The Laura District

We took this picture after District meeting this morning. The missionaries in the Far West or Laura District in the picture are (L to R):
Elder Keeley, Boise Idaho;
Elder Stone, District Leader, Austrailia;
Elder Jones, Jr. companion;
Sister Jones, Sr. companion;
Sister Seeley, West Valley City;
Sister Knowlton, Nephi; and
Sister Burg, Richfield.

Elder Stone and Elder Keeley live close to us so we see them about every day. Elder Stone speaks Marshallese like a native and is a great missionary.

Cemetery

This is a cemetery near where we live. They buried someone here recently. That is why everything is cleaned and painted and lots of flowers. They cannot dig graves here so they are "buried" on the surface in a vault. Most of the cemeteries here are family cemeteries located close to their house. They get looking pretty rough until someone dies, then they clean and paint all graves in the cemetery.

Working or playing?

This is probably a first for the Majuro Airport, three big planes on the ground at the same time. One reason is because the Continental plane in this picture was leaving on Monday with a missionary couple and Sister Bleak on it heading to Hawaii. Just after it got airborne one engine started popping and they turned around and came back. Another plane had to come in and took them out on Tuesday. The couple are headed to Christmas Island, which is in our mission, and Sister Bleak was meeting up with President Bleak to go to Zone Conference in Karibati.

Everything about this picture is stunningly beautiful.

Unlike the young missionaries, we can get in the ocean. Sister Jones takes full advantage of this and likes to look for seashells. I absolutely refuse to participate.

It must be tough!!!

This picture is of some boats and ships in the lagoon. Most or maybe all are fishing boats.

More Misc. Photos

This is the kitchen in our apartment.

We are talking beautiful here!! There are few flowers on the island. We thought there would be flowers everywhere, but there isn't and we don't know why. But this flowering tree is sure beautiful. It is clear on the other end of the atoll so we don't see it very often.

This is a picture of the Ajeltake Primary president and some of the Primary kids. Mom is going into the Primary and working with them on Sundays.

This is the Ajeltake Chapel. It is one the newer and bigger chapels on the island. We live about 8 miles west of the chapel. Tomorrow we have to transport a high councilman who is speaking in the Ajeltake Branch from Laura to here and take him home again.

This is a picture of a pandana on, guess what, a pandana tree. The natives like to eat these. They are a good source of Vitamin A (carotine). We have tried it but are not thrilled about it. It gets fibers in your teeth and really is not that flavorful. But we need to try everything once.

Hard Work?????

This is tough work, but somebody has got to do it.

The young woman you are looking at here is one great companion. She just simply takes my breath away. What did I ever do to deserve her?

First Photos from the Mission Field

This is what we have to deal with every time we leave our apartment and head up the road toward the chapel in Ajeltake. (a-gel-talk-ee) The palm trees have just about grown over the road. The road goes down the middle of the atoll, with the ocean on one side about 25 yards away and the lagoon on the other side about 25 yards away. When we are lying in bed at night, if we're not hearing the rain on the tin roof we are hearing the ocean waves coming ashore in back of our apartment. You are never very far from water anywhere on this "island". I put quotes around island because technically it is an atoll, a series of small coral reef islands that surround where an island used to be but has receded back under the ocean and forms the lagoon.

This is a picture of the "building" where Seminary is held. Instead of holding it at the chapel, they decided to hold it here where it is closer to where the students live. Most of them have no transportation and would not attend if held at the chapel. A girl, 20 years old, named Carlynn Benjamin teaches the class. We have attended the class twice this week. You talk about humble and feeling the Spirit!! We both are almost overwhelmed when we come out of this home. You can feel the Spirit here in this Seminary building as strong as anywhere. We are so grateful for the goodness of the Lord to us and our family. We love you. Mom and Dad

You better feel lucky to get this picture. It took 12 minutes to attach. This is a picture of all the missionaries at Zone Conference. This is all missionaries working on the Majuro atoll in seven different branches.

As you can probably guess we finally got the internet hooked up after one week of trying.

The work continues

We came into the mission office again today so I will write you a quick e-mail. We still haven't been hooked up to the internet yet. Five new missionaries came in today and we will be taking one of them with us when we go back to our area in a little bit and dropping him off at his new apartment which is close to ours. Mom finally got to go to a fabric store today and is going to show a branch of young women how to make a purse. We will teach an institute class tonight. Also, we are starting English classes next week. President Bleak has gone for 2 weeks to New Zealand and Kiribati for conferences. Before he left he told us to not get too settled in where we are at cause he has something new in mind for us but he didn't give any details and we will have to wait until he returns. It sounds like we will be moving somewhere but probably not off this island. Things are going great. We are meeting new people all the time and getting more comfortable with our work. Sister Jones is a great companion and I hope she never gets transferred. We eat fish about every day but it is usually pretty good. It rains about every day but not very long. We love all of you!!

Finally!!!

No pictures but we finally heard from them today. Here is part of their e-mail:

"Things are great with us. We had some great experiences yesterday in our area. Went to a Seminary class and a home evening with some native people and felt the Spirit strongly at both. Sister Jones bore her testimony at both and did a wonderful job. She is leading out and pulling me with her. She cut 3 elders hair this morning and will do more later today. We went to Zone Conference two days after we got here and met almost all the missionaries here in Majuro. We have been assigned to work in the Ajeltake Branch which is about 20 miles west of the mission office out on the end of the atoll. There are seven branches or areas here. We have a very nice apt. and are doing well. We rely upon the Lord and He is blessing us. We will be teaching Institute classes and English classes. God bless all of you."

Nelson's visit Las Vegas

Here's Keldon. He's missing one front tooth and the other is loose and will fall out any time.

Addison!

Here's Breckon with his new LeBron James jersey.


Mo, David, and company came to Las Vegas for the long holiday weekend. We had lots of fun.
We played outside and at the park. The weather here in Vegas has been beautiful. Probably not as beautiful as the islands but beautiful still. We also did a little shopping and best of all went to Chuck E. Cheese's. It was a fun weekend.

No news is good news. Right????

Well, nobody has heard from the missionaries since they left Hawaii on Wednesday morning. I'm not real happy about it but I guess they are busy!? No new photos to post.

Elder & Sister Jones Have Arrived

They've arrived!!! Do any of these people look familiar???
It's Elder & Sister Jones with President & Sister Bleak.
For any of you who may not know, it's the mission president and his wife.

Going To Mexico

Deisy, Ashley & Dailen are going to Mexico in the morning. They
came to spend the night at my house.

Final Day at the MTC

Mount Timpanogos

Swiping my dinner card at the MTC Cafetria. We had a goal of gaining 20 pounds this week and we exceeded our goal. The prize for reaching our goal was 3 chocalate doughnuts!!

Sister Jones with a golden contact.

Here's our transportation to the airport Tuesday 2/12/08 at noon.

Tiffany took this picture at the entrance of the MTC.

Here we are in front of the Provo Temple.
We did a session on Saturday Morning
2/9/08

Birthday Girl!!!!

These are pictures of the birthday
celebration. Mom turned 58 in the
MTC.

Other Missionary Couples

This is us with Elder & Sister Sidwell. They are going to Ghana Africa.

This is us with Elder & Sister Stagg from Draper. They are going to Fiji as Church auditing specialists.

Elder Page Bowler

We took these photos today when we ran into Elder Page Bowler and his companion.

Dinner with Russ

This proves that we went to dinner with Russ tonight.

Russ has cut his hair.

Marshall Islanders

This is the group of missionaries without us in the picture.











This is the group of missionaries which includes some from the Marshall Islands and some going to the Marshall Islands. Also includes some sister companions from the Phillipines.






This is Sister Bwakatii from Kiribati going to the Marshall Islands and Elder Katutu from Kiribati going to Sacramento, CA.




Us with Sister Bwakatii. She is from Kiribati and is going to the Marshall Islands. She goes about a week after we do.

The End of our first week

We hope we won't be riding bikes like these Elders.

Called to Serve.

A Great companion!

The end of our MTC training for the week.