Zone conference

On Saturday, a zone conference was held.  It was optional for the senior couples, but we were all there.  We support any and all activities.  It was so fun to join the young missionaries from  Port Vila and the island of Santo.  The missionaries from Santo, which is a small island in the mission, were flown over to attend.  The conference started at 9:00 in the morning and ended at 3:00.  As I mentioned before, Elder Nielsen, an area seventy of the church, is on his farewell tour.  He and his wife came over from Auckland, New Zealand, which is where they live while on their mission here in the South Pacific.   He and his wife will be leaving to go back to Salt Lake City soon.  They gave great instruction to the missionaries.  Our mission President and his wife also presented super training, and have a great love for the missionaries.  They are outstanding leaders.  President Granger refers to the mission as, a mission of miracles, and if we do our best, we will see miracles happen.  The messages given were all wonderful and well presented.  Here are a few things I jotted down that stood out to me.

 Obedience is committment and devotion.

Repentance: that we need to repent everyday for even the small things.   It should be a daily habit.  No one is perfect.

When we humble ourselves, we invite the Savior into our lives.

We get to choose. We have our agency to change our lives because of the atonement of our Savior.

We come to earth to be noble and great, not just average.

We are learning to be good companions.  We need to celebrate each others differences.

Choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.  Pres Monson

Our choices determine our destiny.

Repentance is the doctor - humility is the key - Christ is the power - prayer is the tool.

Revelation:  when we receive it, act upon it.

Do we own our promptings, what are we doing with them?

The elders sang the hymn, Nearer my God to Thee, and the sisters sang A Childs Prayer.  They have such angelic voices, and are such good missionaries.  There is an Elder Gray here from Kaysville, Utah!  It's a small world isn't it?  We talked about living in our small town and attending "Dear old Davis High School."  At noon, we all had lunch together, then resumed our conference.  It was so well put together.  That day was definately a spiritual feast.

On Sunday we went to our Black Sands ward.  The brothers and sisters there are so sweet and humble.  They greet you with a warm hand shake and are so happy to see you.  I've started putting names to faces.  Some of the names are challenging, but then you get names like Curtis, Elsie, Annis, Juliette, Sophie.  They are all adorable and have strong testimonies.  

This cute, young women sat by me in Relief Society named Nellietwa.  She asked me where I was from, when I told her she said, that she served a mission on temple square in Salt Lake.  I then remembered our friends, Paul and Lynette had also served a mission on temple square, and was over the young missionaries.  I asked her if she knew them, she said, yes.  They told her we were going to be in Vanuatu on our mission.  She said she had been waiting to meet us.  I look forward to seeing her each Sunday.   

 After our meetings, Sister Tucker and I met with the RS presidency.  We are having a ward party this month, and it should be fun.  We are suppose to wear  island clothing.  You should see the "mama" dresses they wear around here, I think I'll just wear one of my flowered skirts.  I am going to get one to wear "in the apartment."  They aren't too fashionable, but they would be comfortable.  

Elder Robison went into the clerks office and observed the process of how they collect tithing and fast offerings.  Since it's part of the auditing process, he wants to learn what he can. 

The PH and RS are meeting together this month to go out and invite the less actives to stake conference.  That means, Elder Robison and I will get to see where members live, so that we can then go visit the less actives more often.  The problem here is that  streets aren't marked, and there are no house numbers. Some one will just tell you they live next to the big, dead, tree at the end of the road behind the church.  It isn't easy to get around in other words.  We'll figure it.  Hopefully our home/visiting teaching will be helpful.

We had family home evening last night (Monday) at the Lindemans.  We discussed what we learned in our zone conference.  For treats we had rice crispy candy.  The marshmallows and rice crispies that you get here, are a little different than what you get at home. They were good.  You learn to adapt recipes with what's available.  It's going to get creative that's for sure.  We also watched a professional pickleball tournament that the Sackley's downloaded.  We have a long way to go!!!!  It's fun though!  

We hope all is going well at home.  Just know that we love and miss you all very much.  

Love, Elda and Sista Robison XO