Nov 26, 2019 Hamilton Gardens and COME AND SEE

Did you know there are people who NEVER use medicine?   1/3 of our missionaries come from surrounding Islands!
We have so many islander missionaries.   I've been asked to treat them with pressure point massage for headaches, tree leaves for boils, and all kinds of other foreign practices.   But using medication is just as foreign to them.   I have an Elder with a pretty bad infection.   He just can't grasp taking the pill every 8 hours.   If he forgets, then he thinks, I'll just wait and take the next scheduled one.   It will be a miracle to get this infection out of him!

Linda is pretty tired this week.   Being on call 24/7 and never getting it out of my head is a new challenge.  I think I need to trade someone and be on call 1/2 time.   We are short nurses in the mission field, and I see it is more demanding than I anticipated. 

We love these islander missionaries.  They have a love of simple pleasures of life.   Fishing, climbing trees to get coconut and pineapples and fruit, and walking everywhere are their normal daily activities.   One sweet sister here is learning to ride a bike for the first time.  She has so many knee scrapes from tumbling.   She said they had bikes on her island, but she was always scared to use one and now she's a missionary and has to learn!   I love her!   Our daily challenges are all so different.

We visited Hamilton Gardens again on Pday.   It's a beautiful garden full of treasures and changing flora.  75% of the flora on this Island are only found in NZ.   Everyday is a new surprise.  There are trees budding out covered in red that they call Christmas trees, because they bloom this time of year.   How did they know?   They are so profound, I'll never appreciate the poinsettia quite as much now.

I made Elder Despain stand by this Straw man in the "Kitchen garden" which was full of veggies and herbs.   He made me stand by this cute doorway that really is pretty cool.  If you come visit, I'll take you there!







There are so many cute things in this garden in addition to beautiful flora.  Doorways and hidden gems everywhere.   These are some of the ones we found and loved.:

We love the work of the Lord.  We love the inspiring stories from early missionaries here and current missionaries who are striving and struggling to serve him.   That is our desire.  We yearn to be more like him, live as he lived and invite others to Come and See, Come and Help, Come and Stay.

Love this address by Elder Bednar:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBzKAFF4Sdc