Vanuatu - the adventure continues!!!

Hello Family & Friends coming to you from our small paradise in the south pacific.

The island we will most likely stay on
for most of our mission - Island of Efate
(our apartment is close to the star on the map)

We hope you are all doing well. We continue to love serving on Vanuatu Port Vila amongst the people of this island. We haven't really given you a lot of information about the island we are living on, or the people we get to serve with. So here is just a little bit of what we are learning.

We are living on the island which is the Efate Island, part of Vanuatu cluster of islands, which is part of approximately 83 islands making up Vanuatu. Efate is the 3rd largest of the islands, and is home to the capital city of Port Vila. Efate is the most populated island with about 66,000 people, representing about 20% of the total population across Vanuatu. Efate is about 347 sq. miles around, and supposedly you can drive around it in about 3.5 hours. We have been on the other side once, but not the whole way around. One day we may have to drive it just to see what it is like.

Vanuatu is considered the most at-risk country in the world for natural disasters due to its location in a seismically active region prone to cyclones, earthquakes, and volcanic activity. We are just going into the cyclone season from December until April, which is their rainy season. So far we haven't had that many rain storms, but we know they are coming shortly, so we will not wish for them yet.

As we drive around downtown Port Vila we see the impact of the large 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck last year on December 17, 2024. About 20 people were reportedly killed, and many of the buildings are damaged or now just vacant lots after they knocked down those that were damaged to the point of not being occupiable. It is said that pretty much every building on the island was impacted in some way because of the earthquake. Our apartment building had several water issues with pipes that leaked into the other apartments. In fact, when we got here we had a water leak that had water leaking down the wall near our toilet. This finally got fixed about four weeks into living here. The senior missionaries, that were living here during the earthquake, tell Darleen and I of how they went without electricity for about 10 days, with temperatures reaching over 90 degrees daily. It was a challenging time, and the island came together to serve each other as they helped to recover.

Most of the population of Vanuatu are drawn from the indigenous Melanesian population that are referred to as "Ni-Vanuatu" (of the island of Vanuatu). Beyond these Melanesian people, there are a small minority population from places like Australia, New Zealand, and China. Several stores are owned and managed by these groups. One thing we have mentioned about the Ni-Vanuatu people are the fact that they are very quiet. You can talk to them and ask them what their name is, and just struggle to hear what they tell you. However, once you get to know them you really see their personalities come out. We have started to see this as we work with the YSA (young single adults). We have fun getting to know them.

Darleen teaching SIS English class on
Friday. Usually we get around 7-8 students,
but Friday's can be lighter.

Back to some of our week!!! This week we had the opportunity to continue to teach several classes, including Success in School (SIS) math on Monday, Institute on Wednesday, SIS English on Friday, and today we taught YSA Sunday School. I've mentioned before that I haven't done a lot of teaching together with Darleen, but we are getting a good amount of time weekly teaching (between 4 to 8 different type of lessons). Darleen is a great teacher, and I appreciate how she loves the scriptures and the Savior. When we teach about Him, she just gets so excited. I look forward to continuing to grow together as we teach the youth and the young single adults.

The institute class on Wednesday is a class that is being taught in between a BYU Pathway education course to full-time missionaries that are in the last half of their mission. We agreed to teach the Institute course, which is a religious course, with the current curriculum on the teachings of the Savior. Darleen and I will be teaching this for the next 21 weeks to these individuals every Wednesday evening. It was a great opportunity to get to see the spiritual strength of these young 18-20 year old's that are dedicating 18 to 24 months of their life in preaching the gospel to those in Vanuatu. Most of the individuals we are teaching are from Africa, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Madagascar, and Vanuatu. One funny part of our lesson was that we are doing the teaching virtually. We thought it would be good opportunity to begin the class by singing a
hymn. We had the music on my phone playing, and then started to sing. Well, due to the small delay from everyone's computer, we got the opportunity to hear this delayed sounds from each of the students. It was almost like an echo constantly happening with each of them a little behind to the overall music. Needless to say, at the end I said, "I'm not sure we are going to do that again". :-) We look forward to teaching this class weekly.

The only two (2) 'functioning' stoves/ovens
that are at the YSA Convention school we will
be at in January. Notice the one without a door.

Previously, in other weekly blogs, we discussed that we are part of the committee planning a YSA Convention on January 5 thru 9th 2026. The convention will bring some 500-600, 18 to 35 year-old, single adults for a week of fun. Darleen and I are helping with the logistics, housing, and budget sub-committees for the convention. We visited the school last on Monday to walk around and see the overall layout of the school (we had never seen it, so it was good for us). The school is a private French secondary school (high school aged youth) in Port Vila. We found that one of the biggest challenge will be the lack of stoves/ovens to cook on, given the December 2024 earthquake damaged their large kitchen and cafeteria. They have tried to repair the kitchen area, but for the past year they have mainly been catering food in for the students. They do have a smaller kitchen area, that we were told we could use, however, they only have two stoves/ovens, and one of the oven doors is completely off. Plus the two large freezers are not working, and they only have 3 smaller freezes to store food in. Because of the lack of cooking capabilities, the food committee is deciding that they may need to do more catering of food for the 600 YSA's. Also, housing only has about 400 beds, so we will use the extra classrooms as sleeping quarters with mattresses being brought in. None of them have air conditioning, so the 90 degree days should be fun. We may have to bring in fans to help at nights.

Tania, one of the YSA stake
co-leaders. She's awesome!!!

Larger kitchen area that was damaged after
the earthquake.

Darleen will tell you that I've been very nervous about where things are with the YSA Convention, as we have less than two months to get everything put together. My personality is a little bit of a worrier, so given there are several things that still need details put together, probably not a surprise for those who know me. The most critical areas are the program schedule, including topics and speakers. They have a high level plans, and are making good progress, however, this needs to be finalized quickly so speakers can be found, and the program sent off to our Area Authority over the Pacific region for approval. Also, most committees are yet to get quotes back so we know if we have enough planned budget to cover what the Convention costs. I also have been spending several hours each week trying to clean up the attendee lists in order for us to start booking flights and rides on the ferry boats. We have two islands, that are not part of Vanuatu islands (Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia), so we need to ensure these attendees all have passports. I've been coordinating with the two island YSA reps to gather as many passports. I then send all the information off to the church travel department, to get the best options on flights. They tell me that the convention is during the holiday season here, and seats and flights are very limited at those times. Well, I know that miracles can happen, so I'm continuing to pray for things to all come together in the next month. I'm sure they will with all the work the YSA's are doing.

Our Halloween costumes ...
we missed our call as costume
designers -- NOT!

On Friday evening our YSA stake group had a Halloween party and dance. The theme was Disney characters. Darleen wanted us to go as Mr. & Mrs. Incredible, however, I wasn't going to wear tights to the event. :-) So we settled on Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head from the Toy Story Pixar movies. We thought this would be an easy thing to make costumes for. Well, we thought about just making them out of boxes, but then settled on trying our sewing skills. Needless to say, we spent a few hours on Thursday and Friday cutting and sewing our costumes. The activity was at 5:30, so we decided to not go too early, as we knew they wouldn't probably start getting there for about 1 hour. We should up at 6:30 and guess what? Only a few YSA's had showed up. So we sat around and waited, and waited. It wasn't for another hour before they started to come in. At this time I was sweating pretty good with our large outfits on, and lack of air conditioning in the church building. When they finally kicked off the activity at around 7:45 pm, we found that they played more games for the first hour plus. The first game was the game "radio", where you have two big lines of people and you whisper a saying on one side and you see what the saying is when it gets to the other line. Given the discussions where in bislama, the local language, we had no idea what they had said. We knew it must have been wrong as everyone laughed each time. They played this for about 10 different times until it was past 8:40 pm, and we decided it was starting to get past our bedtime. Pretty sorry to say we are ready for bed so early, but the days are long and we are typically going to bed at no later than 9:30, on average.

This is the YSA activity with the two lines
trying to guess the saying ... when we left
there were about 50-60 YSA's in attendance.
More came after we left.

We heard they played another game after we left. They showed Disney characters on the computer, and two of them had to figure out who they were. The audience could give them clues, but not tell them who they were. One couple that went after we were there said they were screaming out things and typically they had no clue who the characters were. Remember, Disney is not what you call a mainstay of movies in this little part of the world. The couple said it was funny to watch them try to figure out who the characters where. We are definitely enjoying our time with the YSA's. They are fun, and there are a few that are just exceptional that help to form the Stake YSA committee. They put in so many hours to come up with activities, and serve on the different planning teams, including helping us with the YSA Convention upcoming.

Lunch with a view.

Saturday we had another relaxing time at the beach up the road from where we live. We have found a nice little resort called the Breakas, which has some small bungalows for guests to stay at, a restaurant, nice beach area, and swimming pool. We are allowed to use it, if we buy lunch or dinner. We are finding nice areas that bring some relaxation from the long weeks here serving. We also are finding some nice places to eat at, when not eating in. That night we ate at a little restaurant that is called Lalala. Nice food close to the waterfront of Port Vila bay. We have been pleasantly surprised on how many there are to go to. The biggest challenge is you can go one day and get one type of entree and then go a few weeks later and they won't have it as they can't get the ingredients to make it. That's island life as you are at the mercy of what comes in on the boats.

On Sunday, we went to our weekly ward meeting for the normal sacrament meeting, and then we had the opportunity to teach the YSA group the Sunday School lesson. We had 7 YSA's, plus 2 young missionaries that joined us. That is our largest group since we have been teaching it for the past 6 weeks, however, we found out that there are over 220 YSA's (single aged adults between the age of 18 to 35) on the records of the ward unit we are assigned to. We know several are probably not in that ward anymore, but we know there are many more for us to go find and bring back. Part of our goal over the next 16 months is going to be to go and find them, and bring them back to enjoy the YSA group we have in the stake (the combination of the different congregations in the area we serve on Efate). We have a weekly institute class planned every Friday for them, with a lesson, games, and food. There is an institute teacher in our ward currently serving, but she said when we first got here that no one had been showing up. We offered to teach it two weeks ago, which Darleen talked about in last weeks blog. We didn't have one this past week, due to the Halloween party and dance at the stake center, however, we are planning to do another institute event this coming Friday. We will have to report on how that goes. Our plan this week is to go and try and meet them and encourage more to be there. We hope to enlist the full-time proselyting missionaries in that area to get to know them and also to help us to navigate the area, which they live in daily and know different locations better. Remember, no one really has a physical street address here in Efate, you just need to know the general village area, then be good at knowing where they might really live.

Elder and Sister Kwan
getting ready to fly back to
San Francisco area ... they will
be missed!!!

Sunday was bitter sweet as we had to say goodbye to Elder and Sister Kwan, a senior couple who finished their mission here in Vanuatu after one year of faithful service. This is the Kwan's second full-time mission. They initially had not planned on serving again, but they were asked to consider it by a general authority they had worked with previously in their earlier mission to Hong Kong. When we met the Kwan's, over five (5) weeks ago, they had been serving as the Housing coordinators for the mission. This was a different assignment to what they initial planned on doing, but our Mission President, President Ball, needed help with the housing of the younger proselyting elders and sisters across Vanuatu islands. Several companionships were living in larger housing and they were not being as effective as they could, given they were having to travel long distances to get to their actual areas from the housing being used. This was not an easy task, as the earthquake that hit a month after they got here made finding apartments pretty impossible as they were being used to house businesses that had lost their office space to damage. They told us how they prayed daily and just went around the villages as they were directed by the Spirit. They would get out of their truck and just start walking around. Ultimately, they would find the local community chief of the area, tell them what they were trying to find for housing, and then miraculously be able to ultimately find suitable space that wasn't even available initially, but the chiefs would make it available for the missionaries to live in. I'm giving a very simplified version that took many months to arrive at during their mission.

Now that the Kwan's are leaving, we will be helping pick up some of their housing assignments specifically on the Efate island. Part of what we will be doing is conducting missionary apartment inspections, coordinate issues with the landlords, and at time I may even get an opportunity to do some handyman work - which I enjoy doing. We are doing this until another senior couple comes to do housing in early 2026, however, we are not sure yet if and when. Given we are here to help with the Seminary & Institute and educational services in the Vanuatu Port Vila mission, this new responsibility will be something that we will have to do in the morning times while we are not in our primary responsibilities. We believe we can do that given we will be inspecting the different apartments every 6-7 weeks. This should leave us time for our normal heavy tasks that start in the afternoon as we plan, teach, and attend meetings for our S&I responsibilities.

Sunday's evening discussion with other
senior missionaries. Sister Ward is
on the left of the coach (Brother Ward
shown)

Our days on our mission are made easier as we serve with other fantastic senior missionaries. We have mentioned that each senior missionary are here for their own assignments
(e.g. working in the mission home over finance, travel, housing, administrative tasks, helping with humanitarian activities, etc.). On Sunday evenings we get together for some spiritual discussions, light games, and refreshment. This week we had a young couple join us who are serving in the Peace Corp on the Vanuatu island of Malek
ula. Malekula is the 2nd largest island in Vanuatu, however, it is one of the more "bush-type" location with many housing without electricity and running water. The Ward's are a 25 year old couple who decided to do the Peace Corp for the next several years. They are helping with education on the island, as well as providing medical assistance for the locals. Before they did this, they were serving as service missionaries here in Efate, while they waiting for approval to go into the Peace Corp. They served for 6 months here. Sister Ward helped with setting up the Pathway program on the island, and he was the medical advisor to the missionaries (he was an EMT back in Idaho) as well as helping with the fleet of cars we have on the mission. I don't have time to go into all the stories they told, but believe me, it is not your typical young, married couple story you would hear everyday. We enjoyed learning about all they have been doing both during their mission and now on the island of Malekula as Peace Corp employees. They are here for the next week as they are trained on a few items, then will go back to their remote location with no electricity.

Well, that is it for now. Thanks for hanging around to the end of our letter. We hope you have a terrific week and know we love and think of you all often..

Mark & Darleen aka Nana & Papa, mom & dad...

Bislama words of the day:

kaikai kaikai = eat food

toktok (sounds like "talktalk" with l being somewhat silent) = talk

Yu oraet? = You alright?

Additional pictures from the week: