It has been a sad and historic week in the mission.

For those of you who asked, here is a small map of our mission (outlined in yellow).  Our mission headquarters is in Guam.  We have about 112 young missionaries and 17 senior missionaries. As some of 

                                              

you may have heard, we lost Elder Miller Toa, on Thursday in a tragic accident on the island of Chuuk (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865598575/LDS-missionary-from-Utah-dies-in-Micronesia.html). This definitely dampened the celebration surrounding the formation of the new stake on Pohnpei which took place today.  It is only the second stake in the whole mission.  

On Wednesday, Elder Scott D. Whiting was in Guam on his way to Pohnpei and held a great zone conference with us and on Thursday, Elder Marcus B. Nash, Assistant Executive church Historian and Richard E. Turley Assistant Church Historian came to visit. and Grant and I were able to sit in on a group discussion of the history of the Church in Guam.  The two from Salt Lake City interviewed ten Guam "old timers" who had many interesting stories about life here in the years after WWII and up to the dedication of their first building in 1970.  The stake was created here in 2010. We work in a brand new service center located behind the Stake Center.

Our office is at the far left end of the building.  Inside are two desks, one for each of us, and two computers for patrons.

         

We have been visiting all the wards in the Stake on Guam and starting to get involved in their family history activities.  Tuesday evening we drove down to the Talisay Ward and sat in on an Achievement Day lesson.

TodayWe attended two joint Young Men and Young Women's meetings and taught them how to index.  The membership of the stake is very diverse and all the islands of Micronesia are represented.  There are also many service men and their families who are stationed at the Naval and Air Force Bases on Guam. The variety of languages and cultures makes doing family history very interesting. 

Saturday we visited the Dededo market and saw all kinds of strange new fruits and vegetables.

On the way home we stopped at Gun Beach at Tumon.  Here is Grant next to a Japanese WWII costal gun.

And here I am on a beach walk near Gun Beach.

Finally, a friendly hermit crab.