Farewell to Paradise

It is hard to believe that 18 months have come and gone so quickly.  What a great experience this has been to live on this beautiful island paradise of Kosrae.  Because of the Gospel, we have had the opportunity of a lifetime being among these wonderful, kind, and loving people here.

Elder Wright on his coconut hammock

We have learned so many things from the members here.  Patience being the top of the list.  They do things at their own timing and leisure with no hurrys or worrys.  They do not stress over little or big things, and everything will usually work out in the end.  You just need to be adaptable to this slower pace of living. 

Beautiful views from behind our house.

We both agree that we will definitely not miss the humidity and being wet much of the time.  Elder Wright will not miss having to carry a sweat wrag with him everywhere, wearing shirts with wet collars, bug bites, heat rashes, and always having sand in his shoes.  Sister Wright will not miss cleaning mold and algae from windows, mini blinds, and bathroom tile. Nor will she miss rust on fans and appliances, or rats crossing the roadways.

Our final sunrise

We will miss the beautiful sunrises we experience each and every day, living on beach front property with an awesome ocean view, tropical greenery along the roadways, and lush rainforests.  Mostly we will miss the association with the people we have grown to know and love who are some of Heavenly Father's choice children.  We will also miss the tremendous young Elders who serve here as missionaries teaching and preaching the gospel.

One of the many beautiful sunsets we have witnessed

We were honored with a going away party by the district.  It was an extraordinary evening with delicious local food including fish, bbq ribs and chicken, taro, bananas, rice and banana pie.   Of course there was singing and dancing and some words of farewell by us.  Our lives will never be the same.  Being together 24/7 has been a rewarding time for us.  This truly has been a Micronesian Adventure.

Temple Blessings in Manila

When you live on a small island in the Pacific Ocean where you are far from a temple, it takes lots of preparation and time to get a trip organized for families to attend the temple.  The closest temple to us is in Manila, Philippines.  It is more than 2,000 miles from here.  We are so grateful for the Temple Patron Fund of the Church that helps families and individuals who are attending the temple for the first time. 

The cost is very prohibitive for any of the members to ever be able to afford to go.  None of us realize how fortunate we are to live in a close proximity of a temple.  Especially those of us who only live about 5-10  minutes from the nearest temple.  It was last summer that we first started to plan for a trip to the temple.   We had the privilege of teaching a temple preparation class with members of the branch.  As we got further into our class one of our members did not have a birth certificate and it took us months to get one for him so that he could get a passport.  Unfortunately it took too long and he and his family will go on the next trip as the request to the Temple fund had to be submitted to the Asia North Area for approval for the financing before he had his certificate.  There have been many stumbling blocks along the way as we have tried to help the George family who would be our only family going on this temple trip.  The original plan was for the family to leave in March, but the first hurdle was finding out that the temple was closed for maintenance at the time they were to leave.  Fortunately the flight was sold out when they went to purchase tickets.  That was our first tender mercy.  Each time trickets were reserved we would contact the temple with the dates only to find out they were extending their closure time for maintenance repairs.  The temple actually ended up being closed for 3 months. Then the price of tickets increased significantly and it was above the approved budget.  By changing the date to a later time the price for tickets were reduce to something more reasonable, so tickets were reserved again, but when they went to purchase them it was discovered that Sister George's passport only had 5 months before renewal and the policy here in the FSM is that there must be 6 months or more left when you travel from to and from the FSM.  So the next morning off to the immigration she went to fill out renewal papers and send them off to the capitol on the Island of Pohnpei.  She was told that they would be back just one day before departure.  There was also a problem with the check that was being written to purchase the tickets and they had to have the Church finance center in Guam actually do the purchasing.  The next tender mercy occured when the passport was returned in just 6 days.  Tickets were purchased and we thought all was well but one day before they were to leave as we printed the itinerary for them it was discovered that they had the wrong return date.  It was actually 4 days later than we had scheduled. So with some quick emails to Manila asking for additional days at temple housing they were on their way.  This is another tender mercy as they get to spend extra days at the temple as this may be a once in a lifetime trip.

                                                                                                                                               

This is our wonderful George Family who are now in the Philippines attending the temple. President George is a Branch President here in Utwe.  They were able to take four of their children with them. 

Closing Social on the Beach

Everyone likes a party, especially when it is held at the beach.  This year to end our seminary and institute program we held a closing social at our home, you know the one with the beach front property.  Some of the young men and our teacher Brother Nena built a firepit using coral rocks from the ocean and putting a wire screen on top.  We even collected wood from along the beach for the fire.  Many students came early to help with getting things ready. 

They made local woven trays to put the food on and then some enjoyed sitting around and talking.  We had delicious marinated chicken cooked to perfection, except for the few pieces that got some sand on them when the wind began to whip up.  Of course we had to have rice, which I cooked. and many brought local dishes such as taro, breadfruit, bananas (cooked 3 different ways) and naturally it wouldn't be a party without ice cream.



2 Seminary students -- Diovil and Selyn

We played some games on the beach with water balloons and had so much fun doing it.  After we ate, the wind kept getting stronger and stronger so we were unable to play the game with the new frisbees that we bought.  But it was great to be outdoors and eat before we had to come inside. 

We played a fun end of the year game of Jeopardy with questions from the Old Testament.  Following the game we watched the movie "Plates of Gold."  There were about 30 in attendance including both students and teachers.  What a great way to end a successful year for both seminary and institute.





Graduation and a Wedding

Seminary girls

We held our seminary and institute graduation on the last weekend in May.  We had some great youth who were getting credit for completing this years course of study.  We couldn't be prouder of them, as all those in seminary who completed the year, also memorized all of the 25 scripture mastery verses in the Old Testament.  No one graduated this year, but look out for next year as we will have some graduating from high school and also getting a diploma for completing four years of seminary.  Tulpe was our only institute student who received a Certificate of Advanced Achievement.  She completed eight credit hours after already graduating from institute two years ago.   With all the problems we had with transportation in getting everyone to class each time, we ended up with one student, Jason Linus, who got 100% attendance.


This is only a portion of our institute students as some of them did not want to get their picture taken. 

Our theme for this year comes from
Proverbs 3:5-6.  "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

 Teachers, leaders, students and some future students.

Many of our students participated in giving talks about their reflections of Old Testament stories that had meaning in their lives.  All of our students came to the graduation, but we did not have too many that came to support our students.  Would you believe that they scheduled a wedding for the same day and just two hours before our graduation program.  The great thing about it was that all the people were at the Church for the wedding and so that made our graduation start on time, although many left to go to the reception that was held at a home about a mile away.

This was our first wedding to attend since coming to Kosrae.  What a great event to witness. It was the wedding of our Branch President's daughter, Kenye, who married a young man, Jared Albert,  from the Branch. The bride was lovely and the ceremony was somewhat different from those we have attended at home.  They did not play any wedding music as such. The bride and groom sat in chairs at the front of the Chapel and were rather serious looking as President

George officiated at the ceremony. 

 After he gave a wedding talk they stood up for the saying of their vows.  Everyone was able to greet them afterwards before they left for the reception.  The Chapel was filled with many friends and family who came to support and wish the new couple well.   The graduation program kept us from attending the reception, but we heard it was fabulous.