Livin' in a post-colonial paradise

Hafa Adia!  We continue to help people with their family history here on Guam. On Tuesday night we met with the Young Women and a stray Scout who came in to index and work on their trees.  They are planning a trip to the Manila temple in August and are each supposed to take at least one family name. The darling girl in the foreground is one of our Family History Consultants.

Barrigada youth doing Family History!

Thursday we helped Daisy, a schoolteacher from Palau whose family also included folks from Korea and Japan, prepare family names to take to the temple.  She had not submitted a name since FamilySearch came online.  Her reaction, "This could be addicting.  Now I know what I am going to do when school is out."  She told me about her Korean-born grandfather who disappeared when the U.S. took back Palau in 1944. The Laanans also came into the Family History Center.  They are Chomorro with a dash of Filipino. Grant worked with Roberto and I worked with Rose and I think we got them hooked too. I loved hearing Rose talk about her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as we found them in the 1920, 1930 and 1940 census all living together in the village of Agat. The common denominator for all these people, of course, is a love for their families and a desire to know more about them and to provide saving ordinances for them.

Friday evening we drove down south to the village of  Talafofo to the Banana Festival.  It was on small, laid back and friendly and held right on beautiful Ipan beach.  There were all sorts of interesting kinds of  bananas like these "praying bananas" below.  

Friday I participated as a judge in History Day at the University of Guam.  The topic was "Rights and Responsibilities" and I came away with a new appreciation for the ambiguous and sometimes frustrating position of Guam as an unincorporated territory of the U.S. and one of seventeen Non-Self Governing Territories identified by the Special Committee on Decolonization of  the UN.  Its history and political status is dictated by its strategic position in the Asia Pacific.  It is also something of a cultural crossroads where an amazingly diverse mix of people coexist quite happily.  That is something that makes our assignment here so fun.

One of the great people we work alongside at the Service Center is Susan Alec from the Marshall Islands.  Here she is with her youngest daughter. Susan coordinates the translation services for the Church in the various languages of Micronesia.  For the past month she has been working long hours to assign, receive back and review translations for the Women's Conference and General Conference. Today in the Barrigada Stake Center we saw the fruits of her labors.  While we watched the rebroadcast of Conference in English it was also being shown elsewhere in the building in Chuukese, Marshallese, and Pohnpeian.  She also coordinated Yapeese and Kosraen translations.  The Chuukese were the largest group and gathered in the Primary Room, some in chairs and some on the floor.  All the women were dressed in their colorful loose fitting dresses (like muumuus).  After the morning session we had a potluck.

 

You can't see it, but behind the cooler is a long table with lots of island food.

Here is a photo of my plate: cooked banana, fried fish, and something called "red rice."  I passed up the Spam Soup and the hot dogs and I didn't eat my fish head.  Susan, however, ate all of her fish except the bones including the eyes! 

And finally, below are two of our lovely Samoan Sister Missionaries and a member of the Barrigada Ward.

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