Sunday – June 9, 2013
The past week started out busy but somewhat uneventful. However, it didn’t end that way! It included the usual trips to the post
office and airport to pick-up and distribute the mail. There was a lot of mail at the post office
when we went on Monday. We ended up
sending 11 large moving boxes to mission headquarters. They in turn sent us two boxes full of items
for the missionaries that were transferred to this island last week. They are only allowed to bring one suitcase
on the small plane from Apia, so they box the rest of their things and then the
mission sends it over. That means that
we have to deliver their boxes to them because they are not allowed to leave their
areas unless they are zone leaders. The
zone leaders can leave their zones on Monday to do shopping for themselves and the
missionaries in their zones. Monday is
the day the ZLs come to our house to turn in their weekly reports and pick up
their mail.
We had MLC (Missionary Leadership Council) with President Leota and
the AP’s (assistants to the president) on Wednesday. These meetings are training meetings for the
10 zone leaders and the two sisters who work with the other sisters in the
mission. They are always full of great
information that needs to be shared with all the missionaries. The AP’s came on Monday to do some training
to the new trainers and spent the night with us. It is always such a blessing to have them in
our home.
Dennis has been sick with a cold and fever since May 29th (completely
lost his voice for three days.) That meant I had to teach our Temple
Preparation Class by myself. We usually
team-teach. It has been two weeks since
he started with a sore throat. The
prescription he was given made him really sleepy so I have had some time to catch-up
on little projects including mending, correspondence and cleaning cupboards
etc.
We spent about 4 hours in the hospital with a sick elder. We thought he might have pink eye and he also
had a cold. We didn’t want it to turn
into pneumonia – he had that in January, so we felt it best for him to be seen
by a doctor. The diagnosis is always the
same – no matter what the symptoms are – tonsillitis and an antibiotic…. He did have an infection in his eye so it was
good we took him in. We have learned to
take something to read whenever we go.
He couldn’t get the prescription after he saw the doctor because the
pharmacy (there is only one on the island) was closed, so we had to go back the
next day to pick it up. The average waiting
time is 2 hours, but we have waited as long as three. You take a number – our number was 63 and
they were serving #66 (they start over when they reach 100). That meant that there were 97 people ahead of
us.
The mission has just approved use of bicycles again for the
island. Because there are no sidewalks
to speak of, and the roads are so narrow, one is taking his life into his hands
to ride a bike here. Due to safety
issues, they took the bikes away a couple of years ago. However, there are some areas on the island
where they are really needed, and safety is not an issue. So we have been trying to find GOOD bikes that
will accommodate the weight of some of our elders… What a challenge. We finally were successful in our search –
then came the challenge of find helmets for adults… When we can find good bikes, there are not
helmets and when we can get helmets, there are no bikes. We finally got smart and purchased helmets,
lights and locks a few weeks ago and stored them until the bikes came. We had success this week!!! The elders were so happy…
We also replaced beds in two of the missionary quarters this
week. We have a recent convert making
them for us. However, he does not have a
truck, so we tie them in the back of our van to deliver them. This week we were lucky. One of our institute students was able to get
a truck to move the beds.
We put another institute student on the plane to report to the MTC in
Provo. She will be serving in the St.
George Mission, and we hope to visit her after we get home. She is such an awesome young lady and has
such a strong testimony.
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| Jacqueline Frost - headed to Utah St. George Mission |
This week we saw LOTS of rain.
It rained so hard on Wednesday that our water Zumba class was canceled –
which is unusual, because they don’t cancel anything due to rain. But we had flashflood warnings and the said
on the radio, “If you are out driving, just go home!” There is a ditch in front of the college just
down the street from us.
Several weeks ago the Juni Maeva family that we home teach asked us to
attend a celebration. They didn’t give
us any details as to what the celebration was for. Because it had been so long since we received
the invitation, we were not sure it was even still on – yesterday was the
day… When we got there we found out it
was threefold. A birthday party for the
dad – he turned 83, a graduation party for his grand-daughter and a wedding
reception for his daughter. We also
discovered Dennis’ name on the program to give the closing prayer. They sat us on the same table as the bride
and groom and treated us like royalty.
Needless to say, they had LOTS of food.
The potato salad they served us was so good. We found out she added lemon juice to
it. I made her promise to give me the
recipe the next time we go home–teaching.
We also had the best Oka we have had since we got here. Oka is raw fish cooked in coconut cream –
usually octopus.
We attended two baptisms – and after one of them we were invited to
another feast.
THE POWER OF THE PRIESTHOOD… Friday night we got a call requesting Dennis help with a blessing for a brother in our ward. His wife is a NP and helps us when we have sick missionaries. We love them both so much. We went to their home and I was shocked when I saw Brother Hill. He looked like Dad did the last couple of days before he died. He was struggling to breath and it was hard to get him to respond. Dennis gave him a beautiful blessing, and we saw an immediate change in his breathing. We left about 5 minutes later and he was sleeping very peacefully. We got a phone call about 30 minutes later to report that he was wide awake, alert, sitting up and eating. There is Power in the Priesthood… We witnessed a miracle!!!
