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.