithful.  But the Lord will provide, and we got Christmas Dinner prepared in time for Christmas Eve.  

This is Elder Nye (from the outer island of Tabiteuea North) and Elder Foust (from the outer island of Butaritairi).  
Finally, we have a meal where there red tablecloths are appropriate.  


Our Sisters.  They seem to always want their picture taken.  Sisters Valo, Gardner, Barlow and Rebeta

Elders Norman Bradshaw, Green, Anderson and a side few of Elder Anderl 


After Christmas Eve dinner, all the missionaries went to the Moroni High School music room (it has A/C!!) to watch the movie Facing the Giants. It was fun to see the missionaries just chill and watch a movie.  They really loved it.

Sister Thorne playing Santa Claus.  We made stuffed stockings for the missionaries using stockings sent by President and Sister Shaw.  That was good, because I didn't see one stocking on the Island.  They even had an Orange and a can of Sprite.  


A time for discussion, after passing 36 stockings around and filing them once, then twice, then three times, we had to regroup and make sure each one had the same stuff.  We certainly could have used a process improvement here.  


A well deserved cup of hot coco.  A toast by Sister Thorne,
Elder Ogborn, Sisters Bonnemort and Ogborn, and Elder Thorne




Elder Anderl chatting with his family

Calling Home day.  On Christmas Day we started with the Missionaries calling home.  We had phone/skype calls going in all our flats and the Service Center.  It was quite a logistics challenge, but all the missionaries were able to call home to their families.  
We have missionaries from Utah, Idaho, Alaska, California, Nevada, Indiana, Virginia, Wyoming, Tonga, Papa New Guinea, Australia, Kiribati, Arizona, Iowa, Washington
Elders Norman and Tiaontin 
Waiting for their turn to call, Elder Norton, Elder Foust, Elder Banks and the back of Elder Sauaki.  Elder Anderson on the couch
Elders Banks, Anderson, Utimawa, and Bradshaw


Sister Bonnemort and I delivered the Christmas message in Sacrament Meeting on Christmas.  She and Sister Ogborn sang Hush little Baby to go along with Sister Bonnemort's talk.  This was their one and only practice, but they harmonized beautifully.  
The Missionaries with their socks.  After lunch on Sunday, they watched another movie, The Best Two Years, which was a complete hit.  We gave them their stocking after and it was really hard to get them all to pose, until someone said "this is for President and Sister Shaw".  All of a sudden, a perfect pose....

The sisters....again...they are photogenic aren't they.  

We want all our family and friends to know that we missed everyone terribly, but want you to know that we have many friends here that made this Christmas special.  The spirit does travel to the far Island of Tarawa.  May you all have the blessings of Christmas this whole year.  We know that this mission is where we are to be at this stage in our lives and feel fortunate to serve the Missionaries.  They are all so good to us and so gracious.  We love them.  










Tuesday, December 20, 2011

December in Tarawa


The was a week of firsts.  We had our first teaching experience.  The Elders asked us to go visit an investigator that was questioning why we worship on Sunday rather than Saturday.  Sister Bonnemort did the research and found that along with many other laws, the Sabbath was changed to honor Christ on the day he was resurrected or Sunday.  We talked to him about the Savior, the Great Apostasy, the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, and pray to know the truth through the Holy Ghost.  We also shared the first vision as recorded by Joseph Smith.  We sure felt the Spirit.  I was funny, we didn't even know it at the time, but I came home and reviewed the first lesson in Preach my Gospel, and we had covered the lesson...that is teaching by the Spirit.    




Movie Night with the Couples.  Every Friday night we have movie night at the Ogborns.  They have a big screen projector that is cool.  Feels like just at home.  This night watched the Christmas Devotional.  We also decided to make our first Pizza.  Now this is no easy task here, but we seemed to manage just fine.  We had pineapple, bacon, olives, sausage, onions, mushrooms, and of course...
   the CHEESE....We have tried to find "real cheese", but there isn't any, and so this is the next best thing....But it tasted really quite good.  We even had a pizza stone for cooking.  And since the Ogborn's oven only cooks on high, it was just the right temperature for pizza.
 We stopped to see the Sisters the other day, and they were working on book bags for the Elders for Christmas.  Note the sewing machine.  It must be from 1890, it has a crank to run it.  Sister Barlow said that it worked just fine.
 This is Sister Valo "hand winding" the bobbin.  
 
Well we didn't find a Christmas tree in a store or on a lot, but we did find this one in our closet.  It has lights, but wouldn't you know it...they don't work.  
The stocking were hung by the A/C with care.....


This is our end of the year Relief Society Social.  We went to a park and everybody cleaned up garbage for a couple of hours.  Then they burned all the garbage.  The park is full of garbage because they don't have any garbage cans for people to use.  After all the work was done, we all sat in a big circle in the dirt. All ages participated.  You can see me running around the circle to get back to my place before the person I dropped the rock on could get up and catch me.  It's hard to run in the dirt when its so hot and humid, but you can see I'm so ahead of the person chasing me you can't even see her.
I don't know why I had to get up and dance in this game.  I must of done something stupid so I had to go to the middle and dance.

Can you see the sisters are actually clapping while I dance.  It's obvious they don't see much dancing or they would know how bad I am!

These ladies may look mild mannered, but if the rock gets placed behind their back, they all can pop up and run like the wind!
You are never to old to get up and dance!

We got our first set of Elders from America this week.  This is Elder Decker from Iowa, and Elder Mickelson from Idaho.  They are both smiling, which is good, since the ride from the Airport is quite shocking, not only the rough road, but the scenery.  I checked on them later in the week and they say they are loving it...!  

 
Sister Bonnemort giving her "nurse" speech.  


  Elder Anderson, Tebwakanwakin, Eriabu, Brother Toromon, (performed the Baptism) and Elder Anderl.  
We attended another baptism this week. Although we can't understand a lick of the language, the Spirit always speaks so strongly. Tebwakanwakin is the niece of Sister Florence who works at the Service Center, another of her family to join the church.  She says she has many, many more to go.  

 The kids grip the arm of the Baptizer and seem so scared, but after they come out of the water, they always have a great big smile.  
 It was kind of funny when Toromon baptized Tebwakanwakin, I think he was afraid of drowning her.  Had to send her down three times.  
We were driving this week and I couldn't help but take this picture of the little boy running w/o clothes pushing the tire.  Note the mother close behind chasing him....These kids are so cute.  


We are excited to celebrate our Savior's birth and wish a Merry Christmas to all our friends and family.  We miss and love you all.  May this New Year bring you all much happiness and success and may the Lord's blessings reach you and your family.

Elder and Sister Bonnemort