Each picture is worth a million words...

... so I'm going to let the pictures tell most of the post.

One Saturday afternoon while staying in Luganville, we took a quick 15 minute boat ride over to the next island to enjoy lunch at the Aore Island Resort. The boat held about 10 passengers and all of us were visitors from other foreign countries. Everyone was asking everyone else where they were from... some from Ireland, some from New Zealand and when we responded that we were from Utah in the USA, another group pointed to this woman and said "she's from Utah too!" Now, I have yet to meet any other American tourists -- everyone has been from Australia or New Zealand and this woman from "Utah" had a very distinct Aussie accent. As we continued to chat with her we made the most amazing connection...her husband works for the same company as a niece of ours and she knew our niece very well! What a fun, unexpected coincidence!

When we flew to the Island of Malekula for some training with the Branch leaders, here is the cute little guest house that was our accommodation for the evening. It was decent and clean but the cockroaches running around the shower area kind of freaked me out.

There is a peek at what one of our training meetings looks like. Three local Branch leaders come to our guesthouse and the meeting was held on the front porch. We weren't able to get on the early morning flight over to Malekula so we didn't arrive until about 5 pm and it was around 6 pm before the meeting began. One of the the men had come from an even remoter outer island by boat so as to attend this meeting. The 3 men in the while shirts are Elder Kasteler, Elder Schern and Brother Stephen, who came with us. This picture is much to clear for you to see the hords of black bettles that were flying around and attracted by the light on the porch and the nice, white shirts. I choose to sit just off the porch in a less lit area. The meeting was really productive and what a priviledge to meet these dedicated, committed leaders.

On the remote islands, there is not usually a gas station so you just buy the petrol in these 2 or so liter jugs and fill your vehicle tank by hand!

Here is the highlight of those small airplane flights... the views out the windows are spectacular! It is so fun to see these islands from overhead. Some are really small and others have volcanos but all are covered in lush, green foliage and surrounded by beautiful blue ocean and lovely white sandy beaches.

Here is the Norsup Airport terminal on Malekua Island. Here are all the people waiting for those arriving or they are waiting to take off on the next flight. It is really nothing more than a small, tin shack. The original building was burned down about 10 years ago and it just hasn't ever been rebuilt. The baggage is always very interesting to observe. There is everything from live chickens and pigs (wrapped up in a cloth bag with their heads sticking out) to tires to root vegetables wrapped in big leaves that have been woven together to whatever someone needs to bring along to survive in this far-flung setting.

Now this is a confidence building experience. Yes, that is me on the weigh in scales. First they weighted in my check-on bag and then I got to get on the scales along with my carryon bag and purse and whatever I intended to take on board! I have got to learn how to pack lighter!!!!

This was a really fun experience. Elder Schern had driven us out in the bush to the Palon Chapel to meet with the Branch President there. When we drove on to the church property there were 2 young men (the one on the left and the one on the right) who were sitting on the grass and playing the guitar and singing "Armies of Heleman". Paul walked over and immediately asked if he could play the guitar. It was a really nice, 12-string guitar. I stepped back to take a picture and one by one each of these extra people appeared and wanted to be in the picture. I ended up taking about 5 pictures before everyone near by was able to join in the group. The locals here just love to see the pictures on the digital cameras! It is fun to print them out and take copies back to them next time we go over!

Our experiences here are so unique and our visits with the members are priceless. I hope you can get even the slightest glimpse into some of our experiences because words just can't express and pictures can barely portray them completely!

Survivor: Vanuatu

Did you see the Survivor: Vanuatu tv show a few years ago? I did but I had no idea where Vanuatu was... now I do!

Paul & I just got to spend 2 weeks in that absolutely wonderful country! We not only survived; we thrived! We were encouraged as soon as we got to Fiji to schedule a long visit to Vanuatu. We were told that the leaders there needed some serious training. No one would give us much detail as to what to expect or how to prepare, just that we needed to get there.
Thankfully, someone did mention that we should start taking Malaria pills several days before we headed over and every day while in the country and continue for a week after we left the country. Now, that was helpful information!
We contacted the only senior missionary couple in the whole country, Elder and Sister Schern, and asked them if they would help us out. Thanks to them, our trip was a major success! We owe them big time!!!! Thanks to Elder Schern I now know how to put more than 3 pictures on my blog! I am so appreciative for his tutoring he gave me as well!


There are lots of islands that make up the country. We got visit 4 on this trip! We first went to Espirito Santo Island where the Scherns live in the 2nd largest city in the country called Luganville.

Vanuatu was originally governed by a joint partnership between France and Great Britain and called another name (I can't remember, New something). In 1980 the country became independent and changed their name to Vanuatu. The locals are referred to as Nivans and they speak Bislama. That is Elder Schern's missionary badge with the name of the Church in Bislama. Let me translate in case you aren't familiar with the name of our Church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Luckily, Elder Schern has aquired an excellent amount of the language which was hugely beneficial for us. He and Paul spent 3 whole days preparing and creating all the training materials into Bislama and then he came along to all the meetings and helped out tremendously!

Luganville is a very working-class city (really more like a very small town). The main street is about 3/4 of a mile long and that is where all the main stores and businesses are. The US military had a huge presence there during WW2 and the main street in town is very wide and nicely paved. I guess the military needed to be able to drive tanks along this road so it was well built and is still in good repair. There is quite a bit of left behind effects of the military's presence including their only hospital which was also built by the military and it still looks like it is 1940 up there! Seriously, never get sick or injured enough for a hospital experience in this town...that was very scary!
Luganville had a wonderfully interesting and active fresh produce market that we enjoyed wandering through. People from far out in the "bush" and even from neighboring islands come into town each week and bring their fruits and vegetables and plants and fire wood and coconuts and tabacco and set up stands to sell their produce. A lot of them stay right there at the market, 24 hours a day until all their goods are sold. They eat, sleep and just stay there under their stands until all their food is sold. And the fresh foods are unbelievable inexpensive! I don't know how these people even make enough money to pay for their transportation to and from their villages.

This is the produce market in the capital city of Port Vila which is the largest city in the country. After spending 9 days in Luganville, we flew to Efate Island and spent 6 days here. But I'll talk about Port Vila later.

We knew when we came on this adventure that we would be taking a lot of airplane flights between several different islands. Turns out we ended up visiting 4 different islands (I actually only went to 3; there was 1 island that was a little too rustic for Sister Schern and I so we stayed back and let the Elders go -- I'll do a post on that trip later). All told, we took 10 airplane flights in our 2 weeks. We had quite a few new flight experiences: everything from small 17 to 22 seat planes to tin shack airport terminals to getting weighed in on the scales along with our baggage! I did quite a bit of praying while in air! Here was our first small plane. Thankfully this was a paved tarmack!

First time I have ever been able to watch the pilots during the flight. No door between them and the passengers on this flight! No snacks or drinks but we did have seatbelts!

There were 2 rows of seats on one side of the plane and a single row on the other side. I think we weren't the only "first timers" on this flight because when we touched down, everyone on board clapped to thank the pilots!

I have referred to "the bush" a few times and here is a picture of what I call "the bush". One Sunday afternoon, Elder Schern drove us our to visit 2 remote branches of the Church that were about an hour's drive away from Luganville. This was in a village called Fanafo. This is one of the most simple "chapels" that I have ever seen. But the people are happy and dedicated and there were about 50 people that had come to Church that morning. The Branch President's family lives right next door on this same property so that is one of their 6 children and their dog. The young missionaries that work in this area live just across the dirt road there. It is quite eye-opening!

Here is the road that we drove on to get out to visit this Branch. This is the main road. People drive, and mostly walk, this road everyday of their lives. It is just their way of life.

We passed this group of people just hanging out along the side of the road so we stopped and asked if we could take their picture. They were soooooooo excited and all began to laugh and gather in together. After we snapped the picture, they flocked over to the truck to see what the photo looked like. Every one was laughing and squelling and poking fun with each other. I remembered that I had a bag of candy in by backpack so I handed it out to them and you'd have thought that they had just struck it rich. It had just made their day... and ours!!!!

If you EVER get the chance to go to Vanuatu, don't pass it by! It is so worth it!

to be continued......

A REAL internet connection at last!

Where do I even begin? So much has happened since my last post and things just don't seem to slow down long enough for me to catch up!

We left Suva on Mon, Sept 21st for a 2 week assignment to Vanuatu which was a wonderful, productive and exciting new experience! I keep hoping to get some time to share some of our pictures and stories here but between Tsunami warnings and internet interruptions I just haven't been able to get it all together... hopefully this weekend!

I just wanted to make a quick connection with you blog readers to let you know we are safe over here. You can imagine how surprised we were to hear that there had been a huge earthquake near Vanuatu yesterday and that they and Fiji were all under a Tsunami warning. I'm sure everyone is taking these Tsunami warnings alot more seriously since the terrible Tsunami that hit Samoa. Even though Suva is on the totally opposite side of the island from where the predicted Tsunami would have come from, all precaustions were activated. I had been in downtown Suva yesterday morning at 9:30 am for a haircut and color which should have kept me there until about 11:30 but my hairdressed and I decided that I could wait another few weeks for the color so I was done with the haircut by about 10:15. I got back to the Service Center by about 11:15 and that is when I found out about the Tsunami warning. Within about another hour we heard that all of downtown had been closed down and there were cars and people all headed to higher ground. Our landlord is a professor at the University of the South Pacific and that campus is right at the sea wall. He said it took him an hour and a half to drive home -- a drive that usually takes about 20 minutes. His (and our) home is up high on a hill just like the Church Service Center and the Temple so we felt very safe and secure.

Our greatest concerns through this whole scare was for our new friends we had just met during the previous 2 weeks in Vanuatu. The people in that country are so wonderful! We truly fell in love with them. They are humble and kind and gracious and friendly. They definately don't deserve such a potentially disasterous event.

We spent 9 days with another Senior Couple, the Scherns, who live in Luganville, on Santo Island, Vanuatu which is very near where the earthquake hit. While we were there they told us that they feel earthquakes quite often but it doesn't concern them. When we got the news about the earthquake we immediately called to check on them. They told us they were out in "the bush" and had just gotten out of their truck and everything started to shake like crazy. They just considered it another day in Vanuatu and went on with their business. Luckily, where they were was far away from the sea and uphill on higher ground.

So this is all I have time for right now. I need to get over to the mission president's home and help cook lunch for today's Zone Conference. I just wanted to reassure everyone that we are safe and sound and even though you haven't heard from us for quite some time, we are still here and anxious to keep in touch!

Ouch!

It is Sunday night here and I cannot believe that it has been almost a week since I last blogged. I cannot believe how fast the time flies by each day. Of course, last week was like a holiday week since we didn't get home from our Labasa trip until Monday night. We were only in the office for 4 days and to be more exact, we left the office early on Friday afternoon for our weekend adventure so we really only had 3 1/2 days in the office. Paul picked up a sore throat and what we thought was a cold right before we went to Labasa and when we got back to Suva it just didn't want to get any better so we had another "first"... our first trip to the doctor! Yes, that would be a local Dr. There are 2 main hospitals here in Suva. One is called the War Memorial Hospital and I'm not sure which war it is memorializing but it looks like it could be something like WW I because it is very old and decrepit and does not have the best reputation. Thankfully, the Church has contacts in the other hospital that is called the Suva Private Hospital. We drove over and walked into the "out patient clinic" and the waiting room was very full with a lot of very sick-looking people. I initially wondered if we'd come out sicker than we went in. But we checked in and they told us we'd be seen by Dr. Daryl. I liked his name mostly because I could pronounce it. His full name is Daryl O'Conner. I was liking him more and more. I was really caught off guard when we finally went in to meet him and he was a big, rugby-looking Fijian man! He was born and raised and attended medical school right here in Fiji. When we asked about his name, he said, oh his great, great, great grandpa was just sailing by and must have decided to jump ship when he got to this beautiful island. Turns out, Dr. Daryl is a super, competent Dr. He determined that Paul's little cold has turned into a sinus infection, gave him some antibiotics and we were good to go! Oh, and he also gave us an RX for the malaria pills that we needed to begin taking for our upcoming trip to Vanuatu! And the best part of the whole experience: $12 to visit the Dr (no insurance company involved!) and $22 for 3 cold/sinus RXs and 2 malaria RXs.

I mentioned that we left Friday afternoon for our weekend adventure. This involved driving to the other side of this island to attend the Latoka Stake Conference Saturday and Sunday sessions. I also mentioned that it had been raining non stop here in Suva since we flew in last Monday night and we were really getting tired of the constant precipitation. Suva is the "wet" side of the island. That is why it is so lush and green. Latoka and Nadi are on the "dry" side of the island. We were ready for a few days of sunshine. The drive is really an interesting drive. It is approximately 180K which is about 120 miles and it takes about 3 - 3 1/2 hours. It is very scenic but you can hardly look at the scenery because you have to pay such close attention to buses, pedestrians, unexpected speed bumps, dogs, horses, pigs and cows hanging out along the roadsides and crossing whenever they feel like it and the road is "paved" meaning most of the time there is pavement but there are surprising pot holes and destroyed sections around any corner. Very entertaining drive. Actually I consider it my abs workout since I am usually clinching all my muscles trying to not freak out Paul with all my "helpful, up ahead, road situation warnings". It was definitely worth the effort because Nadi was sunny and clear and just made us feel better.

We met up with 2 other senior missionary couples, the Seares and the Bothwells, and decided to treat ourselves to a really fun evening out and have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on Denarau Island!!!! Denarau Island is an area just outside Nadi where all the high end resorts are located -- like the Sheraton, the Westin and 4 or 5 others. There is this really nice shopping center and that is where the Hard Rock Cafe is.


On our drive to dinner, we had a minor (hugely annoying) encounter with a HUGE POT HOLE! The sun goes down around 6 pm here and there are NO street lights so it is not one of our favorite things to do to drive after dark but we can't always avoid it and we encountered one of the things we worry about the most...and unexpected, unavoidable pot hole! Paul was able to get the car off the main road on to a side road where we pulled over to the curb to get out and access the damage. It was not good!! The tire was shot and the rim was damaged too. As all 6 of us were standing outside the car, in our white shirts and missionary clothes, a really nice Fijian guy stopped to see if we needed any help. He just took over and with his Rugby-player body he had us taken care of in no time. We were so blessed by his service. We wives were very helpful too. We were spraying everyone with bug spray and taking memory-preserving photos!

The Stake Conference was so wonderful. We enjoyed ourselves so much. We have been really anxious to meet the members and leaders that live on that side of the island. There are 4 wards and 4 branches and the members came out in droves...especially for today's Sunday session. Latoka is the only other official city besides Suva in the whole country of Fiji. It is located about 30K from Nadi town which is where the International Airport is. That is it's claim to fame. Latoka is a very industrial city with a huge sugar cane processing factory as well as some huge wood chip exporting factory. It has a huge Indian population, similar to Labasa. The Stake Center is in Latoka so the Saturday meetings where held there but then today, the Sunday session was held in Nadi. There were about 8 people that we work with in the Church's service center in Suva who had come up to the Stake Conference for various assignment. There is a translation department in our service center (very busy right now translating the General Conference talks into Fijian and Hindi) and they had the responsibility of translating the English talks into Fijian so that members in the congregation could have earphones on and hear the talks in their own language. When the most important talks were given, a translator actually came up on the stand and stood next to the speaker and translated sentence by sentence. In the women's auxillary training meeting, the presenter would talk for a few minutes and then they would ask another woman to stand and explain it in Fijian. It fascinates me how well this works. Most of the people here are bi-lingual -- Fijian and English but some of the villagers from the remote branches don't understand English very well so it is important that they get this level of information in their own tongue.

One of the highlights of the conference was the presence of Elder Wakolo who is the Pacific Area Seventy. He is a local Fijian and he was just given this calling last April at General Conference. He is a spiritual giant. He is very sincere and compassionate and inspiring. Maybe that is why so many members were in attendance. They love having "their" general authority connection present. Pres. and Sister Woolley, who are the Suva Fiji Temple President and Matron were also the speakers at two of the sessions and they gave very wonderful, inspiring and personal talks. One of the stories that Pres. Woolley told was about one of his ancestor who was the contractor in charge of building the Laia Temple in Hawaii. He told how this man discovered that he was running out of timber to finish the construction of the Temple and he didn't know where he was going to get any timber. There was no timber any where to be found or used. He decided one day to go up on the bell tower of the Chapel that was on the property next door to the Temple site and kneel down in prayer and ask the Lord what he should do to deal with this complication. As he stood up from his prayer, he looked out to the ocean and saw a huge cargo ship had run aground on a reef and was in a serious situation. He could see the name on the ship of a transporting company so he called the company on the phone and told them of the situation with their freighter. The company was distressed and asked if he could get men to go out to the freighter in their canoes and remove the cargo of timber they were carrying. The company did not care what they did with the timber they just wanted their ship to be rescued. And that is the miracle that provided the timber to finish the construction. Then he continued talking about miracles that happen inside of the Temples as well. It was a sweet and moving talk.

So now I have just finished some laundry because we will be taking off tomorrow for our next adventure. We are going to Vanuatu for 2 weeks!!! This should be really interesting. Vanuatu is it's own country. It is about an hour and forty minute flight. They have a very unique currency there called Vatus and the exchange difference is huge, something like 10,000 Vatus equals $100 US. Paul says 1 Vatu is about equal to a penny. They speak a different language called Bislama which is something like "pidgeon english". And.... they drive on the RIGHT side of the road so we are going to be either so back to our comfort zone or so mixed up our brains won't know where we should be driving! Thankfully, I don't think we are going to do any driving over there. We will be going to 2 different islands to begin with and on the first island is a Senior Missionary couple, the Scherns, so they will be driving us all around. We may even fly to one or two more islands while we are with them. We have been told to make sure and begin taking some RX to help us prevent coming down with malaria. We have been told to pack up with the bug spray!! I'm OK with what we have been told, it is what we haven't been told that makes me a little anxious. I'll keep you posted!

So if you have stuck through clear to the end of this long narrative --- thank you for your patience. I feel like I have so much I want to share with you but it ends up being so much that I feel like I can't delve in too deep. I hope you can get just a little taste of the wonderful experiences we are having. We are happy and enjoying being in the Lord's service 24 hours a day!