August 10, 2011

Today was a really nice day. I got some training preparation and other administrative items done until 10 am. Then I got to interview four missionaries for their going home interviews. Sister Jessa is from Vanuatu, Elder Gollmann is from Oregon, Elder Hansen is from Utah, and Elder Lomu is from California. What a pleasure it is to interview missionaries who have completed their missions! After the 4 interviews, I grabbed a bite to eat and then we all attended the 4pm temple session. Sister Barfuss and Sister Stanford came to the house to put the finishing touches on the dinner that Jan and Sister Jessa were working on. Sister Jessa was pretty intimidated by speaking English so she seemed to be very content to come over to our house and help Jan with meal preparations to kill some time before the temple session and the dinner. The four returning missionaries, Elder and Sister Barfuss, and the assistants joined Jan and I for dinner. We enjoyed a great taco dinner with a nice Mexican salad to go along with it and apple pie with ice cream for dessert! Was that ever good!! Afterwards, we had a very nice testimony meeting. The format was a song and a prayer, then each returning missionary bore testimony, then Jan gave them some advice and I closed with some advice and a testimony. We had a closing song and prayer and then took pictures. This time both Jan and I emphasized that they should look to bless the youth with some attention when they get home. I thought that was an interesting twist to the more traditional advice for returning missionaries.
Afterwards, as Jan and I were talking about the day, we marveled at how good the assistants were at making Sister Jessa feel comfortable. They had picked up Bislama over the last two years just by talking to some of the missionaries who came to Fiji before going to Vanuatu and also some who came back to go home. They both have been to Vanuatu one time. These two young elders are really outstanding in the way they related to the other missionaries!! Tomorrow is training on the new training program. The next day is Zone Leader’s Training Council. Then the next day we are off to New Caledonia.