Be it ever so humble...

there is no place like home! And here is our new home!

The Staggs left last Sunday and so we moved into our new flat on Tues. We are really happy to be settled in and have our few belongings in drawers and closets and our family pictures hanging on the wall!

Our flat is just perfect. It is not too big and not too small. The last 2 couples that have held our same missionary position have lived here and they have left various things that have helped to make it more pleasant like a dryer and a DVD player! After sleeping here for 2 nights, we have decided that our contribution will be a new, softer mattress!

Our location is about 5 minutes from the Service Center where we work and in a very delightful neighborhood. Except for the 3 or so barking dogs during the night and the neighbor's rooster who likes to begin his cock-a-doodling about 5 am, we thing this is just the perfect location. Our backyard overlooks a very lush ravine. There are coconut and banana palms, a mango tree and a couple of trees with tiny little
1-inch oranges that I'm not really sure what they are. There are lots of plants with beautiful, colorful red, violet, yellow and white flowers. I imagine it looks a lot like the Garden of Eden. Our landlords bought us a new set of chairs and a cute little table for our outside balcony so we can enjoy the setting while eating our meals.

Inside our flat we have 2 bedrooms! Paul has his clothes in one of the bedrooms and I have mine in the other. It is really nice to have a lot of storage space. Of course, we don't have many possessions but it is nice not to have to cram together what we do have.

Most of the locals here hang their laundry outside to dry on clotheslines. I'm not sure how that works because it seems to rain almost every day. Maybe they use it for the washing portion also. We are very lucky to have a dryer in our flat! You might notice in my photo that it is located in the living room area. That is so it can be scooted over to the sliding door and vented outside while it is running. When it is not in use, it makes for a nice side table! We are just thankful to have one no matter where it fits in!

Besides moving in this week, I'm excited to tell you that I got behind the steering wheel of our car on Sunday and we went for about a 2 hour drive. It felt quite strange to be on the opposite side of the road but with a fair amount of concentration, it is doable. Sunday is a much less chaotic traffic day so that was a huge advantage along with having sat on the passenger side of the car for the past 2 or 3 weeks and getting used to the round abouts and the insane taxi drivers. The ultimate test will be driving downtown, during the middle of the day, on a week day! I can't explain it! You would have to experience it to appreciate the stress!

We are slowly getting a better understanding of our responsibilities and assignment here. We love the office where we work. We work with about 20 or so locals who have full time jobs and provide various services for the Church overseeing the whole area of Fiji and Vanuatu. We are the only missionary couple in the office. We pretty much figure out what we need to do and then go about doing it. We also get to work with all the Stake and District leaders in these same areas. We have gone to a lot of Stake meetings and met with a lot of Stake and Ward leaders so far. They are all wonderful, committed and competent leaders. It has been a privilege to meet them and work with them. We attended 2 different wards again last Sunday. We were invited to sit on the stand and speak in the first ward. It is always very humbling to stand up in front of a group of people we have never met before and get to share a thought or two and our testimonies. It is a huge privilege.

We have scheduled our first trip to another island for next weekend! We will be going to Vauna Levu so that will be another exciting, new experience! The next weekend we will drive about 1 1/2 hours away from here to a small, remote Branch to attend their Sunday meetings and then meet with their Bishop and ward clerk for some financial training. Then the next week we may head off to Vanuatu for 2 weeks. We also heard that we will be traveling to New Zealand the first part of December for some training for us so it looks like we will not be sitting around wondering what to do with ourselves.