A New Year

We had a quiet New Year, there were lots of fireworks around us, I slept through the crescendo at midnight.  Such is the life of an  old person.

We have been busy with our callings, we had several Karibati groups and now are beginning a string of four groups from Vanuatu.  These people are the best to work with, so happy to be able to come to the Temple.  They often cry just to arrive at Patron Housing. This Tuesday we had 12 new endowments.  Vanuatu is interesting because of the languages we get to experience.  Both English and French colonists were in parts of Vanuatu, so those languages are used in schools, one or the other that is.  The real unifying language is Bislama, a type of Pidgin English, French and Spanish.  We had a session yesterday with the room audio in Bislama, we weren't able to attend but hope to get a chance soon. It is a language that will bring a smile to your face when you hear it and when you try to speak it.  The most languages I have spoken at a single session so far is three, I am hoping to have a confluence of Saints and get to do five some day, Fijian, English, French, Karibati and Bislama.  I guess the ultimate would be to have a Spanish visitor at the same time....

Karibati Saints also have wonderful Spiritual experiences and open our eyes to some things we are missing.  These island groups live much simpler and less structured lives, exact time of events isn't generally a priority.  They do usually understand the need for some things in the Temple to have starting times but not in all cases.  My desire to have order in the Temple must sometimes be secondary to their needs and style of worship.

We enjoy the work with Patron Housing, it has its headaches and is hard at times to get groups scheduled.  Tentative dates change with most groups, as does the number and actual make up of people in the group.  These trips are often their first trip off the home island, first flight, etc. They worry about pick pockets and pressure salesman when they go to town.  Usually they quickly get used to the bus and start going to Suva Central to shop and look around.  Suva is not scary for us, compared to other places we have been.


The Temple has the same creche as we had in Santo Domingo.  Here are some recent pictures:

Some mornings the air is still when we go walking, it is like walking in honey.