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.