missionary girls and FHE

Here are our next missionary girls whose papers are all ready to go to the mission president. The top girl is Bwaati (Boss). She is a strong girl whose father is deceased and her mother lives in Tarawa. She lives here with her brother and sister in law. Brother encourages her to come to church and sister in law goes to the seventh day adventist church and gives her somewhat of a hard time about the church. Bwaati hold her own and will not compromise. Something that is quite unusual here as the culture tells these kids to do what their parents and elders tell them to do until the parents die. She speaks English and will most likely go to an English speaking mission.
This is Kaoa. Her parents are not members of the church but are being taught by the elders as we speak. Some of her brothers and sisters are members. Both Bwaati and Kaoa are branch missionaries and have been for some time. We require all prospective missionaries to serve as branch missionaries so they will be better prepared for missionary service. She speaks English and will also probably be called to an English speaking mission.
We have FHE in the cultural hall on Monday evenings. We invite an active family and a less active family and have had some good response. At this particular evening it was my job to tell the children about mama bear. As I began it soon became apparent that the kids had no clue what a bear was. I know, I know big problem and you should have seen me playing charades with them trying to describe a bear. You think that is funny? How would you describe a bear to someone who has no clue. Sister Patten saved the day and then went on to give a wonderful lesson about families. Sister Patten has such great love for these people. They really trust us and know that we love and respect them. Now that we have the new kit house we bring them in and we sit on the floor all over the place and they seem to like to be in our home.
This is Tannang. She is also wanting to serve a mission. She speaks English quite well but has not been a branch missionary for very long and has tattoos on her hand so we are hoping for the best. She will probably not be sent to an English speaking mission and we don't have any need at the present time for any more Kiribati sisters in the Marshall Island Majuro Mission. The last sister missionary sent from Christmas was prepared and her papers submitted before we got here. She has struggled greatly from the time that she went to the MTC and frankly I would not have sent her on a mission if I'd been here. We are having problems with the Kiribati sisters who are called to the MIMM. We have taught and hopefully impressed on these three girls that a mission is "hard work". No naps during the long day and have gone over and over what will be expected of them. Unfortunately many prospective missionaries here in the Pacific think of a mission as a great 24 or 18 month vacation with a stipend thrown in to boot. We will see how things work out
for Tannang. One of our favorite Kiribati missionaries came home a while ago. We had known her in Majuro and loved her to pieces. President Bleak interviewed her before she came home and I did when she arrived home and she came for about three weeks before she quit coming. She went to work at the catholic high school as a teacher and they conveniently keep her busy on Sunday and make sure that she is also busy during the week. Dealing with first generation members even if they have attended and lived at Moroni High School since they were twelve years old and then served a mission is a challange to say the least. I'm sure Heavenly Father takes that into consideration.