Its Mango season in Guam

Last weekend zone leaders and sister trainers from all over the mission came to Guam for a Mission Leadership Conference.  Sister McClellan, our mission nurse and resident artist, organized the missionaries to paint a bus stop near our apartment.

The theme:  Families Can Be Together Forever.

Monday night we presented a Family History Family Home Evening tot the Dededo Ward at the home of Bishop Necerio.  Grant tried a green mango, just the way the locals like them.  

The pot luck dinner was delicious and very Filipino.

Friday night we attended the Barrigada Ward New Member Activity where Bishop Davis talked about Family History and passed out My Family booklets for everyone to fill out.  This Chuukese family had a good time working together on theirs.

Saturday afternoon we attended the wedding of a couple in the Dededo Ward. Brother Delphin brought one of his famous sculpted watermelons.  As you can see, it was quite a creation.

Saturday evening we drove down to the village of Agat, pop. 5,000, to attend the Mango Festival. 

Here is a pensive vendor just hanging out with his mangos. Various locals proudly displayed their produce. 

                   

We watched the sunset over the Philippine Sea. It was a beautiful evening with amazing Pacific clouds.

We waked over to neighboring Nimitz Beach to catch the last of the sunset.  Almost 70 years ago, on July 21, two Marine Regimental Combat Teams and an Army Infantry Division landed here, one of five invasion points along the Agat coast.  Despite meeting stiff resistance from the Japanese they had taken the beach by the next morning and pressed on to eventually join the forces that had landed up the coast at Asan Beach.  The cost:  455 Marines dead and 536 wounded.  

After sweeping the Japanese from Agat, a refugee camp for the freed Chamorros was established there which at its peak, it held 18,000 people.  The only evidence of conflict today on this peaceful beach is an old Japanese coastal gun and some concrete pill boxes.