Hellos and Goodbyes

Today started very early for us. President and Sister Dowdle are in Tokyo this week and so we had the pleasure of meeting two new sister missionaries coming in from the New Zealand MTC. We love doing this but wish the flights would come in a little earlier in the night. The Assistants to the President met Elder Jones, new from the Provo MTC, at 11:50pm last night. The Sisters came in at 1:40am this morning. By the time they got through customs it was 2:30am so we finally got to bed at 3:00am.

We have been waiting for Sister Salaiau (from Papa New Guinea) and Sister Vano (from Vanuatu) for about 6 months. There arrival date had been changed multiple times. Our missionaries coming in from these areas always have such a long wait to get Visa's. It is so frustrating. We are so happy to finally have these sweet sisters with us.

After a few hours of sleep we were up early to head back to the airport. The Holloways (Senior CES Missionary Couple from Pohnpei) have finished their mission and are headed home. We had picked them up at the airport on Tuesday and had a fun filled two days with them before seeing them off this morning. We are going to miss them so much. They are such a fun couple.


While the Holloways were on Guam, the Senior Missionaries all got together for dinner and a stroll on the beach.


It was sunset and there were about 6 paddling teams out practicing. You can't see it to well, but that is an outrigger with 8 to 10 rowers. While we were there, one of the youth in the Dededo Ward came by and we learned from him that this is a sport in the schools here. Willie is on his High School team and had competed in a competition this past weekend.

We had a very busy day today. Since President Dowdle is away, the Assistants held the orientation for the new missionaries at the Mission Office. We got lunch for them and did our little part of the orientation. Later, all of the missionaries met at the Office for transfers. This was an interesting one. Our Office Elders were transferred to proselyting areas and so we will now be handling ALL the business of the Office. We have been working with Elder Adams for a week to learn the new duties and I think we can do it! I THINK I CAN - I THINK I CAN. At least this will keep us busy for our last few months.


Elder Adams has a birthday tomorrow but since he will no longer be in the Office anymore, I made cupcakes for all the missionaries and we sang Happy Birthday to him today. We will miss Elder Adams.

It is Thursday and so we had Institute tonight. We had decided that we would have a Farewell Hannah party tonight so we just ate and played.


We have a new student, Cassy, who has joined us from Yap. We look forward to getting acquainted with her. The first game we played was with a giant candy bar wrapped in multiple layers of wrapping paper. They had to try to get the paper off with a knife and fork while wearing gloves. The next person was rolling dice and when doubles came up they had to pass the gloves and candy along.


The next game was Left, Right, Center. They love this game. We also played the Thimble Game and that was a very BIG hit.


We had such a good group show up tonight. It was a fun night of farewell to Hannah who will be going back to the States next week and of welcoming to Cassy.