Hiking to a waterfall

On our 8 mile hike to a waterfall with Elder & Sister Vermeeren, we were delighted to meet little boys who had constructed bamboo boats and little folks very happy to show us their version of the peace  symbol.  Fresh coconut milk anyone?

Young boys with their bamboo rafts.

Elder & Sister Vermeeren

The peace symbol???

Taveuni Island - Audits and the International Dateline

One of the very best parts of our mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the opportunity to travel (sometimes in a very small plane) to amazing places and meet strong yet humble leaders. We are training others, but also learning so much from the people of Fiji. This week we traveled to Taveuni Island to conduct three financial audits. We kept very busy, but did have a day to hike up to a beautiful waterfall with some new, dear friends - Elder & Sister Vermeeren.  As we've often thought, Fiji is so very close to heaven. People here have been known to say, "God created Fiji on one of his happiest days!"

18 seats - We all became close friends!

Somosomo Branch Chapel 

A date at the International Dateline!

Pretty close to heaven...

Visiting Navatuyaba Village, Fiji

Saturday we senior missionaries (appropriately named The Twilight Zone by the Fiji Suva Mission President), had the opportunity to visit Navatuyaba Village - a rare treat!  Bishop Savu of the Navatuyaba Ward was kind enough to invite us into the village and arranged a meeting with the Chief.

We got the chance to walk around the whole village, visit with village members and were entertained by a very energetic Primary choir!  One thing I've learned is that when Fijians sing, I usually cry...

Here's the Chief's house and another typical home in the village.
The elder Elders with Bishop Savu.

A new friend in NAVATUYABA Village.

More pictures from Tuvalu

Families at the Funafuti, Tuvalu Branch

 Elder Martin - the ocean fisherman!

Did I mention that many place names start with an "N"?

Funafuti Tuvalu

Well, this was an interesting experience!  We spent six days in the island nation of Tuvalu, which is half way between Hawaii and Australia.  It's composed of three reef islands and six atolls and the total land area is 10 square miles!  Needless to say, we did not have enough time to pick up the Tuvaluan language, but English is also spoken.  This country's revenues consist of sales of fishing licenses, lease of it's internet domain name (.tv), ship registry, and stamp sales.  In fact the royalties from .tv paid for paving the five miles of roads in Tuvalu.

 When we arrived, fortunately there was no dog on the runway.  If there had been, the pilot would just circle until the dog moved.  There was a woman standing with a sign of the hotel (Filamona) and we just followed her for a few yards to the hotel.  Tuvalu is close to the equator and the weather throughout the year is between 81 low and 87 high.  The airstrip was built during World War II and is only used twice a week.  Other times the strip is used for soccer, rugby, and other games.  Many times a day a roller goes up and down the runway just to keep it flattened out.  When it's really warm at night,  some people like to take their bedding out and sleep on the air strip! Only one set of Missionary Elders is stationed there and they stay for six months. We were there to do a six month financial audit and were so impressed with the leadership of the branch. Such good people doing an amazing job!

Branch President Elisala and Brother Maumau are incredible record keepers.  They made the audit a very easy experience.

Without a TV, we spent lots of time watching out our big hotel windows as huge storms approached and people buzzed by on their motorcycles (the main means of transportation). We promised on this mission to use all of our talents, but I didn't realize that would include scooter driving abilities.