Senior Conference

Hello Family and Friends, 

This past weekend was our stake conference.  Our visiting Area Seventy was Elder Dudfield from New Zealand.  He spoke at the Friday evening adult session. He is such a warm, vivacious man.  He connected well with the people and had a great message.  The people here, as you know speak Bislama, so we can't understand most of what they say.  They had an interpretor for Elder Dudfield and the Grangers, who were given head phones to be able to understand what was being said when the local members spoke.  Brian, a young man that we teach in our returned missionary class gave us one also.  When english was being spoken, Brian just stood by the english speakers with a microphone and interpreted for the local members what was said.  Many, especially the younger people can speak and write english, but  I understand that they need to work on their comprehension. They do teach english in the schools.  The church has a program called extra class, administered by the senior couple in charge of education.  In that class, they are being taught comprehension.  

This past week, starting June 25 (Sat) - 28 (Wed), has been both busy and wonderful.  We just finished our senior missionary conference.  We had the chance to meet all of the senior missionaries from the Vanuatu Port Villa Mission. The mission covers Vanuatu, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands.  New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands are countries. 

Elda and Sista Anderson (from Utah), came over from Santo, one of the Islands in Vanuatu.  They only had a 45 minute flight to Port Villa on the island of Efate, where we are.  They came over Saturday morning because they wanted to go with us on our Saturday activity.  We went to our favorite snorkeling place, Hide Away.  As we visited with them, we found out what a small world it can be.  Elda Anderson served in the Utah Air National Guard, and retired in 1980.  His neice, Julie Anderson, is a member of the Air Guard, who we know and  and worked with for years while in the Guard.  We talked about all of the people we knew.  It was fun to reminisce about the good old days at the UTANG.  He will help us with the audits in the district of Santo, so we will be going to Santo and working with him for this cycle.  It will be fun to spend a few days with the Andersons in Santo and see the Vanuatu people in there more natural setting, the way most of them really, ie. village life.  His wife is a sweetheart. They are down to earth good people.

Saturday night the Sander's and the Fuimaono's arrived from the Solomon Islands. Elder Sander's and his wife are the education specialists.  He also helps with the audits there, so he will help us when we go there to do the audits and see how this all works.  With the audits being a priesthood function,  I can't sit in on the audits but I can assist in the training that we will be doing.  The Fuimaono's work in the mission office.  Elder Fuimaono is also First Counselor to President Granger in the mission presidency.

That night we all met at the Melanesian Hotel, where they all stayed.  (Two of the couples from the country of New Caledonia don't arrive until late Sunday evening).  We sat out by the pool and had a pizza party.  The pizza wasn't bad, but it was not PaPa Murphy's. Along with the pizza we got a big bowl of "chips," which we call french fries.  We had a great time visiting and getting to know each other.

Sunday was stake conference.  The stake center gets filled up fast, so they put up tent tops and lots of chairs.  They set up a screen and audio outside also.  We sat outside with the members to watch conference.  It was a really nice day, not too warm.  Elder Dudfield spoke as well as the stake president and other speakers.  They gave us head phones that day too.  The members are faithful but struggle with some of the structures of the chruch, like why are audits even needed.  The church is fairly new, so it will take some time, but they are very loving and accepting of the gospel.  The topic was on being self reliant.  That is a constant topic here.  It's a typical layed back island life.  Problem is, as I've said,  there's not alot of opportunity here in this country.  It's a constant struggle.  After church we were talking to Elder Dudfield, along with some of the other senior missionaries.  He asked us where we were from.  It turns out, he knows our Stake President, Oscar McConkie III.  They met each other in their travels and keep in contact.  He took a "selfie photo" with us in it and sent it to President McConkie.  Again, it's a "small world."  What a riot!  

We were all assigned one of the couples traveling here, to see that they got picked up at the airport and taken where they needed to be while here in Port Vila.  We were assigned Elda and Sista Jean.  They didn't arrive until Sunday evening.  The Glade's were picked up at the airport by another couple at the same time.  They didn't come in until 8:00 pm, so we just took them directly to the hotel.

Elda and Sista Glade (from Utah), and Elda and Sista Jean (from french speaking Tahiti), came from the country of New Caledonia, which is a French speaking country.  Elda Glade went on his first mission to France so he learned the language there.  He is the interpretor for the Jean's.  They assigned the Jean's to us because Elda Robison knew a little French.  He was able to converse quite well with the little bit he knew.  

On Monday morning we all went to Havanna Beach. It's a beautiful drive to the north end of the island.   A few snorkeled and swam, but most of us just visited and played table games.  We also had a BBQ , and played beach volleyball.  It was hilarious!  You just don't move like you did when you were 18!  You should have seen us!! We eventually got packed up and headed back home long enough to get cleaned up.  We met back at the hotel that night and had Family Home Evening.  We had a lesson from a talk in the April Ensign entitled, "The war goes on." It talks about Satan and his influence in the world.  We split up into groups to discuss different parts of the talk, and then talked about it as a group.  If you haven't read it, do it! 

Tuesday, we spent the whole day with President and Sister Granger at the mission home.  They gave us the training that they give the young missionaries.  We started at 9:00 am and finished at 9:00 pm.  From 9:00 am until 12:00 noon, they taught amazing things.  They are very visual in their teaching, and use lots of props and team building exercises.  The young missionaries come here from many different countries, and have different education backgrounds, so they face many types of issues. They divided us up into groups of 4 and gave each group a puzzel to put together.  The idea was to work together as a team.  We had various activities like that.  It was really fun and interesting.  The missionaries absolutely adore the Grangers.  At noon we had lunch.  We had home made soups, home made bread, salad and cookies.   After lunch we went back to training until 5:30.  They showed us videos that they produced with the missionaries as they do various activities.  The Granger's, no doubt, are having a profound effect on these missionaries.  That night we  went to Cafe Vila for dinner as a group.  It's one of the nicer places to eat dinner.  After dinner we went back to the mission home and finished an incredible day with a testimony meeting that was so very special.  We said good bye to everyone, they were all leaving to go back home the next morning.  We will never forget the time we spent with those valiant servants of the Lord.  

We hope all is well with you and your families.  We love and miss you all, and think of you often.  You are always in our prayers.  

Good bye for now.  Love,  Elda and Sista Robison XOXO