Shells

Today is Saturday, and it's our fun day off.  We of course played pickleball at 6:00 am, first things first!   We had four Nivans (local folks) join us.  They had a great time learning to play. It's amazing how they can move across the court with thongs on their feet.   At noon, a few of us went shell hunting.  It's become a fun thing that we love to do, anyway the women love it.  The guys go snorkeling instead.  We went out to a beach that we've been to before, called Tamanu.  We were told if we went a little further down the beach from where we were before, that we would find wonderful shells.  I guess we didn't find the right place because the shelling wasn't great.  Elder Collette brought his fishing pole and caught eight fish.

There was a couple of mama's there, with their little pikinini's, doing a little fishing as well.  It was interesting, yet painful, to watch them procure their bate.  They would catch little crabs (hermit crabs), crack them open with a rock and pull the little critters right out of their shells.  Ouch!  I did not enjoy watching that!   The little kids were so cute, they could see that we were looking for shells, so they would find shells and bring them to us.  So darling.

We've been watching the crazy weather happening all other the world.  We've been having some action in this part of the world too.  Ambae, one of the islands here in Vanuatu, is getting action from its volcano. They've been having eruptions and ash falling.  It started to erupt on Saturday, and preparations were being made to evacuate 5,000 people to the other side of the island.  The church had two missionaries taken off the island and brought here to Port Vila.  We saw them on Sunday, they said it was quite the experience to be there.  There are earth quakes happening real often here in the Pacific.  We had a 6.5 last week, but it was very deep in ocean, we bearly felt it.  The islands, after all, are volcanic islands.  There are Tsunami evacuation signs posted all over the island, and that season is upon us, as well as cyclone season.  YIKES!!  Chances are we'll see some action while we're here.  

Sunday, we went to church with the Granger's.  We attended the Etas branch, which is out in the boonies.  After church, they took us to the mission office to talk with us about some things we could do to help them while we're between audits.   President and Sister Granger are always on the go.  When they have zone meetings with the missionaries, they are not only traveling to the islands of Santo, Tanna and Malekula, here in Vanuatu, but they also go to New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands which are two different countries in the mission.  We told them we were happy to help in anyway we could.  So, we will be working on helping families from the different islands in the mission to get to the Fiji temple.  I will see that they have all the documents they need with their application such as: passports, marriage, birth or adoption certificates, and whatever other documents that are needed.  I will be working with someone in Fiji making plane and hotel reservations. 

   I will also be helping to put a resource book together for the branch presidents on various policies and timelines, examples ...  The church is still quite new here, so the leaders still need guidance.  Greg has been asked to get  audit committees functioning in the districts, branches and groups, and training them so that they can eventually do their own audits.   In Port Vila, they have auditors, and one of them performed a few of those audits in this cycle.  Progress is slowly being made.  He has also been made the Mission Clerk, that way he will be able to have access to some of the church resources on line.  It will be nice to have the additional duties.  

It looks like things are cooling off there at home, and warming up here in the islands.  It's weird to think you're headed toward winter and we're headed toward summer.   I wish we were going into winter!  Elder Sackley told me in the summer it gets so humid that he can wring his tie out!  Poor Greg, he's already sweating away!  Well, I'll close for now.  We hope all is well with you and your families.  Things are going well with us.  We love you!  Elda and Sista Robison XO