Weekly Letter

This week has been a little crazy, 

We had a New-Caledonia-wide meeting on Tuesday to discuss some problems in the mission, and it was kinda nice to finally see the all the missionaries here in New Cal. 

The work here has definietly been picking up here, we taught around 20 lessons last week. We're working with a lot of inactive members, and finding and teaching old and new investigators.
We finally got one of our investigators to commit to baptism. Her name is Merveille, and she's completely ready, and even wants to serve a mission, but because she's still a minor, we can't baptize her without her parents' permission, and her Dad is still opposed. But we set a goal for the 19th of March, and we're going to pray like crazy that her Dad says yes. We've also started working with a part member family. We gave some of them a blessing for conjunctivitis, and we've been back once already. I think they have great potential to all come into the church. 

That just about does it for me. I may need to figure out how to get all the emails out that I want and need to, we only take about an hour to email usually. I'm still working on it.

See you all soon!

Elder Miner

Couple weeks ago we went out with some members for lunch on P-day. The non-misisonaries are the Hannah family from California. Brother Hannah served his mission here, and his wife served in Paris, and they decided to move here a few months ago, and they're all way cool. 

Pictures, pictures, and more pictures

Jaden's companion, Elder Tuarau.

One of the neighborhoods where they work.

Look, he found Elder Graham!
(Elder Graham was his MTC companion.)

View from his apartment.

Another Elder took this since it was on his side of the plane, but I had him send it to me.the sunset on our flight to New Caledonia

For the record, members brought us this.

Woot!

And zone conference

That explains it

So, it looks like nothing I sent last week went though, and I'm out of time now because I re-sent everything, so that'll have to hold you for now. Sorry, but suffice to say nothing earth-shattering happened this week. Enjoy the cold weather while I revel in the tropics!

Just kidding. Sort of.

Love you all,

Elder Miner

Picturessss

Some Vatu (currency of Vanuatu), and getting on the plane for New Caledonia.

More pictures

The view from the AP's house and my other apartment in Vanuatu.

PICTURES!

The first picture is me and Elder Doman the day I left.

The second is our group waiting in the Phoenix airport for the first of many flights.

The rain here is really quiet... Or, the weekly letter

So yeah, it really is though. Back in Utah you can always hear the rain on the ground, but here it is much more misty. It still kind of throws me off. It's been raining a lot here recently, probably because there are a couple cyclones right nearby, but neither of them is supposed to have much of an effect on New Caledonia except for some higher surf. We had a lot of wind and rain over the past few days though. The lightning and especially the thunder have been great. It's quieter here than back home, and the thunder just echoes and rolls across the hills here.

So, a few more things to know about New Caledonia and Noumea and then some stuff on the work. First off, Noumea really is like a city from the French Riveria just stuck in the middle of the South Pacific. There are some obvious differences, like the foliage, but the vehicles are all European, the sports are European and Pacific (mostly soccer and rugby), the roads are European (roundabouts, roundabouts everywhere) it's crazy. Weird thing about New Caledonia though, there are a lot of pine trees here. Yeah, pine trees. They're different from back home, but still pine trees. I hope I have some pictures to send, if not I'll take some. The cars here are interesting. Almost everyone drives either a small European car like a Peugot or a Renault, or a big Ford truck. Most of the missionaries have Toyota Hiluxes, which are small diesel pickups or Nissan Rogues, which fall under the "tiny European car" category.

So, before I got to Noumea I actually spent about 5 days in Vanuatu. I was able to pick up a surprising amount of Bislama, to the point where I could follow a lesson, give small thoughts, and even offer the first half of a prayer. Given that it's a simple language based primarily on French and English, that's not too surprising. A lot of people there also speak either French or English, and the Elders I was staying and working with would always let me know if they spoke French so I could practice. Vanuatu is beautiful, but you can tell that it still hasn't recovered from the cyclones it has endured, which is sad, but the culture and the people there are beautiful and wonderful. I think I like New Caledonia better, but that's understandable given my mission call.

So, the work. I don't remember if I mentioned that I'm on foot, but I am. I actually kind of enjoy that, it makes it easier to talk to people, and people here are almost always willing to stop and chat. Our area is probably about 4 miles across, but it's really not that bad. Plus someday I'll have cool worn-out shoes as a souvenir. :) We have three main investigators right now. The first is Robert, an older gentleman whose wife is a inactive member. He believes the church is true, but I think he's afraid to leave his Protestant congregation. The next is Merveille. She's a sixteen year old girl whose been taught all the lessons and loves the Church and keeps all her commitments, but her parents don't want her to be baptized, so we're trying to talk to them. Finally we have Henri, a fairly new investigator who we've had three great lessons with, but he works on Sundays so we're trying to figure out a way to get him to church. There are a few others, but those are the ones we see regularly right now.

There's definetly a lot of work to be done here, we just have to go get it done. I really love being a missionary, it's tough, really tough, but wonderful.

See you on the flip side,

Elder Miner 

Missionary Mail Bonanza

Last week, we didn't receive an email from Elder Miner and we couldn't figure out why not. Apparently, he did write, the email just didn't come through. So we have enjoyed the many letters and photos he resent tonight.

All clear

The weather agency said Cyclone Winston was moving south-east of Vanuatu and Cyclone Tatitana would pass west of New Caledonia.

All clear for Vanuatu as Winston sets sights on Fiji

Updated at 7:32 pm on 13 February 2016

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Vanuatu's southern Tafea province has been given the all clear as tropical cyclone Winston moves away from the country, but it now looks like it will curve back up towards Fiji.

The category four cyclone, with winds of close to 165 kilometres an hour at its centre, was moving south-southeast to the west of the islands of Tanna, Futuna, Erromango, and Aneityum on Saturday. In its final special weather bulletin, the Vanuatu Meteorological Service said winds as strong as 75 kilometres an hour on these islands were likely to weaken.

However, very rough seas and rains heavy enough to cause flooding could still be expected well into Saturday night.

Winston was expected to move south towards New Zealand on Saturday night, before moving to the east and back north towards southern Fiji by Sunday afternoon.

It could still affect Fiji or Tonga late on Monday or Tuesday while still a category three, New Zealand's Metservice said.

Fiji's Meteorological Service on Saturday issued a strong wind warning for areas of Yasawa and the Mamanuca Group, and a flood warning was issued for low lying areas along the Rakiraki river, including Rakiraki town.

Meanwhile, cyclone Tatiana weakened to a category one as it moved south through the Coral Sea, to the west of New Caledonia.

The fact that I'm white confuses babies, or; the weekly email

Hey everyone, 

About that subect line... It's hilariously true, and somewhat entertaining for me. Anyway, today will be my attempt to lay out a lot more about what life is like here, and then maybe a little about what I've been up to.

First off, I've already talked about my companion, so that's been covered. Elder Tuarau and I have been assigned to the Ducos Ward. We're on foot and we serve the Tindu, N'du, Kaméré, and Logicoop neighborhoods. We also live in Logicoop, which is fairly central to our area, so it's nice. We're in the city of Noumea (I think) and the area we serve is like a small suburb, but it's all one big city. The ward is kind of small compared to some of the other wards here in the stake, so that's probably why it has 4 missionaries. Our area is actually new, but it's kind of like an area within an area, and the other two Elders in our ward, Elders Similai and Stubbs know the area and showed us around. I'm still kind of learning my way around, but my companion seems to know, so we're fine.

We already have a good number of investigators, and the majority of the people that we teach here are islanders of some kind, usually Walesian, Futunian, or Tahitian, with a few Kanaky (native New Caledonians) or Ni-Van's thrown in. Everyone here is super nice, we say "bonjour" to everyone we pass by and they always say hi back. Going  door to door here is bascially impossible since everyone has a gate so you have to stand outside and yell at them and no one really ever comes out unless they're expecting you, but street contacting is really easy because people are always willing to talk if you just put forth the effort. We've had a lot of success just talking to people at the bus stops and on the street. 

I really do love the islands. It's pretty hot almost all the time, but I seem to be handling it better than my companion ironically. I've been sunburned a couple times, but not bad. I love when it rains here; although it's a little weird because the rain is super quiet here not loud like at home. It's truly gorgeous here. I can't wait to be able to send some pictures home (hopefully Monday). The view from our apartment is amazing, and I can see the ocean from just about everywhere. I hope I can maybe bring some hibiscus flowers home too. It's a little sad because there's a lot of graffitti and litter around, but the natural beauty is just absolutley stunning.
The French is difficult to say the least. There's a lot of different accents that get tossed around, and understanding is probably the hardest thing, but I've definitely already improved since I got here, and my ability to speak has improved too. I can say a lot of things to people, it's just understanding what they say back that I'm working on. That's the advantage of a native speaking companion I guess, although it does make things difficult sometimes.

The food here is well, hard to explain I guess. New Caledonia is really a study of blended culture. We eat a LOT of rice and a LOT of chicken, usually together. I've also been fed Tahitian food by members, and we ate out at a Chinese place for zone conference on Monday, so there's basically everything islander, French, and Chinese, with a little American thrown in for fun. Also baguettes. Always baguettes. Always. 

It really is fantastic out here. Some things are harder than I expected, but I pray a lot and I'm doing great. I hope I was able to answer a lot of questions about life out here, and I'll do my best in the coming weeks to keep answering questions and providing insights in to the life of an island missionary. 

See you all soon,

Elder Miner

Finally!

Super Big Apologies

So, life is a little crazy over here, that's for sure.

So, I wasn't able to have a P-day on Monday because we had zone conference that day andTuesday, and then we've had too many appointments over the past two days to try and take a P-day, so I finally get a smallish one today. 

Also, I know before I would usually respond to all your emails and then write a weekly email and then write to other people, but now, and especially while I'm getting used to these keyboards, I'm going to just write the weekly email first to try and answer everyone's questions and then respond to you all if I have time. Please keep writing me though, even if I don't reply, I love hearing from everyone at home. Hopefully once I get better on these keyboards I'll be able to reply to everyone at home again, but until then I hope this works for y'all.

Cheers!

Heat warnings in New Caledonia

Updated at 11:08 am on 9 February 2016

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Health authorities in New Caledonia have warned about risks posed by record high temperatures.

Official readings have seen temperatures in Ouvea rise to above 35 degrees, which is the hottest ever measured there.

People who are ill as well as the old and small children are advised to stay in cool places and keep drinking lots of fluids.

Sport activities are to be restricted to the early morning or the end of the day.

In nearby Wallis and Futuna, the month of January was the hottest and driest since records began in 1971.

In Futuna, 35.8 degrees was measured on 10 January.

Still no letter

So, we've started coming up with different reason we haven't heard from Elder Miner. I suggested that maybe he had some sort of mission conference that was held over his p-day so he couldn't write. Then I started wondering, being French, if they have some sort of celebration similar to Mardi Gras and they couldn't go out to an internet cafe to write letters. Then, I started looking at the news online to see if there was something happening in the country that prevented him from writing. I found this:

A category one tropical cyclone has formed to the east of Vanuatu and is moving in a south south-easterly direction.

Cyclone Winston is not posing any threats to islands in the region at this point, but winds near its centre are expected to reach about 83 kilometres an hour by midnight tonight.

It is forecast to intensify tomorrow as it moves further south east between Vanuatu and Fiji.

The system has brought heavy rain to Fiji's main island of Viti Levu, with a flood warning in place for the Rakiraki area.

Radio Silence

So we didn't get a weekly email Sunday night. Jaden has always been so good at writing. We're not sure what's going on. Hopefully he's OK.

Noumea

Here's some descriptions of Noumea that I found online:

"Nouméa is the capital of the South Pacific archipelago and French territory New Caledonia. Located on the main island, Grand Terre, it's known for its beaches and its blend of French and native Kanak influences."

" It is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian (Wallisians, Futunians, Tahitians), Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations as well as many Melanesians, Ni-Vanuatu and Kanaks that work in one of the South Pacific's most industrialized cities. It lies on a protected deep water harbour which serves as the chief port of New Caledonia".

"A little piece of France in the Pacific! With its French Riviera atmosphere and its luxury boutiques, Noumea deserves this title without a doubt. However, this sprawling city has a thousand other facets that make it the capital of the Pacific, with mixed cultural influences. Founded in 1860, Noumea blends together heritage, entertainment and leisure activities."

It is summer with temperatures in the 90's with high humidity and rain.

First Area

This map gives you some idea of where Jaden's first area is.