Bagem Wok

“Bagem Wok” in Bislama means to work hard and to get a lot done.  We say it here when you are doing and having success in the work.

One more week of July and I can't believe it!!  This week has flown by and a lot of neat things have happened!  This week Sista Tonga and I killed it!!  We taught and taught and taught!!  And every night we came home and all we wanted to do was sleep and it was the best!

We went to visit Sabrina on Tuesday and she said she wanted to talk to us about her baptism.  She said she wants to be baptized with all her heart but she wants to stay clean from alcohol, smoking and Kava for at least 3 months before she gets baptized.  We talked with her and even had the branch president’s wife at the lesson to help us talk through things.  In the end Sabrina decided that she wants to wait.  We asked her to pray and see what Papa God needs her to do, but she continues to say He isn't giving her an answer.  So as of now she is waiting for three months until she gets baptized.  But she is staying very active!  She started going to seminary and we started teacher her Mom, Lisa, this past week.  I love Sabrina with all my heart, and I know that whatever she ends up doing it will be the right choice.  She has changed and never, ever wants to go back.

We had everything ready to go for Robson's baptism on Sunday morning starting at half past seven.  At seven a.m. we got a call from him telling us that his older sister had died earlier in the morning and he had to take a ship back to Malekula (another island in Vanuatu) that morning with her dead body and wouldn't be back for a few weeks.  When he talked with us he seemed very distressed.  Please keep him in your prayers and I'll keep you updated on what happens once he gets back in a few weeks from Malekula.

We went and visited Joshua this week as well.  He has permission to get baptized!!!  His daddy never actually came to Santo, but he got permission from one of his uncles, so it's all good!  He was so excited when he told us that he stood up and started slapping my back with a huge smile on his face.  He's been waiting for so long, and now he can finally take that step this Friday!

Having a car here isn't as great as I thought it would be.  The roads here are awful and because Sista Tonga doesn't drive, I have to deal with it.  She does love to complain that I don't drive smoothly enough . . . but really she needs to take a look at these roads!  There are pot holes everywhere and no lights on the streets.  So at night I drive with my brights on when we have to go somewhere, but most of the time we stay inside once it gets dark. 

Yesterday was Children's day here and so everything was closed.  This week will be kind of a dead week because it's independence day and everyone is gone.  Sunday was a joke.  No one was home.  Hopefully it's not like that the whole week like everyone says it will be.  Pray for a miracle!  

We've continued to teach Edwina, Netty's little girl, and she is drinking up everything we have to teach her.  I love teaching pikinini because I can really see why we are commanded in the scriptures to be as a little child.  She will be baptized this Saturday with Joshua and Mary if all goes as planned.

I am so thankful to be a missionary and to be serving here in Vanuatu.  I love it.  I love every day and I love the people here more than anything.  I know that this is the true, the one and only, true church on the earth today! After weeks like this I feel like Alma, wishing I had the trump of an angel and could tell everyone in the whole world about this gospel!  It's true!!!

I love you all and hope you have a great week.  Sorry there are no pictures.  The computers here just don't work all the time!