Relief Society Celebration

Here in Micronesia the Relief Society's Birthday was celebrated during the month of March.  It was wonderful to see how these sisters from Kosrae chose to remember the organization of the Relief Society. It made me wonder how this was done in other parts of the world as well.  Isn't it great that we are all part of the same organization and feel that closeness to all the other members with the same goals and desires.  We had a program that started in the chapel under the direction of the District Relief Society President who spoke on the Relief Society History.  After that President Jonathan, the District President,  spoke to the sisters and also Elder Wright.  We had two musical numbers presented.   One from each of the two different branches.  The people in Kosrae love to sing and they have very beautiful voices.  Just as the second musical number was starting the sister sitting next to me said that they announced that I would be the next speaker.  I am learning how I need to always be prepared to contribute something because I am called on many times without any notice beforehand.  It was not too long, but I was able to talk about my love for the Relief Society and how we can serve each other.

They had a potluck dinner afterwards, filled with delicious island food.  They gave us so much food that I could have made 2 or 3 meals out of it.  There were some activities where the sisters could make these lovely floral headpieces that they wear for all of their special occasions, and that is a lot of them.
There was also a sister teaching how to weave baskets from palm fronds.  As is the case no matter where you are from, we wished that more would have been in attendance, but those who were there had a wonderful time eating, making crafts, and enjoying each others friendships.

District and Zone Conferences

President & Sister Dowdle, Elder & Sister Stevenson, and E/S Wright

On March 5 - 6, 2011 we held our District Conference.  Our Mission President, President Dowdle and his wife, along with the  Asia North Area President, Elder Gary Stevenson and his wife were the presiding authorities.  Elder Stevenson is a member of the 1st Quorum of Seventy.  Meetings were held throughout the day on Saturday and an adult session in the evening.  We had a good attendance at these meetings.  On Sunday we held two different sessions.  Many local members spoke on a variety of doctrinal subjects.  It was very uplifting.    Elder Stevenson talked about us being the lower lights and Christ is the lighthouse.  He gave a great presentation of what it means to be one of the lower lights and how Christ needs our help to guide people to him.  President Dowdle talked about the exceeding great and precious promises in 2 Peter 1:2 So that we can be partakers of the divine nature.  He told of three things that we need to do to partake of the divine nature.  First, we need to remain humble, next we need to be obedient and keep the commandments so that we can be more godlike, and 3^rd we need to give our heart to God, by doing so we need to change our heart.  Both of their wives also talked and we learned about service and feasting upon the words of Christ.  This was a great spiritual time for everyone present.

Some of the Young Women from our Chorus

 Our District President, President Jonathan asked me, Sister Wright, to help get a special musical number ready for this conference.  He wanted the young women to sing.  Then he proceeded to tell me that he wanted to bring tears to the eyes of those visiting authorities who would be there.  That was a little bit of pressure as I am not proficient in that area, but I said that sure I can help do that.  We chose the song "If the Savior Stood Beside Me."  There were a total of about 15 who sang including the girls and their leaders.  What beautiful voices they had so it was not hard to do this song.  I think we accomplished our purpose as it was very touching and added much to the meeting.

Our Young Elders Andrew, Lapeyrouse, Sturm and Madsen

On Monday we had our Zone Conference with both Elder Stevenson and President Dowdle.  I had never attended a zone conference and it has been many years (abt. 45) since Elder Wright had been to one when he was a young missionary.  What a great meeting we had with one session held in the morning and another one held in the afternoon.  If was very obvious why these two men had been called to the positions that they held.  We learned so much.  A lot of time was given to help us thoroughly understand Jacob 5 on the scattering and gathering of Israel.  President Dowdle taught about the principle of obedience and diligence.  The Elders in this zone are the best.  Each of them presented a lesson and thoughts from Preach My Gospel.   They are all pretty young and you would have thought that they'd had more experience in this area from the things that they taught.  As the senior sister in this zone I had the privilege of serving lunch to this group.  Everything turned out good and we all had an enjoyable time visiting together during our lunch break. 

Tsunami Warning

View of ocean from our mountain high place

We had just finished our seminary scripture mastery class and arrived home when we got a call from one of the Elders telling us that a Tsunami warning for all of the Pacific Islands was issued because of the earthquake that had just shaken Japan with an 8.9 earthquake.  He told us that we needed to get some water, food, weather protection items and some clothes and meet them at their apartment.  He actually found out about the tsunami because his own father heard about it (in Arizona of all places) and was able to call and tell him to get a hold of the mission office and find out what there plans were for us.  It was such a surprise as we had not heard about it or even felt any tremors.  We are thankful that he called because we were then able to call the mission home and we found out that they hadn't been able to get in touch with us.  They said to go to higher ground right away.  There was an evacuation plan that we were to follow, but we sure did not know of any such plan.  What a blessing it was to have the Elders who knew what we were to do. We followed the Elders on this dirt road that led up the mountain to where there was a water packing plant. As all dirt roads are here in Kosrae, it was very narrow and filled with chuck holes. It was a very high area, almost to the top of the mountain, and we felt so safe up there.  All four of us stayed there for the entire night because our radio kept saying that the warning was still in effect.  When the first light of morning appeared we decided to go back down as the radio said it was safe again.  In the end, the tsunami never did hit our island and were we glad about that.

Here is the mountain that we were on and it is easy to see that we were very near the top.  I think that this was one of the highest places that we could have gone for safety and not too many other people even came up there.  Maybe it had to do with the fact that the road was not so good to travel on or that it took us a while to reach it.  Later the next day we drove around and looked at some of the other sites that people used for safety.  There were certain areas suggested by the government for people to use  None were as high as where we went, but they probably would have worked.  They were much more crowded.

This view was taken from the top of a hill by the courthouse in Tofol.  It was another good spot that people could go to escape tsunamis.  It was not nearly as high as the one the mission told us to use, but it worked for many people. Transportation is always a problem here and many people had to depend on friends, family or neighbors to help take them to safety.

Learning Our Way Around the Island

We have now spent a couple of weeks getting used to this island. It has been rather fascinating to learn how things work here and to take a lot of pictures of the beautiful green landscapes. There is one major road that goes from the northern part of the island by the airport down to the southern part of the island. It is paved until you reach the southern side of the island and then it turns into a dirt road that is pretty rough and hard to drive on. We went on it to meet one of the member families and we were only able to go about 4 mph because of all the chuck holes. We were actually going up the mountain and not along the seashore. Luckily they only lived a couple of miles up this road. There is a village about 8 more miles along this road, but you are not able to take a vehicle to get there. Only about 200 people live in this village and it is very primitive. They have no power or other amenities.  The entire western side of the island which only has two very small villages can only be gotten to by boat.  This road is only wide enough for one car and the further you go on it the narrower it gets and the more chuck holes it has.

The branch in Utwe is much smaller than the one in Lelu.  We have really enjoyed getting to know some of the members in this branch.  Their building has a chapel with three very small classrooms and one office for the Branch President.  There is no air conditioning here, but the windows are louvred and they have six ceiling fans.  Every Sunday they open the windows and a nice breeze comes in and with the ceiling fans going it is rather pleasant.  At least a lot better than we thought it would be.  Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society are held outside under two tiki huts.  When it rains you are pretty much protected because of the tin roofs.  The only problem that you might have is walking through the puddles and mud when you leave.  Our first Sunday here we were presented with some shell necklaces by one of the members.

Our first keyboarding class in Utwe

One of the sisters in this branch wanted to know if I would teach keyboarding to them.  The senior couple before us were able to get some keyboards donated from the Church.  I believe that there are 15 keyboards on the island.  I have a couple at our house and I know some of them have been given to individual people who were learning how to play them.  Most of these were given to the seminary and institute age students, but there are some other members who also have them.  I said "sure,  I could do that" and so we have started a keyboard class with some of the Relief Society sisters in this branch.  I go on Tuesday mornings to give lessons.  They are just in the basic beginning stages of keyboarding so I am able to do this, but if they get very good, I might be in trouble.  It is hard to know how many will show up as it varys from week to week and as long as someone comes I am happy to be there teaching.  I have also started working with one of the Utwe seminary students who had lessons before and she is pretty good so I try to help her out every Wednesday after we have scripture mastery class.  I am hoping she will be able to do some accompanying in Sacrament meeting soon.  I am really enjoying doing this.

This is the seminary building that we use in Utwe.  Whoever it belongs to lets the Church use it free of charge.  It does have some power in it and we put up a fan to circulate the air.  By 3:00 in the afternoon it can get pretty warm in there.  All of the windows are just screens so it lets the air come in and if there is a breeze it helps, but there is not always a breeze.  I am really impressed with the students who have come to scripture mastery class.  They know all 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants scriptures with the verse and key words.  Our biggest problem in this area is transportation and keeping the teachers committed to hold their classes.  They are a little more spread out.  We are working on trying to help them have better attendance.

Getting gas on the island is a little different from how we do it at home.  There are no gas pumps, but they do have these gallon containers filled with gas. This station is a little bigger (at least 2 cars can pull up at the same time) and is located at an important area of the island where you can either go to Lelu Island or to Tofol, which is the capital of Kosrae.  They put this long funnel into your tank and then pour from the gallon jugs into the car.  Just like the days gone bye where they do the filling and you sit in the car.  You can also find some smaller type places around the island if you need gas somewhere else.   We have to just estimate how much gas you might need.  It is $4.25 per gallon no matter where you get it.  We are not sure of the octane but it is all we can get.

Rust is a major problem here on the island.  I guess that anything that has metal in it will rust.  With the moisture and salt air it just makes everything rusty sooner or later.  We have a number of things in our home where the rust has taken over.  Our dryer, freezer, refrigerator, and floor fans all have varying degrees of rust.  It seems to only get on the outside of appliances, but so far the inside seems to be all right.  Hinges and switches also have some trouble with the rust.  We are trying to all we can to slow it down but that remains to be seen if it will work.  One of the things we have seen on the island is many abandoned cars because they don't work and the rust and the undergrowth has totally taken them over.  We enjoy taking pictures of all these types of vehicles that we find just left in their yards or wherever.

Vines and plants have taken over this abandoned truck.

Do you think they walked away from this one?

                                                                                                                

One Week on Kosrae

Kosrae is called "The Jewel of Micronesia."  The Island of the Sleeping Lady.  It is called this because of the shape of the mountains that look like a lady sleeping.  The center of this island is a mountainous jungle.  There is one main road going around this island with most of the people living on either side of the road. 

A typical roadway

   They say you can’t get lost because there is really only one main road and if you take a side road it circles around and comes right back to the original road.  The road is a two lane blacktop one that twists and bends as you travel to the different villages with lush greenery on either side or greenery on one side and ocean view on the other.

     We happen to live on the ocean side of the road.  Our property where the house is located has a wonderful view of the ocean.  We have been enjoying sitting under the tiki hut in our backyard and reading the scriptures and watching the waves break upon the shore.

This is a great view of the ocean from our backyard.  The sand is pure white coral.  The sandy beach is not completely around the entire island.  There are areas where there is no beach and just mangrove trees along the coast.   They are very interesting and grow quite well in this region of the world.  They help keep the land from washing into the ocean.










Elder Wright standing on the beach by our property

 Our house is small but not too small for us.  It is very comfortable.  It sort of reminded us of when we first started out in married life.  We had nothing and had to almost start from scratch.  The house came with bedding and dishes and a pretty well equipped kitchen with utensils, pans and some small appliances but absolutely no food.  Everything is just open shelving.  Some of the rooms only had a curtain rod with a loose hanging curtain for a door.  Our king sized bed pretty much fills the entire bedroom with a small closet just big enough to hang the clothes we brought.  It will be a simple life which is really all we need so far.  We live in the area called Lelu (pronounced lay-luh).

We enjoyed driving around on Saturday trying to find different stores to buy food at.  There are only a couple of big ones on the island and then there are all sorts of little shack looking structures on the sides of the road where you can also buy some items. It is like having a mini convenience store.   Not every little store sells the same things so you need to stop and check each one out.  Most of them do not have names on the buildings so I can’t even tell you where I bought anything.  Now I have to try and remember where else to go later on.  I am sure that I will eventually figure out everything.  

Our first Sunday in Kosrae was a Branch conference.  The President asked us to introduce ourselves and bear testimony.  Sacrament ran a little longer and so there was no Sunday school, but there was Relief Society and Priesthood.  I didn’t understand one word in Relief Society but there was a nice spirit there and the sisters were very friendly.  An interesting thing about the Sacrament was that they did not use regular bread; instead they used a cake-like donut.  It was a little sweeter than we are used to but very good. 




Lelu Branch Chapel


 The church is only 2 years old and it is very nice.  Because of the moisture here, there is no carpet put in any of the buildings.  Everything has nice tile flooring. They use folding chairs that need to be set up for all of the meetings, but the pulpit area looks just like all of ours at home with a choir loft and all.  There is a separate building for the classrooms, Primary and Relief Society.  There was no cooling in that building, only the chapel.  We are going to have to get used to a lot of warm meetings.  I think we will need to invest in some good fans.



 Most of the work we will be doing is with the Seminary and Institutes.  We have met with some of those in the Lelu branch  There is another branch on the island in Utwe.  We will be attending there for the next 2 weeks and hope to get acquainted with those in that area.  There are 6 different seminaries and 1 institute and we hope to make that into 2 institutes.  The classes are small, usually only 5 - 8 attend each class.  There are a couple that are less than 5.  Transportation is a big problem for the members here as many do not own vehicles, that is why there are some very small classes instead of one larger one per branch.





This is one of the many beautiful sunrises that we have witnessed since arriving.  Our backyard and ocean side of the house faces east and so we are able to see these wonderful sites each day.  The beginning of light happens around 6:00 a.m. and then we can see the sun peeking up around 6:20 or so.  We have taken many different pictures of these sunrises.  It is a great thing to sit and watch them each morning and see the beauties of this world that God has created for us.





On Our Way to Guam

The yellow hair must be a reflection from these lovely seats

Our flight left at 8:25 am on the first leg to Seattle, Washington.  The only problem was that a dense fog settled in and it delayed our flight.  We had to have the wings de-iced before taking off and then wait for clearance on the fog.  We were one hour and forty minutes late in taking off.  Because Seattle is an hour earlier than Salt Lake we made our next connection but we were a little concerned for awhile.  When we got off the plane our next gate to leave from was just one down from where we were.  That is good because we started to board for Osaka after about 15 or 20 minutes.  This flight was supposed to take 11 hours and it did.  We sat in the very back of the plane on row 42.  It actually turned out to be great because it was in the middle where we had three seats, but we did not have the third person.  We were able to spread out and actually put our feet up.  When we got to Osaka we had a 4 hour layover.  The airport was very sterile looking.  After getting off the plane we took an airport tram that traveled on the outside of the building and took us to the area where we were to board for Guam.  It was all glass and steel with no décor of any kind in the building.  It was good that we had another couple traveling with us, the Crittendens, so that we had someone to talk to during this 4 hour period.  At one point we were the only ones in the area waiting for our plane.  Just before take off it filled up pretty fast and lots of people showed up.  The trip to Guam took about 3 ½ hours.  We arrived at 1:30 am Saturday morning.  It was exactly 24 hours from the time that we got on the plane in Salt Lake to when we got off in Guam.  Plus we also lost one whole day when we crossed the International Date Line. We stayed at the Sheraton Laguna Resort Hotel while we were in Guam.

Outside hotel in Guam where it was always windy

On Sunday we attended the Barrigada Branch.  They are in the process of changing from a branch to a ward since the Guam Stake was organized about 3 weeks ago.  There were a fair amount of people attending.  It was just like being at home because everything seemed the same.  Sacrament meeting was good and so was Relief Society.  The people were very friendly to us. During the afternoon we did some sight seeing in Guam.  We went to a lookout point called Two Lovers Point.  In the evening we we went out to dinner with all of the other senior couples.  We found a Chinese restaurant to go to and it was great to get acquainted with all of the other couples that have now arrived for the conference that starts in the morning.

Beach and Bay area at the hotel

   The next morning was spent in getting some great counsel from our mission president, President Dowdle.  He talked about building a foundation on Jesus Christ and the atonement.  Then he went into the foundational principles in  missionary work.  For the next three days we had some great instruction on how we do things in the islands.  

Each day we had lunch at a different hotel buffet.  The food was always good and we enjoyed it all so much.  I think that we have gained a little weight with all of this eating out. After meetings one day we went to an Underwater World attraction.  The fish were unbelievable and we took some great pictures.  Watching the divers feed them was a real treat.



The entire area was a huge tunnel of heavy plastic so that it looked like we were right in the ocean with the fish.  We were told that it wouldn't look any better even if we had been scuba diving.  There were a number of sting rays, grooper, and sharks along with the turtles.  Many little colorful fish were swimming everywhere.

 Five different divers came down to feel the fish.  They started with the sting rays and then fed the sharks.  The fish certainly knew when it was feeding time because they all started to gather together in one area.  Not one of them even appeared to be aggressive.

Here we are with all of the senior couples that are serving at this time in the Micronesia Guam Mission.  We had a very enjoyable time getting to know them and learning all about the things that each of them were doing on their various islands.  There are 8 couples all together.   From left to right we start with our mission president, President Dowdle, E/S Crittenden from Chuuk, E/S Holloway from Pohnpei, E/S Hansen from Palau, E/S Wright (us)  serving from Kosrae,behind us are E/S Peterson from Chuuk, E/S Clarke from Guam, E/S Sheppard from Yap, E/S Hertzberg from Guam, and Sister Miyazaki the mission nurse.

Friday morning we left for our island of Kosrae.  Eleven of us were on the same flight.  The plane had to stop at two other islands before we could get to ours.   We were flying over the vast Pacific Ocean and all of a sudden an island would come into view. Chuuk was the first island stop and 6 missionaries and a family history coordinator from Japan got off. There were some fascinating cloud formations. As we arrived at each island half the plane had to get off so that they could do a security check.    Once they were done we were able to board and leave.  This took about 45 minutes each time. We were the last missionary couple left going to our island after leaving the island of Pohnpei.  It took about 6 hours to finally arrived in Kosrae.  Wow!  We are finally here.

This is Kosrae International Airport, not quite like those back home.

Missionary Training Center

In front of the Provo Temple with Max and Ethan

Melissa drove us down to Provo and we met Mark and his family at the Provo Temple.  We took some pictures and were able to visit for a few minutes.  Of course, we checked in at just at the 11:00 time, which was the cut off time.  Although we found there were a few others because of travel arrangements that checked in even after that.  Melissa drove us right to the building where we were to stay to drop off our luggage where some Elders met us and took all of our bags to our room, and then back to say goodbye at the front door. This process of checking in runs just like clockwork.   It is so efficient, I guess that since they do it every Monday morning it should be.

It is quite cold here and I was thankful that Melissa gave me a nice wool coat to use.  It has been wonderful.  The temperature has been in the teens  and colder ever since we arrived.  We are getting ready to leave the outside world and enter forth to learn all the things that we will be doing for the next 18 months.

The afternoon was spent in classes giving us additional materials and information on what we would be doing while at the MTC. We had a presentation on what our purpose is as a missionary. We were able to introduce ourselves and tell where we would serve and what our primary assignment would be.  There are 27 couples and 4 single sisters in our group.  We have people going all over the world such as Guam, Samoa, Tonga, Philippines, Hawaii, South Caroline, Salt Lake, Spain, Argentina, Cambodia, Korea, Texas, Germany, West Indies, Toronto, Norway, Georgia, Budapest, California, Switzerland,  Bolivia, India, and New Zealand.  And all of them doing a variety of things.  Quite a few will be doing CES like us, and others will do humanitarian, office, PEF, family history, medical, and military relations. We have been organized into 8 different districts with about 3 other couples who we will be with for all of our class time on instruction and teaching practice.

 Just thought that it would be cool to take a picture in front of the famous world map that all of our sons have done.  As you can see we are pointing to a little spot somewhere out in that vast Pacific Ocean.  There are about 2500 young Elders and Sisters here and it is really touching to see them.  It is like looking at the army of Helaman.  They are so impressive that we spend a lot of time just observing them wherever we go, especially in the cafeteria. You certainly feel a very strong wonderful spirit everywhere you go here.

We woke to snow on Wednesday morning and it was quite fun going from our apartment to the main building for breakfast.  None of the sidewalks were cleared off and we had very soft snow to walk through.  It snowed for the rest of the day.  As we walked to our different classes we got a taste of this weather.  It was actually kind of nice and it will be the last time we have this type of weather for a year and a half.  It did not snow anymore the rest of the week but it has remained cold and there is ice all around.  The temperature got as low as 2 degrees.  Brrrrr!!  Our picture captured the snow falling.

 

   We had 4 days of intensive training.  The young Elders have about 17 days to do the same thing.  Lots of information to digest and learn in such a short time.  We started the day off with a great lesson on the restoration.  We were then divided into our districts and were introduced to our trainer. A terrific young man with lots of enthusiasm. We taught 2 different 45 lessons to investigators while being videotaped.  We sort of forgot we were being videoed once we got into it. It was a great teaching experience.  Everyday we attend classes from 8:00 am until 4:30 pm and then after dinner there is about three hours where you needed to read and prepare for the next day.  We finished the week just fine and now next week we will be doing a 3 day  training for the CES program of how to teach in the Seminary and Institute program.  We are on a mental and spiritual overload, but it is so GREAT.