Another Busy Week - November 6, 2011

It has been another busy week - teaching classes and helping two teachers make appointment to get their visas to attend BYU Hawaii in January.  They along with their families have to travel to the US embassy in Fiji to get their visas.  Because there were no openings in December for appointments they have to leave 5 weeks before they need to be in Hawaii.  Thus they will stay in Fiji in Temple housing for 3 weeks and with friends in Hawaii for two weeks before they can get into University housing.  It took two full days to enter online all the required visa information for each teacher, their spouses and children before they could even make an appointment in Fiji.  Because very few people have credit cards in Kiribati, I used mine to pay the fees and they reimbursed me.

We attended an early morning S&I training session at the other stake center and then went shopping in Betro.  I had to swerve to keep from hitting a truck coming head on in my lane of traffic.  As a result I broke the passenger side mirror on the new Church van.  So I guess we will be relegated to the old vans in the future.  

We bought some white material for our family home evening group to paint pillow head faces for their costumes at the Ward Thanksgiving/Christmas party later this month.  It will be held the day after high school graduation and is also a farewell party for the students who will be heading home.  Our FHE group are going to perform the 'hokey pokey' with pillow head costumes.  It should be fun for  them 

Students have been taking exams for the past several weeks.  The first exam is the Kiribati National Exam.   It is given in each subject area.  The exams determine if they can go the to next form (grade) level.  Then they take a Pacific area Church exam in all subjects which is more difficult.  So there is a whole lot of "high stakes" testing for students in October and November prior ending for the school year.  

We had movie night on Friday at the Ogborns and watched ‘17 Miracles’ about the Willie Martin handcart journey.  It  was a very good movie and we all shed a few tears.  I would highly recommend to movie, if you have not seen it.

Today is fast and testimony meeting, many young people got up and bore testimony, there was very little down time where someone was not waiting to testify.  Two Moroni students were baptized yesterday and confirmed today.  Allew converts to bare their testimonies at Sacrament meeting, it is amazing how well they do, even though they appear to be very nervous.

Last Sunday was the Primary program.  It is a very small primary in numbers, but they sang with gusto and performed the speaking parts very well.  The children have beautiful voices when they sing.  One young boy was going through puberty and his voice kept changing and he would blush and smile.  All the children and students love to smile with their beautiful white teeth.  It is a joy to watch and hear them speak and sing.  

When I was attending the University of Connecticut one of the doctoral students was majoring in ‘Gifted and Talented Education” (G&T).  UCONN is recognized as having one of the best G&T programs in the nation - with  Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli, as one of the most respected in the field.   This doctoral student, who is LDS, told me one day that after her extensive study in the field of gifted and talented education, that the Primary Program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the finest G&T program she has ever seen.  There is no question it is an inspired program from the Lord.