Special Visitors from Tonga and Samoa

On Monday June, 18th two special visitors arrived at Moroni High School.  Folau Kioa, who is the Assistant Manager of Church Schools in the Pacific arrived to spend a week observing classes and other aspects of Moroni High.  He served as Liahona Middle School principal for several years until he received this new assignment.

The other guest was Leo Leauahae, the principal of the Church College (high school) in Pesega, Samoa.  He was visiting Moroni High School to learn more about how Form 7 works.  In Samoa, currently their is no form 7 for students, but there are several colleges, universities, and post secondary education for students.  They are looking at form 7 as an intermediate step between high school graduation and the mission field.

It was Folau and Leo's first visit to Kiribati,  I think they both went away with a very favorable impression of Moroni High School and the students and staff.  They both spoke Monday evening to the dorm students at Family Home Evening, and Folau spoke to the entire student body at a special assembly on Wednesday.  It was a very inspiring message and the students loved his humor and the message he had for them.

On Monday, we went to lunch with Folau, Leo, Lita, Rosila, Mary, Janis and I at a Japanese restaurant the food was very good.  On Tuesday we again went to supper with the same group and President Tune who went to Liahona High School with Folau when they were both students there.  It was fun listening to their conversation.

Wednesday evening the school and service center had a party for the honored guests which also included Derek who was filling in at the service center for a week.  Again students performed their traditional dance and placed garlands on the honored guests head.  Other students also performed and then we had a pot luck supper with Moroni High faculty and guests from the service center.  It was another very enjoyable evening of dancing, entertainment and good food.

Special guests Folau on the left and Leo on the right wearing the traditional floral garlands

Folau is a great educator in the Pacific with a great sense of humor and great teaching skills

Other honored guest are the local stake presidents.  President Tune and President Baabo Maamau and their spouses.  Other church employees and Moroni faculty were also in attendance

The young ladies from Moroni performed two dances and then placed their floral garlands on the head of the honored guests

Derek is a Filipino living in New Zealand who works for the Church, he was also an honored guest

After the students performed Leo did a Samoan dance which the audience really appreciated

The students sitting down sang and performed some dances also which was very entertaining

We did get some good video of the entertainment, but still haven't figured out how to put it on the blog

President Tune and church employees from Moroni and the service center sang some of the songs they sang at the AKAS school when students left to go abroad.

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On Sunday we the missionary couples had a pot luck luncheon at the Ogborns with President and Sister Shaw.  So we haven't had to do a lot of cooking this week. 

A Few Health Issues

Since my birthday (turning 69) I have been having a few health issues battling a bacterial infection.  I never should have let my body know that it was almost 70 because it has been acting weird.

I went to the local hospital to have an ultra sound, which was all by itself an interesting experience.  but the nurse was able to email the results back to SLC to be analyzed.  I have been taking medication and it appears it is slowly getting better.  Sister Bonnemort (the mission nurse) has sent a follow up email (two week checkup) for the doctors to evaluate.  She indicates I may have to go somewhere with better ultra sound equipment.

Hopefully, they will give me the green light to get back to work full time.  We continue to teach the classes on Tuesday and Thursdays and the Gospel Doctrine lesson on Sundays.  There have been several days where I was told to have complete bed rest, so things were going stir crazy for about a week.