Tahiti #4

Kay asked Garline if there was someone who could take him fishing.  She said her son Rongo would love to on Wednesday.  She let Kay borrow Rongo’s spear and he practiced in the evening.   Kay has a spear gun but hasn’t used it as it is not clear in any of our waters.  Garline  picked us up at 2PM. and drove us up the bay to a public dock.  Rongo had a friend come who speaks English in the home with his Hawaiian mother.  The interpreter, His 10 year old sister told me she didn’t have internet at their house, because they didn’t have electricity.  Kay and the boys snorkeled from 2-5:30PM catching about 20 little fish with their spear guns.

Kay asked to keep the gun and got up early on Thursday catching 3 medium size fish. We ate 4 different kinds of fish for breakfast, and gave the spear gun and a fish to Garline’s mother-in-law who worked at our resort, before catching our ferry from Moorea to Papaete to catch our cruise ship.  (anyone who knows Kay knows this was the highlight of his trip.)

We walked from the ferry straight to the cruise ship and ate lunch then walked 20 min in 90% humidity and 90 degrees to the Papaete Mormon Temple. We met the office couple, Bowmans from Oregon.  They took us to the mission office after we got a good look at the temple.

Tahiti #3

Monday we got a board Dr. Poole’s dolphin watch with 2 other couples and 30 minutes in the engine failed so we had to limp back to the dock on the emergency small engine.  We rented a car and circled the island stopping at belvedere   look out and a black pearl shop where Kay chose pearls for his daughters. We walked to the fish marked and bought Mahi-mahi The ward Primary President took us to her family’s pineapple plantation and we picked pineapple and mangos.  We stopped at the area authority’s house and he happened to be home.  He filled us up on fruits. Garline showed Kay the sticks they use to get the mangos off the trees. we stopped at the pineapple processing plant  and saw trucks lined up for their drop off. These are what they call Tahitian Christmas trees, they only bloom in December.

Tahiti #2

Today was Sunday.  We knew there was a Mormon Church in the tiny town of Pao Pao Moorea so we went for a walk  Saturday night looking for it.  We quickly found it on the main road right after a bend in the road about 2 minutes walk from our hotel. 

9AM we walked in and were warmly welcomed in French.  They gave us a hand written paper with the song book page numbers listed so we wouldn’t get lost.  Songs were sung in French and then Tahitian.  The sacrament meeting overflowed to the hallway where chairs were neatly lined up in rows but we were ushered into the main building to sit next to another visiting couple from Denver.  The wife was a member and husband wasn’t.

After the fast and Testimony meeting the other couple went home and I requested to go to Primary so Kay tagged along.  First I went to the 4/5 year old class and then to Sharing time.  In between meetings I gave the Primary President 2 sets of 6 piece felt nativities and she had the children put the pieces on the tree in the corner.  When the children were singing she asked if I could take letters they wrote to  President Monson last week to him. I said sure and offered to take a picture of the Primary.  I made sure they knew I would not be able to see President Monson but I would make sure they got to him.  The Primary President (left front) got the nursery children for the picture too.

That evening  at 4:45PM the Primary President knocked on our door with her mother-in-law who works at our hotel and asked if we would like a ride to the First Presidency Christmas devotional on the other side of the island (15 minutes).  We said sure and enjoyed a few words we heard in English… Grinch, I know my Redeemer lives…  Never have we been so thankful for  the music which is literally half of the meeting.  We enjoyed the car ride.  The primary President took English in school and lived for 6 months in Hawaii a long time ago.  A member that just went through the temple last week for the first time invited us to have a tour of a pineapple plantation on Tuesday.  See were blessed to be able to go to church.

Dear Ethan, Sean and Jenna Tahiti#1

Grandpa and I are in Tahiti.  Find it on your map at home. Our airplane flight over the Pacific ocean was 9 hours.  We had an overnight flight  and arrived in Fa aa  Tahiti at 5 in the morning.  We were greeted at the airport by 2 men playing the ukulele. We collected our luggage and took a bus to our ferry boat.  The ferry boat took 30 minutes and we arrived on the island of Moorea. Everyone wanted us to take a taxi to our hotel for about 30 dollars but we asked around and found a bus, actually a big diesel truck with an attached box with benches, where we paid 3 dollars each and they took us to our hotel.  Our hotel is in Cooks Bay.   We walked to a grocery store.  food is very expensive here.  1 dozen eggs are 4 dollars.  a package of cookies like we have at home are 4 dollars.  this is about 4X what we pay. Luckily we found baguettes (bread) for 50 cents,. Pineapples and bananas are the same price as US on sale so that was our first meal.  Bread, a whole pineapple and bananas.  they told us to buy our water because the water is only good for coffee We have a kitchen and boiled our water, put it in the fridge and that is our water.  We’ll let you know if we get sick.

Gingerbread 2010 small house to Nauvoo temple and the Village of Nauvoo

Since the 1990’s we have been making gingerbread houses. I have been making them with my grandchildren to carry on the tradition

Kay and I decided to do the Nauvoo temple.  We called the visitors center to ask them about the pinnacle of the temple, to see how many sides there were.  The visitors center missionary said she did not know but took our number and when she walked home she called us to give us her report.                                                              Conestoga Branch happened to do the Village of Nauvoo I helped with too.

Grandma takes the kids to the zoo and makes a gingerbread house

I forgot my card reader when I went to Omaha.