Be Prepared (#69)

Monday is usually our preparation day, but this past Monday was New Year Eve and Sister Johnsen was in charge of games and also prepared a large supply of snacks and treats for the big event at the church. Instead of personal preparation, we were preparing in another way.  The party was set to begin at 8:30 p.m. and go until mid-night.  At 7:30 we began loading our car with 4 gallons of purified ice water, 40 frosted cupcakes, a tray of brownies, a tray of rice crispy treats and about 5 gallons of Johnsen famous popcorn.  The loading continued with two trash bags filled with Palauan snowballs (crumbled up paper surrounded by a white piece of paper securely fastenened with wide cellophane tape), Sequence, 3 decks of cards, old maid cards, dice, beans, straws, Banana Grams, balloons and a host of other supplies.  Upon arriving at the church we hauled all our supplies indoors and set up game tables, the food table, the drink dispenser, and then got the volleyball net up in the parking lot.  By 8:30 all was ready.

With volleyball going on outside and board games happening inside everyone was able to find something fun to do.  At 10:00 we stopped all the play, moved the volley ball nets and got set up for Palau’s second official annual snowball fight.  For those of you that have never had a snow ball fight with wadded up paper snowballs here’s how it’s done. The court is divided in half; the snowballs are dumped in the middle of the court along the center line.  Two teams of equal ability are chosen; all players line up on the back line of the court and at the sound of GO run to the center, grab snow balls and start pelting members of the other team, like dodge ball.  The only difference is that when you get hit instead of leaving the playing court you just switch sides and become a member of the other team.  It gets pretty wild—our game had about 20 contestants on each team.  Play continues until everyone is on one side or the other—however, after 30 minutes of hard charging play the Second annual Palauan snowball fight ended due to exhaustion of the players.  We have never seen so many smiles—the smaller children love trying to pelt the adults with snowballs.  In fact one little boy who didn’t quite understand that he was supposed to stay on his side of the court basically circled President Kesolei and pelted him nonstop with “snowballs.” It was the most intense barrage we’ve ever witnessed.  Both participants and watchers on the sideline were literally laughing out loud. 

After the snowball fight ended, we played some outdoor tag games which we very fun.  About 11:00 the teens got a game of basketball going while most of the crowd went back inside to continue their board games, play musical chairs, and balloon volleyball.  Elder Johnsen and 3 of the teenagers had an intense game of sequence going when the clock struck midnight. It was an amazing way to welcome in the New Year.  We felt so blessed to have a perfect night. The moon (on the breast of the new fallen snow-- balls) was nearly full, no rain, just enough of the breeze to keep the outdoor pleasant.  We got to bed at 1:00 and enjoyed our preparation day on Tuesday which was a very rainy day followed by a very rainy night.

We moved our service project to Wednesday because of New Year’s day. We found that the lights, air conditioner filters and ceiling fan blades were much dirtier than we had expected.  It took a couple of hours for four of us to clean them.

Elder Johnsen and Elder Fullmer worked on replacing the ceiling tiles in the Young Women’s room. The tiles were ruined by a water leak (which we repaired earlier). When we were finished all the Elders stopped at Sister Paz’s house to see what they could do about her roof. Bopha had blown off one of her corrugated sheets of roofing so we found and reattached it.  

On Thursday Sister Johnsen delivered her spiritual thought in district meeting which was based on the parable of the sower (or better named the parable of the different types of soil) she made the point that you don’t know the quality of the soil until you sow the seed.  So it is with missionary work, we prepare and then try to share the gospel with everyone—as Peter taught, “ . . .and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you “ 1 Peter 3:15

We were heading for the church on Friday morning to do our usual weeding when we got a call from Brother John Thing. He said that there was something wrong at the church. He asked us to come over. We were not prepared for what we saw. The church had been broken into. There was broken glass and torn door frames.  An attempt on the Branch Presidents office yielded no treasures so the family history center was tried. There a laptop was stolen. We were grateful that the other three computers were not disturbed.  Here’s how Elder Johnsen described what happened:  “Sometime between 3:30 p.m. 1/3/13 and 9:30 a.m. 1/4/13 the church building in Koror was broken into and the branch president’s office and the family history center doors were forced open and the FHC laptop was stolen. Thankfully the data projector was still at our apartment (we used it during the Christmas party which was held here) and thus it was not taken from its usual storage spot in the branch president’s office.  As far as we can tell nothing else is missing. The bad guys entered the building by breaking a louvered window by the side door (between the chapel and the aux class room building) reaching around and through the broken window pane and unlocking the door lock and the dead bolt lock.  We met with the police shortly after 9:30 and at 9:45 I filed a statement with the police.  We’ve replaced the glass panel, cleaned up the glass debris and also the debris around the forced doors.  The door into the BP office and the FHC will need to be replaced and the trim replaced and repainted.”  This was sent to both President Kesolie and to church leaders in Guam. It wasn’t the morning that we expected. We learned that that the extra glass in the shed does come in handy another example of being prepared!  

We are showing The Wizard of Oz for First Friday Flicks before we take off to Guam for our Senior conference. Our suitcases and those of Elder Marshall contain the equivalent of 9 large flat rate boxes worth of contents to mail home, all addressed to Karen Johnsen. Thanks, Krn.  We only have 10 weeks left and we thought this was our best chance to get our things home with less expense.  (All mail goes out of Palau at $.46 per ounce.  Do the math that’s $7/lb.   We literally have 130 lbs to bring to Guam that we’ll be shipping in 9 separate boxes.  From Guam we can use flat rate boxes and we will spend about $1/lb.  Now that’s being prepared to live providently!  

Bon Voyage to us! We are prepared for our trip to Guam!

Waterfalls, Windows, and Wastebaskets (#64)

Monday was our preparation day, and  Karen’s last day in Palau—a perfect time for a zone outing to the waterfall at Ngardmau.  Even though Elder and Sister Johnsen had recently taken a group of single adults and CES directors there they were still excited to go again. Two of our Elders (Fullmer and Pauga) plus Karen had never seen the highest waterfall in Micronesia.  It was a great day to be at the falls.  The Elders worked on a dam to make the water under the falls a little deeper.  Several of our group stood under the heaviest flow of the falls and got the most vigorous water massage that you’ve ever seen.  The water was coming down so hard that Elder Pauga’s neck was red and he’s Samoan!

We even got to explore the upper part of the falls which is rarely seen by tourists because it is protected by a sign that says danger.  This last picture of Elder Fullmer shows that the danger was greatly exaggerated.  Elder Johnsen’s mother would always say that the forbidden fruit tastes best—we don’t know about that but it was fun visiting the top of the Ngardmau waterfall.

Our next stop on our Zone P-Day activity was to stop out at Toby’s beach—the elder’s threw the football around while Elder Johnsen got a little shut-eye.  Hey, that’s what you’re supposed to do on your P day right?  That night we stayed up late to take Karen to the airport. It was hard to see her go. See you in 16 weeks, Karen.

Tuesday was our service project and it also had a lot to do with water.  We washed windows at the church—the chapel windows were not so bad but we’re not sure that the family history center, library and the branch president’s windows had ever been cleaned—that’s not possible, of course, but they were super dirty.  But all it took was a couple of hours and some elbow grease and they are squeaky clean.  

Tuesday was also our Priesthood Service night in the state of Koror.  Elder Johnsen has put together 7 geographic routes totaling 140 households—in one single night we attempt to visit them all and leave first presidency messages or Liahona magazines with the family.   On the previous Sunday night Elder Johnsen made visits in the state of Airai where 18 households reside—for the first time ever all 18 families were home—not bad for one night of home teaching!  The elder’s quorum president and his son who accompanied Elder Johnsen couldn’t believe it!  Tuesday night was also the night that we received some alarming news—a storm was brewing and was headed for Palau—most of the families that we visited hadn’t heard the news and we’re glad we notified them.

The remainder of our week has been consumed with preparation activities associated with the typhoon Bopha bearing down on Palau—as we write this Advisory 25 has been released showing that the storm will arrive at about 4:00 a.m. Monday morning with 145 mile per hour winds.  The center of the storm is projected to pass over Peleliu about 20 miles south.  The system is so large that Typhoon force winds will buffet all of Koror as well as the entire “Big Island” of Babeldaob where we just played on the beach last Monday.  As we write this all our windows are boarded up, we’ve stocked our shelves with canned food, we have 20 gallons of filtered drinking water on hand, and we’ve even filled a 33 gallon wastebasket with water tap water to insure that we’ll have water to flush the toilet and wash ourselves and our dishes.

The car is filled with gasoline.  Elder Johnsen even purchased an inverter for the car so we can charge our cell phone and laptop computer.  When a storm half as powerful as this one passed through Houston, our power was out for a week.  We are expecting and have prepared for a much worse result with Bopha.  We’re much better off than over 90% of our members—we live in a concrete apartment building (although it has only a steel roof).  Most of our members live in wooden frame houses covered with galvanized corrugated steel.  The trees here are very tall, it’s been 22 years since the last typhoon brushed these islands—we foresee widespread damage caused by the combination of wind, rising water, and falling trees.  Assuming that power, water and internet access are restored by next week we’ll try to  include some before and after pictures—we took the “before” pictures today while we were on our usual morning walk.  

Tonight we had our 12th baptism of the year, a young woman, Keisy, with whom we have had the opportunity to work in the Meyuns spelling bee, piano lessons, family home evenings, summer game nights at our apartment, and other activities, was baptized.

We are reminded that water can be beautiful when it falls from a high rock cliff, it can be helpful when cleaning building windows, it can be lifesaving when it filtered and used as drinking water, can help with sanitation when we use it to flush or clean our bodies and it also has powerful symbolic meaning when we participate in ordinances such as baptism and the sacrament.  “And the Father said: Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son.  And also, the voice of the Son same unto me, saying: He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do”. 2 Nephi 31:11-12 We express our gratitude for the “living water” provided by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.