Week 5 on Uripiv June 8, 2014

Dear Friends and Family,

Like your your slow week last week, ours was slow too.  Tuesday we did our usual laundry by hand and that afternoon we looked for a few investigators but they weren't home so we had no one to teach.  Wednesday many people were gone for some reason but we were able to teach a less active member to help him which was good.  Thursday we weren't able to teach a lesson and a few investigators weren't interested which was sad.  We hope we can find more.  One hard thing here is that we try to ask people if they're interested in hearing our message they say no most of the time.  I think it's because there's so many different faiths here on such a small island.  We will just have to continue to pray for the lord's help.

Friday everyone was in Lakatoro because a ship had come and many people went and unloaded all the cargo so we were left with no one to teach.  But one fun thing that happened on friday was that we saw many kids carrying small pieces of bamboo about a foot long and they use a stick to push a flower bulb in the end and then they put  one on the other end and push it through really fast so the bulb in front shoots out because of the high pressure in there.  They shoot each other with them for fun.  So I had a kid make me one and we all played with bamboo muskets (they call guns muskets here).  Don't worry we never aimed for the face. It was a lot of fun.  I've realized that the kids here like me alot. I love playing with them and we have lots of fun.

Saturday we were able to crank out one lesson which was good.  Sunday was great!  The senior couple Elder and Sister Jolley came to Uripiv because they wanted to visit the branch one last time before they finish their mission.  They are finishing this month. They came and they gave talks in sacrament meeting and I translated in Bislama for them which was cool.  Then after church we had a feast with all the members.  We had Laplap Sorsor which is a style of laplap made in Malekula.  They cook laplap with meat (chicken, fish, tin tuna, pork, and then they cut a hole in the middle and pour coconut milk in there.  Then you grab pieces of laplap and meat and dip it in the coconut milk and eat.  It's very good.  After the feast we taught 3 lessons which made the day even more better an it was just a great sabbath day.

This morning we had district meeting and the sister missionaries had made cake and planned on making a small surprise party for elder and sister Jolley.  We sang some songs that the sisters wrote and we bought 2 tubs of chocolate ice cream, 1 mint, 1 banana, and 1 mango.  Then we chowed down and ate lots of cake and ice cream. It was a lot of fun!

Well this is all that happened this week.  The work is slow but life's good.  We just need to try our best and rely on the lord to help us.  Know you are loved and I hope the vacation goes well. Don't worry about me, I'm enjoying my vacation here and love to be serving here in vanuatu.

Love,
Elder Beynon