Back to Banban!

Sista Norton, Bedilia, Me, Sellesin, and Lemus

I'm back in Santo with Sista Tonga.  It has been a good, but very exhausting, two weeks and I am glad to be back at “home.”  

On Monday I went and saw the physiotherapist in Brisbane, Australia who gave me lots of jaw exercises and massaged my face, neck and head; and then gave me a list of exercises to do while I am in Vanuatu.  She asked me to stay in Brisbane for another week so she could have a few more visits with me.  She wanted to make sure what she was suggesting would actually work, but my flight couldn't be changed.  So she gave me a big list of exercises to try, and then said to email her if they didn't work and we would try something new . . . so pretty much I went and they told me to exercise my jaw!  

Me, Sister Oraa and Whatcott at Bounce Inc. in Brisbane, Australia

I spent the last little bit of my time with Sister Oraa and Whatcott going to Bounce Inc., a trampoline park in Brisbane.  We had a lot of fun and enjoyed a good night’s sleep that night!

Flying over Vanuatu

I flew back to Port Vila, Vanuatu on Tuesday morning and stayed with Sister Norton and Sister Sellesin while we tried to figure out how else we could fix my ears.  Sister Norton and Sellesin make me so happy.  I love those two so much, and I just can't be sad around them!  It was a blessing to be able to stay a while with them.  Wednesday my ears hurt like crazy so I had Sister Norton call Sister Hill (the mission nurse) again.  She canceled my flight back to Santo and got me another doctor’s appointment with the ENT specialist educated in France.  He said my ears were not okay and that the doctor in Australia was crazy!  I now have four different medications to take including an antihistamine, a heat pack, two mouth guards and lots of people praying for me.  They got me a sports mouth guard to help me not grind my teeth when I sleep, but I tried it last night and it was too big.  It fell out sometime while I was sleeping!  Eventually the pain will go away, but for now I am leaning on something President Granger told me, "Sometimes God will send you through things and places you don't understand, just to get you to where He needs you to be.  Trust his plan, not your pain."

Sister Sellesin and me

The new car for the Sister Training Leaders

When I got off the plane here on the island of Santo on Saturday afternoon I had a beautiful Hyundai Tucson waiting in the airport parking lot for me to drive home!!! It is beautiful and brand new!!  Sister Tonga and I literally took the plastic off the seats!  It was just like Christmas!  J  It only had 118 km on it!  Oh we are loving it!  It will be such a big help to our zone!  We’ll be able to assist the zone leaders a lot because we now have two cars on Santo instead of just one.  

The best part of my week however, was after church when we finally got to get out and teach!!  I haven't been in the area for over two weeks and Sista Tonga was only able to work in the area one day in the two weeks I was gone.  So we taught as much as we could and miracles happened!!!  Sabrina is set to be baptized this coming Saturday at three o'clock in the ocean!!!  We went and taught her yesterday.  She has been coming to church almost every week and we taught her a few commandments and she started crying.  She told us that she wants to change because she is seeing how her actions are affecting her family.  She recognizes that she needs to change now.  The spirit was so strong!!  It was one of the most amazing lessons I have taught on my mission.  She also told us that her mom wants to hear the lessons as well . . . so we will be teaching her on Tuesday!  Sabrina is already a missionary!!

After our lesson with Sabrina, we committed Thomas and Roseline to baptism on the 29th of July.  We will continue to work with them because they aren't married yet.  While we were teaching them Thomas' Uncle Lolo sat down and asked us to teach him as well as his nephew, Kiki.  THEN we went to visit Robson and before we started the lesson he told us that he had fasted and prayed to be able to convince his chief to let him get baptized.  He talked to his chief last week, and the chief said he can join any church he wants!  We told him we had a baptism day this week and next week and he said he wants to get baptized this Saturday!!  July truly is a month of miracles!!!  Sista Tonga and I are going to keep working like crazy and find, find, find!  We truly are in God's hands and he is helping us.