April 19

Scott spent the morning up at the temple helping with two big groups who were coming to do baptisms and endowments.  Pres. Davis asked him if we could get YSAs to help in the baptistry. Two RMs came to help.  He spent his morning being the baptism witness and doing confirmations.  The poor RM's baptized for one hour in freezing water--the temple's water heater was broken.  Scott loves serving in the temple and we are grateful that President Davis would ask for our help.

I went to the institute to continue moving in which included putting the library books back onto the newly renovated shelves.  It was so delightful to organize the books into groups: fiction, young adult, reference, general, and biography.  I love books.  I love the excitement that comes from opening a book and looking forward to learning its truths.  Then I took lots of pictures of our new office and of the library.  I finally got down to studying at around 11:30 a.m.

OUR OFFICE IN THE INSTITUTE

When one walks in the door of our office
my desk is what one's sees.
It is at the back of the room in the left corner.

To the right of my desk past the window
is this rolling bookcase which we have
filled with materials, books we need
for lessons.

                                   

Right again past another window
is Scott's desk.  You can see part of
the door on the right.

Right again behind the door is our filing cabinet.
You can also see the keyboards between the
door and the wall.
We have to keep the music stand in our
office.  They are pricey and most wards
do not have one.

THE INSTITUTE KITCHEN
is where we put the books sent to us from Kristin's ward,
and for our own home ward.                                                    

The closet where we keep the library

We have almost four hundred volumes
in this little library.  The young adults are so
excited to have them.  Maria, and Mereoni have
checked a new book out each week since we
opened the library.  Maria loved the first book she
read so much that she did not want to check it
back in.  I assured her that when she wanted to read it again, she could check it out again.

The people who donated these books have no idea

Closet wall in the kitchen.
Inside the middle closet is the
library.

what a great service they have rendered.

Cooking area opposite the closets

The stove will not hold even a very small cookie sheet.  The
refrigerator looks big, but is is just 20 inches wide and
just under 5 feet high.




THE INSTITUTE LOUNGE
is between our office and the kitchen. I worried at first that everyone would think we were a bar, but in Fiji no bar is called a lounge.  Whew!

Vica is sitting in one lounge chair reading
one of the books from our library.
She is an avid reader.

This is our missionary map of
all the YSAs who have gone on missions
since we arrived.

Scott taking advantage of the couch in the lounge.
The door you see is our office door.

Long distance lounge looking into our office

Long distance lounge, the door
goes into the classroom.

The bulletin board is covered with
a sulu I found at the flea market.
It holds wedding announcements (only one so far)
and pictures the missionaries send us.

Entertainment center in lounge.
The left door goes to the kitchen
The right door goes to the Jackson's Office
and to the back door of the Institute.

Although dark, you can see from the lounge into the
pool room and the back door of the classroom.
We keep the front door locked because it is the middle of
the classroom                                                                            

The pool table is definitely the drawing
card for the institute at first.  Every Fijian
loves to play pool and plays well.  We
let the YSAs play before class and after
class if they want to and they do.



Scott went swimming at around 5:30, because he back was hurting him.  While he was gone, I fixed dinner which included baking a loaf of bread.  When it came out of the oven it looked so gorgeous.  There is nothing better than warm bread.  I cut Scott a slice then cut myself one.  My slice had a tiny dot of raw dough on it, so I looked at the loaf and there was a big hole which contained a whole bunch of raw dough.  What?  I have never had that happen before.  I just rebaked it for a while.  It wasn't so good after the second baking.  Never had that happen before.