Today started early as we left to meet with some prospective missionaries in the Blacksands Branch. We got there around 8am and I began interviewing. I met with 4 prospective missionaries and filled in the missionary recommendation forms. It was then time for Church so the 5th prospective missionary had to wait until after Church.
We began with Priesthood meeting and Relief Society. During that meeting, I noticed my chair wiggling a little bit so I looked behind me to see if someone was wiggling their leg. Then I realized that it was an earthquake. The shaking became more and more noticeable. I looked up at the front of the chapel where there were several vases of flowers and they were all rocking back and forth. The quaking went on for nearly a minute. Then I noticed a wave feeling like we were floating along in the water. That sensation continued for another minute or more. It was definitely the largest earth quake I had personally experienced. However, there was no obvious damage done. (whew!) For the third hour of the block we had fast and testimony meeting and Elder Wakolo (an area authority seventy who is from Fiji and was in town for some other meetings this week) came to attend the meeting. At the end of the testimony meeting he stood and spoke for about 10 minutes. What a dynamic speaker! He was really good and made some excellent points with the members. He encouraged them in very basic terms to live the gospel in their homes.
After Church, I met with the last of the 5 prospective missionaries. I then learned that there were 3 temple recommends I needed to do and another sister who wanted to meet with me. I got out of there just a little bit late for going over to my 2pm appointment at another building to meet with the Port Vila district presidency. We met for nearly 2 hours going over questions they had and issues they wanted help with. We finished that meeting just in time to get in some pictures for the end of the Young Single Adult conference they had been having. Their closing fireside was to start at 4pm and Jan and I were to be speakers at the fireside along with Elder Wakolo.
The fireside went very well. We had someone translating for us for the parts of the program done in Bislama. Elder Wakolo was very dynamic again and did a very effective job of teaching the Young Single Adults about how important it was for the young men to go on missions and the young women to let them go. He also emphasized the importance of temple marriage. Earlier in the event he had spoken about President Monson’s challenge to all worthy young men to prepare to serve missions. He had then asked the men to raise their hands if they planned to serve a mission. Thirty-one raised their hands! He had them stand again at this fireside and reemphasized the commitment they had made. By the end of the fireside, I had one final temple recommend interview before we were to go back to the Warner’s and meet with the Senior Zone Leaders to finalize our plans for the September 15 transfer. As I finished the interview, Elder Wakolo asked me to come into another room. There was a young couple there with him and the Branch President of the young woman. He explained to me that they were planning on being married in two weeks and they had announced the wedding plans at Church that morning (where Elder Wakolo had attended before coming to Blacksands). After making some inquiries, he discovered that both the man and the woman were relatively recent returned missionaries. He pressed on why they were not getting married in the temple and determined that worthiness was not an issue. He got them to agree that if I could get them some financial help to come to Fiji to be married that they would be married in the temple. I committed to do just that.
We finally got over to Warner’s about 45 minutes late and we began the painful process of trying to outline a plan for transfers in mid-September. Elder Warner and I broke our fast by eating 2 pieces of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. (I thought of the Bill Cosby routine about when his dad let them have chocolate cake for breakfastJ). The Senior Zone Leaders to there about 30 minutes later and we worked until 10:30 considering various alternatives for where we could open new areas and which missionaries we should assign to be trainers. Elder Warner took Jan and I home and we felt that this was one of the most exhausting days in a long time. I don’t think fasting nearly all day helped. It was, however, a very enjoyable day as we felt the Spirit on numerous occasions throughout the day and I was particularly taken by Elder Wakolo’s strong personality and very ingenious ways to encourage people to live better lives.
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