The Palau Plates: Visitors from afar

Palau is 7500 miles from our hometown of St. George, Utah, but Royce and Jill Jones (Sister Carter’s brother and sister-in-law) threw caution to the wind and jumped on FIVE airplanes to make their way to our beautiful isle. Though they made an unscheduled 18-hour stop in Guam, they finally arrived Friday night and stayed until 1:45 Monday morning. We were able to spend most of the time together showing them our area of service and introducing them to many of our Palauan branch members. Pure joy to have both families meet!

Royce and Jill enjoying the beach at Palau Pacific Resort

Sunset on Palau

Jill taking a break

Beautiful people and beautiful scenery

President and Sister Kesolei hosted all four of us on a boat trip to the Rock Islands. We enjoyed a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Jellyfish Lake, the Milky Way, and several other locations to see and appreciate the varied marine life of these islands—even a couple of reef sharks! Yikes! The sun was shining , clouds rolled across the sky, and the temperature was ideal for a day with family and friends. We caught a glimpse of a heavenly day.

Jenny and Teruo

Kali and Joanny

Elder Carter and Royce

Royce and Jill

Enjoying the Rock Islands

The Arch

Royce and Jill at the arch

Rebluud and Joanny at the arch

Lunch on a beach

Royce, Elder Carter, Rebluud enjoying lunch

Joanny and Jordan

On the boat

Rebluud and Joanny

Earlier in the week, President Kesolei had asked us to host the YSA (Young Single Adult) party on our patio since he thought we would have a group too large for his living room. It was a good thing we changed the location! Forty people showed up for spaghetti and karaoke. We had everything set up on the patio, the weather was perfect with a mild breeze to keep us comfortable, people started to show up ON TIME, so we started singing waiting for the food to arrive. We made it through five songs, and on the sixth, with everyone joining in the chorus and clapping their hands and getting into the spirit of the event, everything went totally black. We thought we’d blown a fuse, but our entire neighborhood was without power for an hour! We grabbed a few flashlights, gathered in a circle for a game, and kept the party momentum moving. The food finally arrived, and just as everyone was served, the power came back on, so karaoke continued for another hour or more. We decided the power outage made the event even more memorable for us and all the young single adults.

Melinda belting out a song

Relaxing

Choosing a song

Glad to be together

Teruo showing how it's done

Elder Murdoch relaxing after his performance

Enjoying dinner

Pres. Kesolei, Elder Dopp, Elder Fullmer

Diceman knows how to sing

Rodney taking a dinner break

Sister Masiasomua & Sister Purcell trying the spaghetti

Love being together

Pres. Kesolei trying

Eating in the dark

Dinner with no power

We are thrilled to report another baptism on Saturday night! Carnie Jean Frank was baptized by Teruo, his first since being ordained to the priesthood. Carnie had many of her friends and family there to support her decision, which made the ordinance even sweeter.

Carnie, family, and friends

A happy day!

While in Guam for the couples’ conference, President Mecham challenged all of us to read the Book of Mormon in six weeks while looking for passages about the Atonement, the Gathering of Israel, and any scriptures that could help us while teaching investigators or members of the branch. We are loving it! We’re a little over a week into the challenge and would invite all of you to join us. Our testimonies are strengthened every day as we read and pray about the messages of the Book of Mormon.

Celebrating Jill's birthday (on February 10th)

Happy Birthday Jill!

We’re grateful for Royce and Jill lending their support by traveling all this way to see us, and we’re grateful for all of our family members who faithfully write, Skype/Facetime, send packages, and pray for our welfare. We pray for each of you too! We love you.