Peace reigns, service projects and the Primary

We came out of the week with no significant activity from the local syndicat (union) as we waited for judgements against their leaders. Those will not now be announced for several weeks. meanwhile the government is making a regular showing of power keeping things quite calm. A welcome relief for all.

Pictured nearby are 4 of the Elders' Quorum Presidents in our training session from Wednesday evening. Carl is gradually moving through the organization with some kind of training along the way. These good, young, energetic brethren carry heavy responsibilities and work hard at serving the members of their branches. We focused on helping in their responsibility to teach how to perform the ordinances of the Gospel to their quorum members and how to organize home teaching. the latter including what a home teacher is to do, how and why to get reports from each home teaching team and how organize their efforts delegating some of the work to their counselors. Co-incident with this training was the visit from Tahiti of a team helping the District install the Church's record system. It has a significant module on home teaching, so we invited one of them to come and demonstrate. These young Presidents are computer savvy brethren and had no trouble learning to navigate the system. Of course there will be some work up front getting things started, but then the tool will help enormously.

On Saturday we participated with most of the missionaries as well as about 60 members of the District in a clean up service project in one of the neighboring towns, Mont Dore. We have a chapel there and two teams of missionaries serving in the area. The village was hosting a clean up along roads, around schools and parks and athletic fields. We congregated about 7a and started working by 8 finishing about noon. Donated hours amounted about 320. Bags of cans, plastic bottle and general garbage were significant. We sorted as we accumulated to make re-cycling easier. The community provided sandwiches and water for us midway through the morning for which we were quite grateful. Starting at 8a meant leaving home by 6:30a and breakfasts were much earlier. Kept us from fading away before noon. Pictured nearby are the members of the district being instructed by our public relations co-ordinator as well as the missionaries outfitted in the complimentary t-shirts given each of the workers. We worked hard and were quite tired by the midday completion.

Home for showers, a quick nap and then the Primary talent night which commenced at 4p. Old people have trouble keeping up such a pace. Each branch in the district provided a talent usually around a story line. While the relationship between their assigned theme such as repentance, hope, or longanimity were sometimes a bit of a stretch, we completely enjoyed watching these beautiful children perform dances they had learned. They are beautiful with large brown eyes, beautiful olive skin and quick smiles. Sister Mautz notes they have eyelashes to die for! A number of pictures nearby will give you a better look at cowboys, native dancers and the like.

We visited the Tontouta branch for Church services today. These good Saints welcome us, help Sister Mautz with her French and feed us. Elder Mautz was one of the speakers in Sacrament Service. In teaching about serving together as one, he used the example of our own home ward in Oakton where much is given supporting each other in the difficulties, sadness and challenges of life. We are grateful for their example as we serve here. The branch is preparing for a fireside next Saturday. Nearby is a film clip of the branch choir with a few missionaries singing a familiar Primary song, in French however and with some great harmony provided by the local musical talents.

We look forward next week to a visit with our Mission President and a Zone Conference. the next posting may be a few days later than usual.

New Missionary, Transfers and 2 C3's

Last weekend slipped away as Sister Mautz's hip recovered by limbering up and Elder Mautz prepared an unexpected talk for Sacrament meeting in the Noumea 1 branch. In the meantime, we have welcomed a new Elder, Elder Seiko, cracked the code to import meds, cleaned the closet and sent off dear missionaries to new assignments.

Elder Seiko, whom you met a few weeks ago with his enthusiastic willingness to depart with less than 24 hours notice, returned to us this week from his 3 weeks at the MTC in New Zealand. He is glad to be at work and is a great addition. Elder Styles is his new companion and trainer. We picked up Elder Seiko at the airport in Tontouta on Wednesday after a false start on Tuesday. Seems they didn't get him to the airport in time for his flight. But he arrived via Fiji Wednesday right on time. We got him to his new companion. They are working hard and having fun at it. Pictures nearby show him with Elder Styles and during his orientation with the zone leaders. We should note in passing that Elder Seiko is from New Caledonia. His father is a passed District president here and now is a branch president in Lifou, an island part of New Caledonia just to the East. His sister is currently serving here in the Tontouta branch. We were to join that district with Elder Seiko on Tuesday. When he didn't arrive as expected, we went on to the district meeting, also pictured nearby, where his sister was teaching a lesson. When we walked in without her brother, she carried on without batting eye. We admired her tenacity and faithfulness.

As we start our 6th month of our mission, it became time to need more prescription medicines. We had originally been told that importing them was out of the question. However, in doing a little listening at the customs office which we visit regularly while picking up packages for the missionaries, we began to understand that with some proper preparation, we could have prescription medicines shipped in. Now to crack the code as to how that was done. When Elder Mautz asked just how this could be done, he was sent 'over there' to another building. With some more questions, we met the medical inspector who explained just what we needed. The hardest part, we thought, was already done since we had with us copies of our prescriptions. That turned out to be the easiest. The hardest part was securing the importation form from the government printing office a few blocks away and which is only open until 3p in spite of what the signs say on the building. After 3 tries we succeeded, completed the form, got back to the medical inspector who efficiently stamped it, got it to his superior for signature and back to us in 24 hours. So now we are authorized drug importers, of a sort. We feel like Carl cracked the code.

Behind our office is a storage closet all our own. And stuffed with leftovers from closed missionary apartments, car wash supplies, and whatever else somebody thought might be useful sometime in the future. One afternoon while Sister Mautz was finishing up all kinds of reports, Carl cleaned the closet. (Yes, all we ever needed to know we did learn from our Mothers!) Pictured nearby are 3 shots of the before, contents all over the yard and after shots. Not only is it more useable, but we actually know what is there. When one of the apartments needed a vacuum cleaner, we knew we had one! Somehow not as quite as big a deal in writing as it was as we washed floors, wiped down shelves, carried away the true garbage, washed and cleaned bed covers that were again needed this week in the cooler weather we are having in winter, and organized!

The arrival of new missionaries always begets transfers. And we had the second major round of these since our arrival. The lesson we learn each time is that the Lord guides this very sensitive part of His work carefully. New missionary companionships bring new opportunities for service, to learn new skills in teaching and to support each other. We note that the missionaries continue to be concerned for former companions, their comforts and needs. As we were responding to opening a long vacant apartment and getting new mattresses, a missionary noted to us that an apartment he had just left also needed a mattress.He was OK being uncomfortable himself, but his successor deserved better! Pictured nearby are several of the new companionships, the general 'chaos' of transferring luggage between cars etc and the evident joy these good missionaries feel in being together.

Part of these transfers included sending our senior zone leader back into full time proselyting service for the remaining 8 weeks of his mission. He is a gentle Tahitian. A hard worker and great teacher. He will help his new companion as well as strengthening the branch where he will be serving. We will miss him a great deal as he has been at our right hand these last months patiently training us in everything from how to drive through a 'rond point' to banks, visas, and all the rest. We will see how we survive and look forward to seeing him when we visit the Tontouta branch.

We are in good health, busily engaged and grateful to be here.

Goings,Comings and Paradise returns

This week we worked. Plain, old-fashioned work.

As background, over the last several weeks, there have been various activities around strikes by one of the local syndicats or unions. This one representing primarily a political group of the native Melanesian peoples, locally known as the Kanaks. The issue got sticky a couple months ago when a union leader, not of their background but heavily engaged with them, tried to take possession of an airplane at the local airport just across the street from the mission offices and one of our chapels. That landed him in jail. His union members would like him out of jail. So off and on on over the last several weeks we have had local disturbances of deliveries primarily. First of gasoline. Then of food stuffs, bottled propane and other large truck deliveries. From time to time the disturbance closes the local expressway out of Noumea going north to the airport. Nothing dangerous, just very inconvenient. Forces traffic otherwise on the expressway onto the local roads. Blocks everything.The unrest erupting locally in different corners of the island creating inconvenience with traffic. Add a rainy week, lots to do... You begin to get the picture.

Early Monday morning, we were off to the airport in Tontouta 45 minutes north to send off Sister Spencer on the first leg of her journey home to Oregon. We miss her steady, unflappable get-the-job done attitude coupled with her hard work. She was training a new sister, just before her departure, so lots of adjustment. Transfers for most of the sisters last week in anticipation.

Departures include a visit in Fiji to spend time with our Mission president and his wife, a trip to the Fiji-Suva Temple and then the long flight home. Pictures nearby show her last minutes on the ground in New Caledonia at the airport. In the rain.

Monday afternoon, we returned to start the usual month-end reporting and to keep track of any shortages being reported from the missionaries from the strikes. A couple of the apartments had run out of propane which heats water for showers and laundry as well as running stoves for cooking. Not that anybody was complaining. But since we asked. One of the Zone leaders teams tracked down the last two canisters of propane that anybody could find. So Tuesday we took off back to Tontouta to provide the canister to an apartment already almost a week with out. Happy elders. Although as one of them explained, if you exercise really hard, a cold shower feels good. We joined them for their district meeting while there.

On Wednesday, our new sister was to arrive. Like departures, arrivals usually pass through Fiji to meet the President and to have a mission orientation and a trip to the Temple. We were back in Tontouta to greet Sister Swapp arriving in time to meet her but quite late compared to the expected arrival time of the airline. We were glad to have an extra bedroom when we got home early Thursday morning from that trip. After a few hours sleep, we joined the rest of the missionaries for the monthly car wash and to introduce Sister Swapp to her new companion. It was raining/misting steadily but the car wash went on and had lots of takers. Sister Mautz had made a new-to-the-Tahatian-missionaries concoction, no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies. A great success and delicacy among the missionaries. All were grateful for the snack accompanied by chocolate and yellow cakes to keep the energy levels up for the work. We used the time and the labor to help clean out a storage closet that had accumulated a fair amount of junk and to also remove the accumulating of trimmings on the church grounds over the last several months. Apparently the city-provided removal is an annual event, so it was great to have it all gone. Various pictures of the car wash as well as the mountain of refuse are nearby.

And one anecdote. In earlier emails we have shown a few of the now very old memorials to the Allies who were on the island from 1942-1945 during the major Pacific theater activities of WWII. Earlier in giving a driving lesson on stick shift cars to one of the newly arrived sister missionaries, Elder Mautz recalled having driven passed a colorful memorial depicting the US flag. But could never quite find where it was. At last, on asking again, we found the memorial. right on the main street going into Centre Ville. Slightly hidden by some trees, we have driven by it many times. Too focused on traffic, lane changes and traffic lights. In any case, it is pictured nearby for your perusing.

The high points of the week have come at the very end. The first was the sunshine. We had forgotten how beautiful the place is when the sun shines. And the strikes seem to be over for the moment. Store shelves are restocked. Elder Mautz attended a missionary preparation class for young men and women in the member district as outlined and requested by our Area Presidency. The teacher is a young Tahatian recently returned from a mission himself. At the end of the class he invited several of his students to share their testimonies. He had coached them to look at people while sharing feelings about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To smile and to let their words be distinct and clear. Many of these young members have been born in the Church and were having their first experience as young adults trying to decide what they really believed. Several recounted reading the Book of Mormon over the last few weeks and finally,in a private place, simply kneeling and asking Heavenly Father if the Book was truly His word, scripture like the Bible, testifying of Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice. Their experiences of personal revelation from a loving Heavenly Father that the book indeed was His word were tender and real to them and to the rest of us attending and listening. A delightful, edifying close to the week.

Almost as good as the baptism Saturday late afternoon. A young father, pictured nearby with the two sets of elders who taught him, his branch president and the member who baptized him as well as several pictures of missionaries who also attended. In fact the chapel was full of people well over 100. Missionaries only get to attend these events if they have someone to bring with them who is interested in the Church, a friend of the Church. So their presence meant that many others who are just learning about the Church had also come. And the presence of many members including the brother performing the baptism demonstrate just how wonderfully involved the members are.

His story is not unique but interesting. Like many of his generation here, he was living in concubinage (a real word. means just what you think) when he and the missionaries encountered each other. The mother of his child had left them. He has studied the Church for some time knowing that he was making serious covenants by being baptized. We met him shortly after arriving here as we attended the branch he also was attending. Feelings were tender as we met last night for his baptism. Elders Aiho and Amundsen started teaching him. Elders Winget and Green completed the teaching. As they said, 'he actually teaches us' as he finds the joy and peace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ coming into his life through faith and obedience to what he was learning.

We are grateful to be here. Helping in some small way. Giving what we can while the Lord accomplishes His great work in this corner of the world.