May 5, 2008

May 5, 2008
We have had a busy week. Several weeks ago we noticed that the pump that pumps water from the well for our showers, toilet, sink and kitchen was acting funny. Big delay from the time you turned the faucet on until you got any water. I made a couple of small adjustments to the tank and decided we had better order another one which we thought would take weeks. Tuesday evening it started to act up again and by Wednesday morning it was dead. After a shower out of a bucket and singing in the rain I started trying to see what our options were. The Air Pacific plane stops on it’s way from Fiji to Honolulu on Wednesday mornings. I went looking for answers and when I returned the Lord had sent a new pump and we were able to install it that day. We now have on demand water and everything is great. We also acknowledge that the Lord takes care of his missionaries.
We have a kit house in Tarawa in containers. It has been there for almost a year. When we arrived we tried to start the ball rolling and get it here so we can build it and get another set of missionaries on Christmas Island. To get the kit house ready we have to get a building permit. Oh the dance you have to do to get a building permit. We are known on the island as the “rich church” When I asked when the building permit committee meets I was met with a shrug and told that no one knows when the committee meets. I was then told that there were fourteen members of this planning committee and that if I would pay each of the fourteen members $30 that they were quite sure that they would meet and discuss our permit. As they never meet unless you pay them that is what we are doing. Hopefully we will get our permit soon. The ironic thing is that everyone else on this island just builds wherever they basically want to. The church, our cottage and the new kit house are the nicest buildings on Christmas Island and we really jump through the hoops for them.
The branch president returned this week from Fanning Island. He brought us some island bananas. They are so good. We have been hoarding them and now they are almost gone. We really miss fresh fruits and veggies. We may be going to Fanning next month. Not sure yet but may take a set of missionaries up there and leave them for a month. Sister Patten and I would only be gone about ten days. At one time there were 80+ members but with no support that number has dwindled. We could baptize the whole island if we had the capability of supporting the members.
I mentioned to the branch president that it would be nice to have a choir for sacrament meeting. That was over a month ago and he has had the young adults practicing “Onward Christian Soldiers” until it’s coming out of our ears on Sunday evening. We still haven’t heard them in sacrament meeting but I’m sure that when we do they will be wonderful.
We have a little man named Abba who went to the temple with the last temple group. His wife has passed away and he is 78 years old. He asked for some temple clothes to be buried in so we had some sent from Tarawa. We delivered them this week and he was so excited. He tenderly held them in his hands and got tears in his eyes. I told him that now he had to live at least 20 more years. We also visited one of the first missionaries from Kiribati. He is not very active but we are working with him. We took him a white shirt and he and his family were at church this morning.
We have met a young 18 year old girl that we just really adore. She’s the one whose picture is on an earlier post with the long hair. Her name is Toka and last week she shared with us that her older sister is also a member of the church. We stopped in where the sister works and introduced ourselves and invited her to church. She didn’t come today but came to the house this evening and talked. She is 22 years old and lives with her mother and father and six siblings. She is educated and has a very good job. Makes $500 a month and supports the family. Her mother is a “deacon” in the KPC and let’s Toka come to church but says the other girl can’t attend. Sister P, in her sweet counseling mode talked to her and told her she needed to be strong and tell her mother that she was going to come to church. The mother has told her she will kick her out of the house if she attends. We assured her that since she provides all of the income for the family that her mother may throw a fit but she’s not about to kick the bread winner out of the home. The next counsel that she will be given is to open a bank account and deposit her money into her own account and give the family part of the money and save some money for herself. She has always just turned over the money to her mother every payday which is expected if you have a job and wonderful if no one else can work but there are members in her family who could work and help as well, including her Father.
President and Sister Bleak will be here on the 28th of May. They will bring a new elder in that morning and take Elder Lortz out six hours later. The Air Pacific plane comes from Fiji at 6:30 a.m. and goes onto Hawaii. It stops back in the afternoon about 2:30 p.m. We are hoping for a strong elder. Our Kiribati elder is a wonderful young man but it will take someone strong to keep him focused. We have basically followed the lead that was established when we got here but are forging ahead and are making some changes now that the missionaries are changing. We won’t have much time with the President and his wife but will feed them breakfast and lunch and maybe get to counsel with them for an hour or so between President’s interviewing of the Christmas elders and he gets back on the airplane.
We are adjusting here on Christmas. We just have to know the routine and then we can live with it. We may have one more transfer before we return home. We don’t really want to go back to Majuro but will do what we are asked. I think we will be here to supervise the building of the kit house and get things in order here. The only negative thing about here is you just hope if you get sick or something it would be on Tuesday and not Thursday because if it was Thursday it would be a WEEK BEFORE YOU COULD GET OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!
David’s son Matthew is about ready for his papers to be turned in. We are excited to see where he might be called. We understand that he would like to learn a language. He will be a strong missionary and follow in the footsteps of his brother and his dad.
Jeff said he might come out to see us and that would be great, if he can work things out. We love you all and miss you. I don’t know what we would do without the internet and our ability to communicate. We are doing our best and feel like with the Lords help we are doing some good things. We love these people for their goodness. We send a sister missionary to Fiji a week from Wednesday. She flies to Nadi, Fiji then flies onto Suva. Applies for a USA visa, flies back to Nadi then onto Tarawa. Finalizes everything and flies back to Fiji where she then boards an airplane to Los Angeles. Changes planes and flies to Slc. Then to the MTC in Provo. She is going to the California San Francisco mission. This is a little girl that lives in a grass hut in a little village and cooks over an open fire. She asked me if I thought they would have rice and fish at the MTC. I assured her that they would feed her well. When I told her she would have to wear shoes in San Francisco she just looked at me. We know she will be fine but we feel so protective of her and want her to do well that it’s hard to let her go out into the big old world. Talk about culture shock.
The weeks go by so fast. Where else could you buy eggs for $25 a flat and wear dockers and flip flops to church. I’d wear a lava lava but Sister P. won’t let me.
Its amazing but the girl with the bad toe keeps coming for clean bandages and help. Sister Patten looked at it today and it is actually starting to close up. The opening is now about the size of a dime and you can see the flesh starting to heal, I couldn’t see the bone this week. What a blessing. And if that isn’t enough – the missionaries have been teaching her and she will be baptized in two weeks. We will take a picture of her – she is beautiful. Yesterday the primary had a party on the church grounds and they played games and you will see a picture of them swinging from the palm tree branches. Anyway you will see the pictures of the primary party, we passed out the candy that you sent for the kids and they loved it. During the party, Sister P was shaking hands with the children and a little boy kept looking at her and kept holding on to her hand, he finally pointed to his leg and she realized that it was the same little boy with the gouged leg that she bandaged last week. He needed more help so she took him back to the cottage and fixed his leg again. Those big brown eyes were begging for someone to help him. What a privilege it is to do any little thing for these children or any of them.
Every Sunday in R.S. they ask Sister P to speak – since she can’t understand what they are saying, she has to asked what they want and then just get up and speak on that subject. There is a lady who can translate and speaks English as well as kiribati so that seems to work out well. Sister Patten is getting the primary organized again – the program has to be altered to fit the situation here and that is a challenge sometimes. Then she will move to the mutual age kids, they need a lot of help. There is a lot of work to do and it seems that we are busy all the time. Tomorrow is P day again which means that the elders will be doing their wash here, eating breakfast and lunch and emailing for about 4 hours. We almost have to leave home to make room for them. Life is good, we love you all, grateful that Mike is okay and grateful for all your help in his behalf and staying in touch with us to well, thank you Brad for all you did. Write to us , we look forward to emails from home it’s the highlight of our day.