South Pacific Pizza Party

Last Friday night, we had a pizza party at the Collette's apartment.  We were all to make a home made pizza.  I made a vegetarian pizza that had pizza sauce, cheese, tomatoes and basil.  Greg is a meat eater, so he protested a bit, but thought it was pretty good after all.  When I made the pizza crust, I added about a tablespoon of crushed rosemary to the dough. After rolling it out, I brushed the dough with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 2 mashed, roasted, garlic cloves mixed together.   I then baked the crust for about 8 minutes, before adding the toppings to finish baking for 20 minute or so.   Adding the rosemary to the dough was a winner, it was really good.   While we ate our pizza, we watched the musical, South Pacific.  I remember watching it many years ago, though I didn't remember anything about it.  It was so fun for us to watch becauses the story takes place during WWII, here in the islands.  It was filmed on the Hawiian island of Kawaii, but that part of the war took place on the island of Espiritu Santo.  We will be leaving Friday to go do audits there one last time.   We were looking at a map, and there were huge bases located here on Efate, where we live, and on Santo during the war.  Of course, the war was fought all over the Pacific.  So amazing!  We've been to many of the war sights as we've traveled the islands.  In the movie, there is a character by the name of bloody Mary.  They nick named her that because she would chew "betlenut", that gross nut I told you about that people chew in the Solomon islands that makes their mouths look bloody.  It is a nasty habit for sure.  We had a great time that night.

Monday evening was family home evening.  Greg and I were in charge of the lesson, so we decided to celebrate Pioneer Day, which of course they don't celebrate here.  We downloaded the Pioneer Day concert that the Tabernacle Choir performed this year.  We showed the two pioneer songs that were sang, along with the video of Come, Come ye Saints.  Then we all shared stories about our pioneer ancestors, it was really a nice evening.  Since there are several of us leaving the mission soon, we also talked about some of the things we want to do before we leave.  It's so weird to be so close to going home, we're the next ones to go.  The Lindeman's will have been here two years by the time they leave in October, the rest of us 18 months. 

We just got a phone call from Air Vanuatu, changing our flight time tomorrow to Santo.  Oh boy, here we go again with the flights!  This will be our final trip to Santo for audits there.  We are doing them in conjunction with district conference,  because that's when all the branch presidents should be in from the other islands.   We've been told that most of the church members have been evaculated from the island of Ambae to Santo because of the Volcano.  We're anxious to see if the records to be audited made it over with them.  President and sister Duquette will be there also.  They will also have a zone conference while they are there.  I will have the chance to go to it, it will be interesting to see the differences between the Grangers and the Duquettes training styles.  I'll close for now, but will be back with more when we return from Santo.  Take care everyone.  Love, Greg and Ann