Overcoming obstacles

We had a baptism last night.  Two sisters were baptized.  Elder Duncan went up to the church at 11 am to get things ready and help the Elders fill the font.  The building was very cold.  As they began to fill the font, the water was simply not warm enough.  As it went into the font, the cold font cooled down the warm water.  And it was filling very slowly.  The 50 gallon water heater just couldn't do the job.  So Elder Duncan stayed up there all day, heating 2 large canners and a roaster full of water on the stove in the kitchen, and then dumping them into the font and refilling and reheating them.  By 7 pm there was barely enough water in the font and it was not warm enough.
But lots of people came, and the two girls were baptized.  We stayed and ate snacks and visited and had a delightful time.
There is another baptism scheduled for Nov. 24, and we sure are hoping we can find an easier way to fill that font with warm water!!
We are enjoying the opportunity to teach with the Elders.  There are so many young mothers who are at home with their little ones.  They are willing to have the Elders teach them, but the Elders cannot go in their homes without another Priesthood holder.  So we join them.  Lately we have been doing a lot of teaching with the Elders.  We have great Elders here, Elder Henry and Elder Layton.  Fine young men and hard-working missionaries.  Our mission is aiming for 20 baptisms in November, and it looks like Summerside will provide 2 of those!
We have started a Family Home Evening group of single adults and empty nesters.  We have a non-member lady that comes every week, and this next Monday she will be teaching the lesson!  We also go out to visit members and correct the information on their church records.  We love it here in Summerside.  Lovely place with great people!

Transfer

The Mission President called and told us that we are being transferred to the Summerside Branch on Prince Edward Island.  That is "Anne's Island"  (Anne of Green Gables, of course!).  It is beautiful over there.
The Summerside Branch is a small branch, much like Amherst.  Many of the same struggles.   But good and dedicated people.   We are happy to serve wherever the Lord calls us to serve.
   We will miss the good people here in Amherst.  We have loved our time here.  We have grown close to some of the people and it is hard to leave them.  But a great couple is coming in to take our place.  Elder and Sister Steffen have been serving in Corner Brook, Newfoundland.  They will replace us, and we will go to Summerside to replace Elder and Sister Bryan, who are on the ferry today headed for Corner Brook to replace the Steffens. 
We will leave Amherst on Aug. 16, and I was afraid we would miss the blueberry harvest, as it usually begins on Aug 15.  But this year, with the heat and lack of rain, the crop matured early.  So today Harold and Lily Pettigrew took us out to see the harvest and pick some berries ourselves.  It was a fun adventure, and I now have 20 cups of just-picked wild blueberries in my freezer.  While we ARE leaving behind many things for the Steffens, I don't think I can bring myself to leave those blueberries!  I guess the Pettigrews will just have to take the Steffens out picking!  Then THEY can have an adventure, too!
The Lord's work rolls on here in Atlantic Canada.  We have great missionaries here.  Next transfer we have 14 more coming in, and only 4 leaving for home.  So areas that have been closed can be reopened.  Also, we have more couples coming in.  It seems more couples are choosing to serve missions now, and that is wonderful.  We sure do need them!

Long over-due update

Since people have been asking us to post again, I will take a few minutes to update our blog.  We have been here for over eight months now.  We survived our first winter quite nicely.  It was not nearly as cold as it is back in Wyoming!  But a lot more snow.  The locals tell us this past winter was a mild one.
Now it is spring and so lovely.  There are so many different types of plants here.  On P-day this week we went exploring around Blair Lake.  So lush and green!
The work continues to move forward.  We still have not found all the Branch members.  The area this Branch covers is huge!  And many of the less-active members have been "lost" for many years.  President Duncan has lost one of his counselors (they moved away), and the Elder's Quorum President has been released, so his work load has increased considerably.  This week he is working closely with his one remaining counselor trying to get Home Teaching up and going again. 
The people here are so friendly.  There is a good feeling in the Branch now.  But another family is moving away in August,....there goes our Primary president! 
We are so grateful to be serving here in Amherst.  We love the people, the town, our apt, and the fact that we can do our work here IN ENGLISH!!  We can buy just about anything we want here, so we are not losing weight like we did on our first mission. 
BTW, a wonderful couple by the name of Tiffany is now serving in Chuuk and we get lots of pictures and updates from them.  It has been so much fun to reconnect with our Chuukese friends by way of the Tiffanys! 
So, long story short: we are happy and well and enjoying our mission in the Maritimes.  These are precious children of our Heavenly Father, and we know He wants them to hear the Gospel and return to Him.  The elect of God are being gathered in preparation for the glorious return of our Savior.  It's a wonderful work to be involved in.

We are in Amherst, Nova Scotia

We spent a week driving east in mid-September and now we are settled in our apartment in Amherst. Elder Duncan has been assigned to serve as the Branch President in the Amherst Branch. It is a small branch, but the members are very friendly and loving. The weather has been just gorgeous since we arrived, but we hear that they have pretty severe winters here. We brought lots of winter clothes, so we are ready! The leaves are turning colors and every day the scenery looks more and more stunning! The town is very quaint and lovely and the folks are soooo friendly!! Lots of large, old, gorgeous homes. There is plenty of shopping, with two large grocery stores, and a WalMart and two other department stores. And lots of restaurants and fast food places. We are thrilled to be here.

Another Mission Call!

We have received a call to serve for 23 months in the Canada Halifax Mission. Our assignment is Member and Leader Support. We will enter the MTC on Sept 5, 2011. We are very excited to be heading to eastern Canada. Again, we will be serving on islands, but this time, northern Atlantic islands! Sue's maternal grandfather was born in Nova Scotia and raised in Yarmouth, so she is super excited to be called to serve there.

NOW we can go on another mission!

We have been back in the States for 6 months now. We had hoped to be on another mission by now, but medical checkups revealed that Elder Duncan had prostate cancer, so he had surgery and has recovered. The doctor has given us the 'thumbs up', so we are now cleared to send in our mission papers.

SAPUK SOCIAL

On November 13, 2010 we did an S&I social in Sapuk. This was for about half our students, just the ones which live on Weno Island. About 75-80 young people attended. We began with a short meeting, then we had a carnival and the kids had fun with ringtoss, bean-bag toss, a scripture mastery activity, Limbo, and puzzles (Mormon-ad posters, cut into pieces). After a while we got volleyball started and then set up two tables of ping pong. The kids had a good time. The District Presidency provided meals for all of us, and then we handed out cookies.

Our S&I Supervisor came and brought a video. As you can see, the kids really enjoyed it.

Suetriann tossing a beanbag. The object was to land one beanbag on a Chuukese word, and the second beanbag on the matching word in English. If you were successful, you got a candy!

The scripture mastery game "Run to the Board" was a hit! Here two girls from the Mwan branch compete to see who can write the correct reference first and get a candy!

Brandy Henry from Mwan and Suetriann Ande from Sapuk ready to "run to the board"! Notice that each of them is trying to hold the other one back.

Osimichy Kata of Sapuk, trying his skill going under the Limbo bar.

The carnival. The kids had fun and enjoyed the candy "prizes" they won.

The ring toss game was very popular. There were 17 questions that the students could answer, depending on which number they got. Questions about church history, scripture mastery, and local church leaders.

Freddie Nicerio, our S&I supervisor from Guam, and President Matasio Wainis, the District President.

Ensenina Stanley and Niena Kin from the Mechitiw Branch.

Three young ladies from Sapuk. Suetrian Ande, Elaine Choffat, Soreana Onno.