HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all you mother's out there
Is this picture to help you remember the good old days when your mother would tell
you to drink your Ovaltine?  No, Ana a member of the church who cleans our office
promised to make us some jam.  She used an old Ovaltine bottle which is huge and made
some jam using a fruit called wi.  Luckily the AP's are familiar with it and hopefully will help us consume it.  

Our intake of 14 arrved safely and they are singing while waiting for us to put the finishing
touches on the dinner we prepared  Tuesday night to welcome them.

Sister Ongesel and Jonathan are from FSM (Micronesia) and very close, when  they got their  assignments and
realized Sister Ongesel would be heading up north to Vanua Levu while Sister Jonathan will
stay in Suva (she's serving in our ward area) there were some tears as they realized they would be apart.

This picture is hanging in our couch area of the office and when  our new couple the McFadden's
arrived Brother McFadden shared with us that he had served his mission in the pacific and opened the  island
up north called Taveuni for missionary work.  He saw the picture and told us about the artist who is a good
 friend of his. This painting is an early painting by Clark Price who did this self portrait of himself
teaching the people here in Fiji, after her served his mission here.  Elder McFadden served in Samoa, Tonga another small island and Taveuni   None of us knew this until they arrived on Monday with the other 14 missionaries. He and his wife headed up to Taveuni on Wednesday so the Kennerly's can return to their assigned area in Ba.  I always
find it interesting how the Lord provides such unique experiences for his missionaries.

I captured this flower on my walk  up to the office on Friday.  Richard had to rise early and  drive the Kennerly's truck back to the other side of the island (a four hour drive) and leave it with the airport elders.  He had the AP's reserve a flight so he could return in plenty of time for our farewell dinner for 4 missionaries who have completed their missions.  He got to the airport 10 minutes before they closed the desk and everyone got on the plane.  Then came the now familiar announcement "I'm sorry but there will be a delay, due to mechanical problems with the plane".  They returned, disembarked, and waited and hour, loaded up again, taxied down the runway and...the pilot stopped abruptly, more mechanical problems, taxied back to the spot he had just left.  Needless to say, when Richard told me  that morning he would be back about noon, I called him and got a "this phone has been diverted message" (something was also wrong with his phone) and he didn't show until 3 pm I was worried.  Luckily I had little time to dwell on it with the work I had to do in the office, and missionaries busily packing and repacking their suitcases most of the day.  Luckily he walked in the door just before Sister Whiting and I headed over to help cook dinner, and the rest of the evening went well.

Sorry for the shiny spot but I took a picture of the picture up on our new arrival board

The McFadden's on the left.  She was a bit nervous and we tried to share any information that would be
helpful, without sharing so much that she would feel overwhelmed. Taveuni is a beautiful island, but small and without
many stores or restaurants, so you have to give yourself time to adjust to a new way of life.

We had the traditional demonstration of how to eat Sister Klingler's cream puffs.  Elder LeDoux  (New AP on the left) heard about earlier missionaries and one of them holding the record of stuffing 6 in his mouth, and it was game on!

We girls got a nice fluffy one and had fun stuffing our faces

Elder Hansen, Moaalii, Inukihaangana (Inu for short) all had  a go at it

LeDoux broke the record with 7, and we all thought he might choke, but somehow he made it after gagging a few times.

Sister Michael has a sweet spirit and testimony.  She struggles a bit with  English  but speaks 4 other languages

Elder Hansen, a really good Elder and one of the few who knows how to clean a flat.

Elder Inu island ancestry, raised in the US

Elder Moaalii, island ancestry raised in the US

This week we got a piece of mail for George Bourget.  It was from  a religious ministry about a religious event  coming up here in Suva.  I kept puzzling over it, when Sister Whiting said that name sounds familiar, went over to our historical
pictures of past mission presidents and their wives and found George Bourget who served in 1978-81
I think the pastor of the church has a very outdated mailing list.

One of our senior couples went on a get away trip up to Taveuni for a week.  The food was great and they came back relaxed, and refreshed, but they did have a little plane trouble.  As they got in the air the propeller on their side of the plane stopped working.  They returned back to Taveuni, and you guessed it,  the flight was delayed a day.  Sister Tennis said the pilot explained to her that if they had been in the air for a while (at least half way to Nadi) and this would have happened, the plane has a wide enough wing span that they would have just glided into the Nadi airport, which I thought was a comforting thing to know since we do fly on these small planes quite often.

That's the news for this week, we love and miss you all Love Elder and Sister Hogge