Week 24 Port Vila

Halo Famle,

Last week after I emailed you we picked up a returned Sister Missionary named Sister Napuatepem from the Airport.  She's from Tanna, and she returned from the Australia Sydney South Mission.
 
Last Thursday morning we met in the mission office and Sister Napuatepem got released and we did an orientation for 2 new Elders from Samoa that will be serving in the Solomon Islands.  We had them stay with us for the day and we visited a member mama who had breast cancer and shared a message about the atonement with her and her family.  Many members of her family was there supporting her and helping her.  She was so grateful we came. Maria was there too with her family.  We visited Edmas as well and we taught her about the Priesthood and afterwards went to the mission home to have dinner with the new elders.  We had burgers and ice cream for dinner.

Friday we had a meeting with President about the 2 new Elders and where they should serve and then some other impressions came to President's mind. he told Elder Dakunimata that he felt that he should train a Zone Leader,  Elder Dakunimata had the same thoughts in the past and felt that the lord will need him to train another Zone Leader. 

So we ended up meeting for awhile and came to the conclusion that Elder Dakunimata will transfer to Santo and serve as a Zone Leader there and an Elder from the USA named Elder Crowell will be my new companion.  I will train him to take the lead when I leave.  It was a crazy change in the transfers but it's under the lord's direction. 

Elder Crowell seems like a funny Elder, I'm excited to serve with him.  That afternoon we taught Ivana and Emma about Chastity and we hope to baptize them on Sept. 12.  Ivana should be fine but Emma needs permission from her parents first because she's younger than 18.  We went to Beverly Hills too and taught Mariah about the Plan of Salvation and invited her to be baptized as well. She will choose a date to be baptized.

Saturday we taught Madline about missionary work and then she told us that her Step Mother named Marie wanted us to teach her so we did and she really wants to be baptized and become a member of the church. We went to a baptism program to witness some baptisms and then went to  Beverly Hills to visit some members and investigators who weren't home. So we just walked around and talked with people and then went to Nambatri to Mama Josette's house where we visited her and her daughter, and 2 young men named Willie and Kevin came with us.  We taught them about the story of the Tree of Life and read in the scriptures and talked about the meaning of the vision and we had dinner with them before going home.
   
On Sunday we went to church and we met with Alec and Kristel and President Tiasinmal and made plans to prepare a marriage for them so they can be baptized.  We don't know what time yet but we are hoping and praying that everything will go as planned and it will happen.  We taught them after church about tithing and then drove to the airport to pick up a prospective missionary.  His name is Harold Ishmael, a good friend of mine from Lowni Branch in Malekula, I was so happy to see him, he's applying for a Visa to serve in the New Zealand, Aukland mission.  He hung out with us and taught with us and we went to President Basil's house and taught Elorine about service and then we went up to Beverly Hills and visited Gabbie. 

And we checked on Jonassy and to our surprise he was home and we taught him.  We haven't seen him forever.  He moved in somewhere with one of his aunts awhile and came back so we hope to help him prepare to be baptized.  We then taught Ivana about the Sabbath and we went home and I made some Enchiladas for dinner.  It turned out really good!, but it wasn't as good as Costa Vida.  And nothing beats the Enchiladas that Mom makes!

This morning we studied, did our laundry, and cleaned and organized the house before going to the mission office to have our weekly office meeting.  Usually during the meeting we talk about needs of the mission Housing, Vehicles, Banking, Plane Tickets, Missionaries, etc.  and we make a big "to do" list of things for each of us to do and follow up on during the week before the next meeting. The work just never ends, there's no end to the gospel. 

After the meeting we went to Seaside and played Futbol with some boys that were there and we played for about an hour and a half before going to the Basil's house for Family Haos Naet.  We did an activity where we gave a balloon to everybody that had a piece of paper in it with something written on it and they had to pop the balloon and see what paper they got and they had to act things out, do charades and guess what they were or what they were doing.  It was a lot of fun! I love doing family haos naets, they're lots of fun.

Everything is fine here in Vanuatu and the work just never ends and that's just how the fullness of the gospel is, it just never ends, there's always something to learn and to to prepare for the savior to
come.  Oh and congrats to Kyle Egan who just returned from the Montana Billings Mission!  I hope all is well and I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Beynon