September 3, 2011

This morning we began with an earlier breakfast as we were to be at the Church at 8am for a baptism. The chapel was a nice large chapel and with as many missionaries as we had there for our training meeting, there was quite a large turnout to the baptismal service. A young man about 13 and a man who was married with 3 children were baptized. The married man’s wife had been baptized a few months earlier and none of their children are 8 years old yet. It was a very nice service. The missionaries and a few young adults from the area stood and sang a musical number that was very moving. I love musical numbers that truly blend the feelings and testimonies of the group together to provide a message of faith and hope!

Following the baptismal service, I interviewed three prospective missionaries. Two young men and one young woman had prepared themselves and were ready for their interview with their “stake president”. I then interviewed seven missionaries. I finished up all these interviews around noon. Elder and Sister Warner and Jan and I then went and found a little restaurant where we enjoyed a leisurely lunch. The food was really quite good and for the first time in a long time we weren’t rushed to get done. Our flight back to Port Vila wasn’t until just after 5pm and we were only a few minutes from the airport. We then drove over to the Albrecht’s apartment. They were gone to Port Vila for meetings but we knew they had wireless internet service and a large back patio. We got there and the view was awesome. We could see the ocean and below the raised patio were a variety of different plants that we hadn’t seen before. We enjoyed the view as both Elder Warner and I got connected to the wireless internet and got caught up on e-mail. Jan also got to get onto her e-mail.

We got to the airport around 4pm and checked our bags. We learned that the plane we were going to use was a 17 passenger plane (smaller than any other plane we’ve been on so far in our mission). While waiting for the flight, I determined that this would be our 24th plane flight since leaving for Provo in June. We got on the plane and there was one seat on the left and two seats on the right for 5 rows and then 2 seats on the back row. Jan and I sat on the next to last row in the two seats. Unfortunately, my big “bum” made our seats quite tightJ. Due to the size of the plane, the plane travelled at a much slower speed than the 72 passenger plane we had taken coming to Santo and it was to take 1 hour and 15 minutes to get back to Port Vila when the flight up only took 40 minutes. I was pleased that the flight itself was not as turbulent as I thought it could be. We arrived on time and got checked back into the Grand Hotel where we had stayed one night earlier in our stay. We were glad to be back in more comfortable accommodations. The Warner’s left us to fend for ourselves for dinner and the evening. We were able to have a very nice meal in the restaurant which is a part of this hotel and got to bed at a good time. Tomorrow, being Fast Sunday, we knew we were scheduled to begin interviews at 8am.