Friday, January 22, 2010




The first picture is of most of us in a Class room setting and the Second one is of the group after lunch.

I will give a brief write-up of our training and stay in Guam. We left Saturday afternoon from Chuuk and flew to Guam. Many of the Senior Couples were on the same flight. We checked in to the Hilton Hotel and went out to eat a late supper together. Then we bought some things to eat in the hotel in the morning before church.

Sunday Morning we attended the Barrigada Branch. It was wonderful and we understood it all because it was all in English. It was so refreshing. We had a lunch provided by the Mission at the mission office. We went back to the hotel and had some free time to talk to family or work on our talks or what ever. Then we had a nice dinner together with all the Senior Couples and a Senior Sister that is the mission nurse. We ate at the Mission Home and it was a very nice meal. We stayed and visited till late.

Monday morning we started our training meetings. The first day was on Missionary work and what we could do to help the Missionaries and District Presidencies on our Islands. We gave our 45 minute presentation and it ran way over. They had so many questions that we didn’t even get through all the material that we had prepared. It was a great experience.

Other Couples made their presentations and again there was a lot of discussion. We all want to learn all we can and take it back to our Islands. President Dowdle conducted a Round Table discussion about what we need to have taught on our islands and it was great. Then he turned it around and asked each couple to pick some of the things he had written down and expand on them and send it back to him by e-mail and he will combine them. We were late getting out of the meeting because things ran over.

In the evening we attended a Couples Family Home Evening put on by Elder and Sister Zaugg. It was a power point presentation of pictures they took of the rebuilding of the Thailand. They had been called on a Humanitarian Mission right after the tsunami. It was very interesting. It ran for an hour and a half.

Tuesday we had Seminary and Institute training and made another presentation. All of them were very good. We learned much about the differences in how things are handled from Island to Island. Again we had lots of question of all the presenters. In the end we had a testimony meeting and that ran overtime also. But it was so faith promoting and encouraging that we were all very happy to stay and feel the spirit of the Lord.

We all went out to dinner together again and the Mission President, President Dowdle and his wife came with us. It was so good to have adult English conversations together.

Wednesday morning we gathered at the Guam Service Center and purchased the things we needed for our Islands. Then we all went out bowling and that was a lot of fun. We shopped in the afternoon all over Guam for the things we needed.

Thursday was also a shopping and Doctors appointments day. I don’t think that any of us got all the stuff we had on our lists. There is just so much to do and not enough time to get it all done.

Today, Friday we had to be at the airport at 6:30 am and we flew home. So it was a very busy, but exceptionally rewarding Couple’s Conference. We do these about every 6 months. So now we will work for 6 months trying to implement all the things we learned that could help our Island and establish the Church here.