August 23rd, 2008

Dear kids, family and friends: We are still in Vanuatu. It is a very beautiful island in the Pacific. We are on the same time frame as New Zealand except behind 1 hour and on same day--i.e. a day a head of you by 18 hours. It is Saturday and we are waiting for a wedding to take place (the two people we are training are involved in the wedding so we are taking a break. We have worked everyday that we have been here trying to get Marie Joe trained (she is the director in Port Vila) so that she can train the consultants from the many branches of the church. Five other consultants have attended training so we have a partial core of knowledge here. The problem is that with New Family Search, the temples will quit excepting the old forms of submissions and relie only on New Family Search after 30 days or so. So the patrons have to know how to generate information into New Family Search (nFS). Many of the islanders plan extensive (and very expensive for them) trips to the temples i.e. Fiji which just went live this week. They take a week or more and have to travel great distances to get there so need their submissions on the new system. We were unable to go to Santo Island as when we flew in the machine at the airport was down so we couldn't confirm and pay for the tickets. When we could get to the airline the next day they had already sold our seats and were sold out for the remainder of the time we are here so Santo did not get trained. Talked to a counselor in the Fiji Mission Presidency and he was quite concerned and is now aware of the problems with Santo. (Our director got married and we lost complete contact with him and the center there. Seems that there are some family traditions that took him away to live with his wife's family or some such thing. His father is the district president but the phone and email we had are no longer working etc. and they don't respond to mail. That district is planing on taking 60 plus to the temple in Fiji in January. When they get a director they will likely have to have that director fly here (50 minute flight) and get trained by Marie Joe. Hopefully she knows enough. We are staying at a very beautiful hotel overlooking Michiner's (sp) island and the bay. We watch boats coming and going with each meal. The view from our balcony is wondrous. We have a very comfortable room. Guess that we are really spoiled. Next time, if their is one we will opt for a 1st floor room with limited view as it is about $100.00 less per night. The food at the restaurant (where we dare eat) is very expensive also. However, the missionaries are mostly using this hotel now. We met the mission couple here , the Elliotts from Emmet, Idaho. They own about 320 acres of orchards and have the Plaza Fruit Stand on their property there--if any of you are ever in Emmet. The church auditor and his wife from the Fiji mission are here too. We all had dinner last night at the hotel. We went to Elliotts twice to a restaurant --more later.

Mom etc.