Pohnpei

We met some kindred spirits when we landed in Pohnpei. The Holloways were just the best. When I told President Dowdle about the kindred spirit bit he told me that they were going to have to watch me carefully. Sister Holloway and I had such a good time together and Elder Holloway and Elder Clarke were not doing too badly themselves.


We stayed in the Joy Hotel. It was a small but nice facility and had a good restaurant on the ground floor.



The view from the hotel shows the feel for the streets in Pohnpei. They were good roads and were just so green and clean. If we had had time to go for walks it would have been a wonderful place for it.








This is a sample of the type of housing the missionaries live in. The insides were actually not bad.





Elder Clarke did not think I should include this picture of the refrigerator but I just wanted to show how the climate effects things. Unless air conditioning is running all the time (which is especially unlikely for missionaries) the damp air causes the appliances to rust. We found this to be the case in a lot of the apartments we inspected.




This is a church owned apartment that the sisters are living in. The area is quite pretty and their apartment was pretty well maintained.

This is the other apartment that the sisters live in. Beautiful tropical trees and such all around.




After a full day of inspecting apartments and vehicles, Sister Holloway kept insisting that we needed to hike to a waterfall. I was really tired and not to excited about the idea of a hike but it turned out to be a level pathway and was absolutely gorgeous.


A member of the church owns the property and has planted all kinds of flowers along the way. The area of this picture has you rock hopping and wading through the water and there is an "iron rod" to hold onto for support.












These pictures do not do justice to the beauty of the waterfall. I have never seen anything like it.

This is a first attempt at including a video so hopefully it works. It should show you just how beautiful the waterfall and the surrounding area was.




It was just a beautiful hike. I was just sorry we did not have more time and that we could not get in and enjoy the water. It was rather hot and sticky.









Pohnpei also is building a new church. The plan is almost identical to the one on Chuuk.




That night we went to The Village for dinner with Holloways and the Lomabardi's, another senior couple who are doing records preservation.




We had gorgeous views as we enjoyed our dinner and Elder Clarke was able to take a great picture of the sunset. Shortly after he snapped the picture we enjoyed the sound of pouring down rain on a thatched roof.






















We went to see where the Lomabardi's spend all there time. They just sit there snapping picture after picture. She says you couldn't pay her to do what they are doing but this is their second mission here in the islands and they love what they are doing.


We had a few hours on Wednesday morning before we had to go to the airport so Sister Holloway took us to all the "best" shopping spots. We got Pohnpei Pepper, Coconut Jelly, mango icepops, Ivory Nut jewelry, etc., etc. I did not realize that the grass skirt she is trying on was only $10 or I would have been buying some. There are women on Pohnpei that make these skirts and send them to the Polynesian Cultural Center where they sell them for $70 and more. We found some really interesting souveniers.


Our last tourist stop was to see the Rainbow Trees. From the first picture you can see that the trees seem to have been planted along the road. You can not see the colors well in that picture but the other picture shows that the bark in multi colored. It was raining and we were told the colors did not show as well then but usually you can see all the colors of the rainbow in the bark. As you can see from the bark, the tree is related to the Eucalyptus.














Our last Kodak moment on Pohnpei was to get a shot of the Wal Mart. People get really excited when they are told that there is a Wal Mart there but as soon as they walk in the store they realize that you can't always believe what you see. This is just another small variety type store that does not come close to being a Wal Mart as we know it.