A trip to the open market . This is where the locals bring their produce to the city- we go 2xwk for fresh fruit.
Beautiful flowers decorate the church every Sunday in the main and largest church in Port Vila.
Still having problems with this blog. I will explain the photos. The one with the natives is at the Melanesian a very popular hotel in Port Vila. Had a video of the music at the show. There was a precious 3 year old girl that danced and danced ! Your Dad danced too, in the chief’s dance. It was fun with our friends from Auckland, the Halversons. There are two pictures at the volcano. One is where you see the smoke and about every 20 minutes it would groan. The missionaries were taking us all over the island of Tanna to meet the village chiefs and talk about their water project. We are having a tailgate party on the other photo eating spam, beans, crackers and cookies. Adrian has found his vitamins here…..( chocolate almonds ) I guess now he will survive ! Mom this picture is especially for you. Hope you enjoy your Mrs. Cavanaughs chocolates…the best ! We have many videos, but when I try to load them, the program says they are too big! So sad about that! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas! Wish we could have a little snow. It is so HOT here. I am so thankful we have air-conditioning in our studio apartment most of the couples have it only in their bedroom. Church is not air-conditioned. We have many more months of this heat. We are thankful for these amazing opportunities to help those who don’t even have clean water to drink. We love the sweet humble people here on the island and look forward to an amazing humanitarian year 2013 ! We luvem yu ! Lookum yu ! (Bislama for we love you and hope to see you soon !
The neighborhood isn’t nearly as exciting without the Hintons. WE love you. You look happy and contented. If not the best, this Christmas is sure to be the most unusual and memorable. Dale and Margene
Oh ! how we miss FHE groups and all our friends ! We will keep busy serving the young missionaries Christmas dinners on Monday and Tuesday. It has taken a while to get used to the food here. Finally we had to go back to home cooking of real basic foods. You know how it is here so much beauty , but also so much poverty. The people have big hearts and great smiles. I wish I had the courage to go live with a family in their humble abodes to really see what is like to live their way. So far no enough courage. Have a Merry Christmas ! Love from the Hintons
So happy to see you settled in! It looks amazing.
Wanted to let you know that Kaci got her mission call to Richmond Virginia
Leaves end of Feb. Love you! Merry Christmas.
Well 6 weeks came and I tried to cut my hair. Okay on the top and sides, but the back,……..I am not pokey anymore. And I don’t know why but it doesn’t look white, but more grey here. Wish you could come and fix me up……Excited to hear about Kaci’s mission call! She will love it. We did have some friends in Richmond the Lindsays, but that was a long time ago. This has been an amazing experience, not without challenges. We are loving it though and can you imagine us living in a studio with the king size bed right in the middle of the room. I told our Bishop in Orem we will be ready to teach the marriage class when we return ! Food is a challenge here. Lots of diarrhea….you would think I would lose weight. I guess too many bananas and pineapple ! Sure love you girl and miss our q 6 week mental health session. You are a very special person and I miss you ! Love Sister Hinton
Oh I need you. Can’t you come give a quick cut cut ? I cut it last and the front and sides are okay, but I can’t do the back. I will have to find someone SOON. So happy to hear about Kaci. We are enjoying our mission much better now. At first it was just TOO HOT. My cheeks were red and it was really miserable. We have adjusted now and it is not so bad and when this hot rainy season gets over they say it is beautiful and bawmy for the rest of the year. Miss you and our great talks. We go to the island of Tanna on the 31st for 2 days and I know I will have much to share. One store on the island, about half the size of a convenience mart, but of course the food inside is nothing like it. Sardines, mackeral canned, some strange crackers. Not much tastes the same here. Even the veg don’t taste the same. The fruit thank goodness is wonderful! Well luvem yu ! Keep up your mission of helping people. You are very special to me ! Sister Michele Hinton
You both look so happy! The living conditions sound about the same as here, but without the traffic. There are people everywhere and sometimes it feels suffocating. Our work is going really well also, and we are so happy to have a lot to do. Hope you had a happy Christmas even though it didn’t feel like Christmas. It even snowed in Hurricane.
Oh, I forgot – I know what you mean about the blog. And we thought it would be so easy and convenient. The spam is almost not worth having it – plus the fact that it takes a computer expert to use it the way you would like.
I sure agree with you here. I keep trying. The only thing that keeps me going is that I want to publish a book when we get home of our experiences.
Thank you for the pluggin information. It was really getting ridiculous ! I wonder if Lesi could get on my site and fix that big boo boo I did. I put the message in the first area where you just make a title and it has made my blog quite ugly. How did the Success training workshop turn out. We had an interesting meeting on Monday. We usually don’t go to the Mission meeting with the mission president. I came away in wonderment. He talked about the Savior and how it wasn’t comfortable on the cross. He told us he did not want us to be comfortable. He told us that we were not here to be loved. He said we should not be socializing and hanging out. He told his staff that the couples would not always be on this island. Holy Cow! We felt so bad at his feelings. He did say, but for goodness sakes help each other! We don’t know quite what to think. Wish we could just have time to sit down with each other and talk. It is hard to explain things over the wire and it takes too much typing.
Hope things are going well for you. We are getting a PEF couple on Feb 2. An auditor the 28th of this month.
We didn’t feel Christmas either, except it was fun to feed the missionaries two days in a row. We had decided for a present to do the helicopter ride for $99.00 each, but then one of the couples said you will see it all when you take the little planes to some of the outer islands. So we didn’t even give each other a gift.
I guess it is the coldest winter in 20 years. My Mom said “I thought you said winters were not that bad here!” And can you imagine she has been in Arizona for the winter for the last 24 years. We have been doing face time with our kids. Do you have a number that works for facetime. We love it. Glad we don’t have to hear the news everyday about Obama and the ruin he is doing.
Take care….stay healthy and we hope to keep in touch.
Love, E/S Hinton
So happy to see that the food is the same. I may even develop a taste for papaya and mango before we leave. You haven’t posted for a while so I assume you are getting as busy as we are. Bahala na! Mahal kita.
I didn’t see your reply to my comment until I closed it so now I have to comment some more. Wow! It sounds like your Mission President was feeling like his missionaries weren’t working hard enough. Ouch! I’m kind of glad that our boss is someone else, because I have a feeling our Mission President would be the same. As it is, we are left pretty much on our own. We probably work harder that way anyway.
We don’t normally exchange gifts anyway, so it was great, but we received a package this week from the Relief Society (for Christmas) which thrilled us no end. Lots and lots of little handy items plus tons of candy which we do not need. I can’t ride a bike, so we spent the money instead, on a manual tread mill. I’ve gained back 15 pounds and want to get it off. The candy went to the Center for treats along with the 25 pounds of it that Ki’s friend from work sent. My sister-in-law is sending Sees. That, I will eat. Fruit is wonderful, but Sees is better.
Oh, and I will try to fix your boo boo (if I saved your log in info) – Lisi has been sick for weeks and then will be playing catch up for a while. I will resort to her if I can’t fix it.
Done. Is that better?
Hello down there!!! i keep checking the blog for newZ and i havent seen anything for some time??? How are things going? Are you getting Elder Steadmans emails i forward?? The kids are missing you and are all well…Thanks for sending facebook note to Riley it made her smile!!! Heidi and I are leaving in 3 weeks to go to the holy land with Wayne Brickey and sure wish you were with….Next time for sure!!!
we will get it all figured out..
Love you and miss you.
weather here has been rough yesterday freezing rain was no fun but all here are safe and warm….when we are inside!!!