Today is p-day and is also a national holiday. We went downtown so the Zone Leaders could go to an internet cafe to e-mail home and then our plan was to go grocery shopping. We found that the breakfast at the hotel was very expensive and we have a sink, refrigerator, and microwave in the room. Because of the holiday, the internet cafe wasn’t open so we went to a pretty nice supermarket to shop. Jan was so thrilled to find good thread that this was the “find of the day” and she picked up 4 spools of thread. We also picked up some Camembert cheese! It has been a long time since I was able to have some of that cheese kind of cheese. I think I’ve had it twice since my mission. Because of the holiday, the district was have an activity for the youth at the church grounds. They had an outdoor basketball court where they played basketball on one half court and some kinds of soccer games on the other. A couple of hours into the activity they set up the volleyball net at “half court” and played volleyball as well. Along the side of the court there was a friendly rugby match and then an American football game. Neither was rough enough to pose any significant danger of injury. There were also places to sit and chat and watch the sports as well as a few party games that took place. Most of the missionaries were there and participated in the celebration. We did not realize this activity was taking place so we brought no clothes to be able to be a part of the sports. That’s probably for the bestJ I did get a chance to get to meet a number of members of various branches at that activity.
We had the opportunity to go to Brother and Sister Thono’s home for dinner and a family home evening. Brother Thono was just made the Elder’s Quorum President for one of the branches. He is a returned missionary and his wife joined the Church in Vanuatu along with her whole family. They have twins age 4 (a boy and a girl). We had a very nice home evening. The children joined in singing both “I Am A Child Of God” as the opening song (all three verses) and the closing song of “Praise To The Man” (first verse only). The kids knew all the words. We had a brief lesson with the kids and then we continued a little longer with a testimony sharing of how the Church has blessed our lives. Brother Thono’s mother joined us. She had spent about 10 years of her life living in New York City and so she translated for Jan. Before we finished the home evening and sat down for dinner, I volunteered to tell the children the “Big Mouth Frog Story”. I knew there were going to be children there so I had looked up some key words to make sure I could translate the story. I told them that all my grandchildren loved this story when they were 4 years old. I think it went over very well.
The experience of being in the home of a member here is more like home than our experiences in Fiji. They have furniture to sit on and they like to eat at the table with knives, forks, and spoons. Dinner was very nice and the missionaries stopped by to pick us up about 1 hour and 45 minutes after dropping us off. It was a nice day with a very nice ending spending the evening with this beautiful young family.
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