Oh what a week ... we felt exhausted by the end of it!!!
This week felt like it would never end. Each day was packed with activities—preparing lessons, teaching, running errands, helping with missionary apartment issues, attending training meetings, driving others home, buying food for events, visiting the mission office, teaching piano, participating in ward council, and attending Stake Conference. I can’t do justice to everything we experienced, but here are some highlights from the week:
We continued our weekly "Success in School" Monday math class, which is always a highlight for us. It’s a fun way to interact with some of the high school youth from our church. Usually, I teach, and Darleen assists. Over the past few weeks, we've had around 4-5 students, but this Monday, nine youth showed up—two of whom attended for the first time since we've been teaching. We’ve been focusing on word problems and fractions, and continually encouraging the students to work out answers on paper rather than guessing. We also revisit basic skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It’s encouraging to see their engagement grow, and we love the interaction. We believe these young people are the future of the community, and we’re excited to be part of their learning.
On Monday evening, we decided to skip cooking and went to a local Indian restaurant, one of our favorites. While we dined, we realized it wasn’t our phones playing the Tabernacle Choir on Temple Square -- it was actually coming from the restaurant. We listened as hymns were sung, and near the end, we spoke with our server, who shared that she was a member of the Church. It was a subtle way for her to let us know that she was a member, along with sharing it with the rest of the restaurant guests. We did promise to come back again with other senior missionaries. It was a lovely reminder of how the gospel continues to spread here, even if there are those who may have fallen away. Great opportunities to loving and teaching them.The only Indian restaurant that we have
found on our little island
Darleen mentioned last week that she had been discussing with our ward bishop, Bishop Jack, the need to help youth aged 17-20 prepare for missions and deepen their gospel knowledge. So, we started a weekly missionary preparation class on Tuesday evenings. Our first class was remarkable—11 youth came! The class involves lots of interaction and role-playing, but initially, they seemed hesitant and unresponsive. Even with the assistance of the ward mission leader, who tried asking questions in Bislama, responses were limited. We hope that as we introduce the "Preach My Gospel" manual that they will open up more over the coming weeks. At the end of our meeting we handed out Book of Mormon copies in English and Bislama, challenging them to set a personal goal to read the scriptures daily, which they all agreed to do. One young man from the class, who we saw at our Friday institute class, told us he was already reading his Book of Mormon—that was a real success!
Despite the participation challenges, we’re grateful for the dedication of these young adults. Many travel long distances—sometimes on foot or by bus (vans), which can take hours (especially if walking)—to attend church and activities. Most don’t have cars, so they walk or wait for rides, often walking on dark roads late at night. We’ve been privileged to give rides when possible, and their commitment reminds us of the pioneers who walked great distances to serve.
Wednesday, we had planned to prepare our afternoon and Thursday lessons, but then I received a call about a missionary companionship up the road that believed they had bed bugs. This was our first experience with bed bugs, and we had to quickly seek advice from the Kwan’s, the previous senior missionaries who had recently returned home from their mission here. This was our first encounter with bed bugs, and to be honest, we (or maybe I) had no idea how to take care of them. I am grateful for technology that allowed us to video with the Kwan's at their home in California and get as much advice from them on what to do. They kept telling us different scenarios to look for. At the end, I was scared to death on what was to come. Given we had a lesson to teach that afternoon, I had Darleen stay behind to continue preparing for our institute class, and I ventured off to buy supplies and go and start the cleaning process. Darleen would be backup in case the situation was beyond my capability to solve. After getting supplies from some stores, I went to the missionary’s apartment to scope it out. Thankfully, I found the infestation wasn't terrible. I had the missionaries pack all their clothing and bedding into 4 plastic bags I had brought. I dropped the clothing and bedding up the road at a resort that agreed to help with laundry, as needed. This was extremely helpful given the missionaries in this apartment have to was all their clothing by hand and only have cold water, which most likely would kill any potential infestation on their clothing. The pest control guys told me how to scrub the bed down and ensure the eggs are "broken" before spraying with the insecticide. I was glad my first experience wasn't a large infestation. I was broken in gracefully "Bed Bug 101 cleaning in Vanuatu". Unfortunately, the cleaning process took about 4.5 hours to complete.
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| Our S&I group that was able to get together for 2 days of training. Great time in learning together. |
Thursday and Friday were filled with all-day training sessions for Seminary and Institute (S&I) leaders in our Vanuatu region. Our Pacific Area Leader attended joined us from New Zealand, the local S&I coordinator (our S&I boss for all Vanuatu), his assistant, and volunteer supervisors from four (4) of the main islands of Vanuatu (Efate, Santo, Tanna, and Malakula). Darleen gave a wonderful training on focusing lessons on the Savior, which was well-received. One of the supervisors said she wished she could have her teachers teach like her. I also taught about effective teaching principles, but I must admit, after a big lunch and some added topics given to me, my session had too much time to fill and I think could have been broken up into smaller chunks to help get them out of their seats and moving. I guess that's why I'm here to keep learning how to become a more effective teacher, or at least learn from my girlfriend how to be more like her. Over the next few months we plan to visit the different supervisor islands to help strengthen the S&I programs there and to provide further training to their teachers.
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| Vanuatu Port Vila Temple under construction |
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| The temple will bring great joy to the people here in the Vanuatu islands. |
A funny story that happened in between the all day S&I
session. I had some time at lunchtime to go and see if I could find some
volleyball poles at a downtown store about 2 miles from where we had our 2 day
training session. I jumped in the our truck and heading to look for
them. At one point I went down a narrow road, and as I got to
the bottom of this road, a police motorcycle came up with its lights
on. I rolled my window down and he told me “One way”. I
said I was sorry, but I didn’t see any sign telling me it was one
way. He insisted it was there and said I had to “go back” up the
road. Literally, he had me back up the road in reverse until I could turn
into a driveway several 100 ft up the road to turn around and face
forward. When I got to the top, sure enough, no sign!!! At
least he didn't give me a ticket.
That evening, we enjoyed time with our YSA Institute class
at Etas ward. For the past four weeks, we’ve been playing volleyball, and it's
wonderful to see more young people—and even some adults—join in. During the
game, a YSA student on my side of the net kept hitting the ball and immediately
would shout “LOVELACE!”—wanting me to spike it over the net. He was so excited,
and it brought smiles all around. After volleyball, we shared pizza and
leftover snacks from our 2-day S&I training, then taught a lesson on
setting goals. We realize we have some work to do in helping them learn to set
long-term, intermediate, and short-term goals, but we’re grateful for their
willingness to be there.
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| A little bit of 'pda' with my missionary companion |
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| A typical Sunday view of the relaxing footwear. |
Sunday sessions were uplifting. We especially enjoyed the Sunday morning session of conference. We were sitting near the front of the chapel, and a family with children sat beside us. A young teenage girl enjoyed sitting next to Darleen. Other younger children in the family wanted to also sit next to her, so there was definitely some excitement to get their turn next to this American lady who didn't speak Bislama and didn't look like them. The relaxed atmosphere—feet up on pews and flip-flops everywhere on the ground—reminded us of the warmth and simplicity of life's blessings here.
Our mission President and his wife, President and Sister
Ball, spoke during the conference. Sister Ball delivered her entire talk in
Bislama—impressive and inspiring! President Ball shared that he wasn’t as
fluent and was going to deliver his talk in English, but it was a blessing to for
us to fully understand everything he was saying. Their words reinforced our
love for and commitment to this work.
In summary, we absolutely love our time here. Every week
brings new lessons, new friendships, and new experiences. By the end of each
day, we’re usually so exhausted that we’re ready for bed by 7:30 or 8:30 pm.
But above all, we cherish being in this part of God's vineyard and helping in
whatever way we can.
We love you all very much and continue to pray for our
families and friends. Thank you for your love and support.
Much love,
Mark and Darleen, aka Nana & Papa
Additional pictures:
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| An actual roster locked in a cage with some propane tanks, and some other items. We thought it was an interesting thing to see on side of road. |
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| Good example of how you see the individuals riding along on the roads |
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| I love some of the branding changes here for some of the normal US products ... here's an example!!! |
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| Enjoying a few hours on Erakor Resort Islands with the Myers. The Myers are focused on Humanitarian Services |
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| Our favorite sign of the week. This was on the Erakor Island Resort. It's a sign that reads "If you want the ferry ring gong"... but we love how it says it is written in Bislama "Sipos yu wantam ferry yu kilim gong". |
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