Pretty scenery

Whew!  "And in the beginning......" was my first post.  I lost it once and I was afraid I would lose it again after working on it for "quite" a long time. You ole' timers had told me it takes a while for photos to load and that is very true.  It is late but I wanted to post a picture of the view from that little Palikir Chapel's front door.

You can barely see the home through the trees and bushes.  This is the home of the lady that owns the church building in Palikir.  She is  a very cute little grandmother.  Her name is Cena and she is a non-member.  She sent over some warm Pohnpeian coconut bread to seminary last week.  Her daughter is the branch president's wife and they are usually at seminary.  We took her some banana bread this week.  Her home is traditional with open sides.  It is very clean and inviting.  She has a nice sewing machine in one corner!  They have pineapple planted near their home.  Everything is neat and in place in the yard.  Chickens are contentedly walking in the bright sunlight scratching up food and pecking.  I love it there.

A banana tree in front of the Uh Branch where we teach on Monday afternoon.  These are students at Uh.

This is their church building.  It is a small building.  It has a small branch president's office, a room about the size of our living room for a chapel/multi-purpose room, and two small classrooms.  The ground is always soggy there.  I have never seen it dried out enough not to fill your shoes with muddy water when you step on it.  I guess it is the custom or just practicality to take off your shoes before entering the churches for activities.  It rains so much it keeps the floors from being wet and muddy.  Most of the people wear plastic  flip flops and just slip them off.  I have always liked to go barefoot so I like that custom.  We wear our shoes for church on Sunday in Kolonia.  We have cement sidewalks and parking lot so we do not have the mud that some of the smaller branch buildings have.

The road leading to the Uh Branch.

And in the begining. . . .

We entered the Mission Training Center April 18, 2011.  It was a wonderful experience.  We had great teachers and  enjoyed the group of missionary couples in our training group.  We left the MTC on Friday, April 29th and arrived in Guam just after midnight, Sunday,  May 1st.  President Dowdle was off island and got back on Wednesday.  We had an orientation meeting with Pres. and Sister Dowdle Thursday at the mission home.  The house is unique.  It used to be a disco.  The kitchen is large and has an adjoining large family room that was the dance floor for the disco.  The Dowdle's are warm, friendly, and spiritual people.  They made us feel welcome and needed.  They are from Salt Lake City.  We left Guam Friday morning, May 6th.

Our arrival in Pohnpei, May 6th. Our flight was supposed to be 3 to 4 hours but the plane had a problem and had to turn around after about 45 minutes to an hour out.  We boarded a new plane in Guam and arrived around 4:30 p.m.---with a little luggage.

  This is our first adventure in Pohnpei--the second day we were there.  The Holloway's, the  missionary couple we are replacing, and Sam and Ben Bailey, took us on a hike through a slippery, lush, jungle area to   Lehn Paipohn waterfall. It is a beautiful spot.  We waded a creek and a small river to get there.  We were so hot we waded into the clear cool river near the waterfall to cool off.  Left to right-Elder Kjar, Sister Kjar, Ben, Sam, and Sister Holloway
                                                 
                                                  We live at Yvonne's Apartments & Motel.                                 
                                                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                
                                                                                



Living room




Kitchen--Notice our water bottles.  We love the water dispenser with ice cold filtered water.  It is $2.00 for a 5 gallon bottle delivered.  We have 5 delivered at a time.  We call and they are here usually within 5 minutes.



Bedroom



Office

Bathroom

In the office --one of our keyboards.  We are trying to figure out a schedule to teach keyboarding.  I am actually trying to figure out how to teach keyboarding!

Jackson Makaya is a 20 year old young man Elder Kjar helped get to his dental and physical exams for his mission.  He is holding his mission application that just needs his branch president (his father) and the mission president to do their part.  It was a happy day!  He was also eathing oatmeal cookies!

President and Sister Dowdle's last visit to Pohnpei.  We and many faithful district  members are at the airport to say goodbye.  Dowdle's are going home June 29th.

We will be starting our 4th week of summer seminary/institute next week.  This is our Paliker Branch group. This church building is a house the church rents.  A family lives in one side of the building.