The Fruits of Teaching and Preaching



Behold These Little Ones

As this year comes to a close and a new one is about to begin, I would like to share some year end treasures for diligence and faithfulness on the part of both missionaries and members.  Both of our Branches put on a very fine Primary Sacrament meeting presentation.   The children worked hard on their parts and learning the songs they would sing. Our two Primary Presidents did an outstanding job on writing the program and coordinating the music.  I am sorry that I did not take the camera to church on the day of Utwe's program.  The children were all dressed in white and said their parts both in Kosraen and English.  Since there is no choir loft in that Branch, they used the first two rows of seats and would stand up and turn and face the congregation when they sang and came to the podium to say their parts.  My part was helping them to learn the songs during primary time and they did all the rest.  Not one child forgot their part.  In the Lelu Branch the children did an outstanding job.  I also helped with learning the songs during regular primary time, but they wanted me to conduct them during the program which I was happy to do.  There were about 32 children in the Lelu Branch and 24 children in the Utwe Branch.  It certainly brought tears to your eyes as the Spirit was strong.

The Utwe Branch is now seeing the fruits of keyboard instruction.  Sepe Charley is here practicing for the upcoming Sunday services.  She has been coming to keyboarding classes on Tuesday mornings, and along with her natural ability to play by ear and consistent practicing of reading music she is now able to play on Sundays.  Each week she will accompany at least two different songs.  When she can come early, then she will also do prelude music.  She is so excited about doing this.

What better way to celebrate Christmas than to have people come unto Christ and be baptized.  On Christmas Eve we had three convert baptisms due to the diligent teaching and preaching of the Elders here on Kosrae.  We also had one special child of the George family baptized who had just turned eight recently.  Burney Nena, Sepe Permudes, and Tadao Nena were taught by the Elders and Kimchee James was baptized by Elder Madsen.

Burney was taught by Elders Rufus and Madsen


Sepe and Tadao were taught by Elders Conejero and Coffey

James and his family



Parties and More Parties

The children who came were put to work helping with the cleanup.

December has been a month for parties for both Branches and the District.  The members really know how to have a good time with eating and programs. We started the month with a Relief Society and Young Women combined activity at the Utwe Branch.  They planned on doing a deep clean of the building and church yard along with a BBQ.  Of course, we had to wait for more than an hour for someone to come with the BBQ equipment.  When the wood was chopped and the fire built then the food could be cooked.  It had been raining so much that it took a while to get everything to burn for the fire.

 When you do not have any tongs to use for cooking the chicken, you use a machete to get a branch from the tree and use it as your turner.

The next  weekend the Priesthood men had an activity where they built a covering to be used for protection from the rain whenever they would do their BBQ's.  The Branch President and his sons along with Elder Wright and four of the young missionaries, Elders Coffey, Conejero, Agalzoff and Andrew came to help with this project.  A little bit of a disappointment that others could not come but they got some things accomplished and had a meeting.  They saved the food that they planned on cooking to use for the next weeks Christmas Party. Instead they did some physical exercises and went ahead with the program they had planned.  It was successful for those that came.

 Lelu Branch had their Christmas Party on December 23rd.  There was a good program planned and lots and lots of food.  It  started about 3 hours later than they told everyone but we are getting used to that now.  We had a good program and then ate outside. It had been raining so much lately and this day was no exception.  Canopies were brought in to put the tables with the food on dry.  About the time we were to start eating we had quite the downpour.
They took the left over food to those members who were unable to come.

You need a good strong fire to use in cooking your rice.

A great Christmas party was held at the Utwe Branch.  They had a tremendous turnout of about 150 people.  This party started arround 10:30 a.m. gathering together and bringing food to be cooked.   Most of the food preparation was done outside at the Church; cleaning fish, grilling chicken, ribs, and hot dogs, making their famous Kosraen soup and cooking the rice (3 large pots full). There was a program later in the afternoon with songs, stories, speakers, and even Santa Claus bring treats to the kids.  We had such a fun time and it was 8:00 p.m. before we left for home.  It was an all day party to remember!!

Here are some of the men grilling the chicken and ribs underneath the newly constructed canopy.

Sister Hadley is preparing the fish for use in the soup and also for making sashimi.  I learned a lot about cleaning and removing the scales from fish.  The soup is made by cooking a whole fish in boiling water and then when it is cooked removing it from the pot and taking all the bones out and returning the fish in small bite size pieces to the soup pot.  Rice is also added along with salt and pepper.

The last ingredient to go into this soup is coconut cream (or milk).  The bowl is full of freshly shredded coconut and she is putting some in a cloth and squeezing it to make the cream.  When it has all been turned into cream then it will be added to the soup.  This is a very YUMMY soup. 

A District Party is planned to celebrate this holiday season on Friday and then a New Year's Eve party will be on Saturday to round out the month.  It has been a month full of fun activities with the members here on Kosrae.

Institute Fun and Games

We had a great activity with the students in our Lelu Institute class.  The night was actually planned for the showing of the latest CES Fireside for young adults, but due to some delays in getting the DVD ready to be sent out to our island, we had to come up with an alternative plan.  Most of the activities that we have done so far usually include the seminary class also.  It was pure fun to do something that only involved the institute age youth along with a couple of older members who joined with us. We started the evening off by showing the DVD  of "Joy to the World."  With Christmas just around the corner this was a perfect DVD to watch.

 When we finished watching this we taught them how to play a game that we called the "M&M game."  This is a very active dice game where everyone takes turns rolling two dice and when you get a double you try to suck up m&ms from a larger bowl using a straw and putting them in your own personal container.  All this is done while the dice is rolled by the other players and if anyone gets a double then whoever is in the process of sucking up m&ms has to stop and give the bowl to the person that just rolled doubles.  The play continues until all the m&ms from the large bowl are gone.

The faster the dice are rolled the quicker doubles are found and everyone tries to prevent any one player from getting too many m&ms.  They got laughing so hard that they could not suck up the m&ms at one point in the game.  When we exhausted this game we then played another dice game.

This time is was "Farkle".  No one had played this before so we had to teach them and they really enjoyed playing it also.  It was not quite as rowdy a game as the other one.  I think everyone had a great time.  We ended up eating cinnamon rolls when we were finished.  What a great way to end this first semester of Institute!