Swimming In The Jungle

Halo!!!

Another amazing week has zoomed by!!! Life out here is amazing!! It was so great to hear about life back home.  GO UTES! It sounds like Mase is growing up way too fast!! It is crazy that he will probably not even know me when i get back!! How is your knee?! Are you behaving and not doing anything too crazy on it?! I am glad you are still going to the rec center! But I bet it is super boring without me right?! ;) 

Sorry my email was so short and I wasn't online for too long last time, but I have a good excuse.  We missionaries have 1 truck per district on the island.  Last week the elders were coming to pick us sisters up and it was raining really hard.  There are no paved roads here so when it rains the roads are pretty crazy.  We waited and waited and they never came.  We rang and they told us that our truck was fastened to the road with 3 feet of red mud.  A sister we were with really wanted to email, so we jumped a truck to town and then had to hurry and send an email and then go to help the elders.  Let me tell you, snow is nothing compared to this red mud.  It was bad news bears.  The elders pushed and pushed and pulled, but it would not budge.  We had to leave it and walkabout and wait until the mud dried the next day.  Needless to say the small email was no blame of me.

Wow I hope I can answer all of your questions!  To answer a few about our living conditions. No you crazy, we do not have running water.  No one has running water, that is a white man thing.. haha.  We have a water line closeup to us that we fetch water from every morning. In the morning I wake up at 6:00 and go fetch water. I fill up two buckets for swimming (showering) and 1 teapot for breakfast and a big kettle for warm water.  My companion likes boiled water to swim with, but I think it takes too long, so I just swim with normal water.  The rule here is: If you can see through the water it is clean enough to drink.  Ours is usually pretty clear, so we just drink from it.  But the office came to inspect and gave us a pump to pump our water.  The trick with the water is that there is a limited supply for the village.  That  means when it is gone it is gone.  The other week we ran out of water so we had to fetch it from a well..that was an experience. 

Our toilet is a hole in the ground. haha.  But! there is a little shelter over it and a toilet seat now! BLESSING! When I got here people could see through the shelter so the nice elders came and built us a new shelter! I was so grateful because making eye contact with people while on the toilet can lead to awkward situations. Mother I cannot believe that you would think we have a truck, we walkabout only. 

I am used to the volcano! In fact, I WENT TO THE VOLCANO ON P DAY! I have such sweet pictures but these computers wont let me send! That is right..Sister brown went to the top of a rumbling volcano!!! I saw the LAVA! No lie, true talk only! The volcano is no biggie now, but the volcanic ash rain.. ughh when it rains volcanic ash it spoils everything! If we leave our clothes out on the line and it rains ash it stains our clothes and all of the sisters told me it burns their hair, but I think it doesn't do that to white man hair because I still have hair mostly.

I mostly wear flip flops everywhere because I try to fit in, but the other day something went into my foot and so now I wear my crocs to climb in.  I forgot all your questions, but basically I AM GREAT!! I LOVE IT HERE!!! I am so grateful to be in Tanna, and Whitesands is amazing!! I love the people, and I love the island life!  

The work is moving along so great!! We have already found full up priesthood leaders for our unit! We have found double digit new investigators that are so ready and willing to learn more about the gospel.  My companion and I are studying the "Church Admin" book every day to try to figure out how to set up the unit effectively.  I never thought I would be learning how to set up a church out here, but it's awesome! We are just working on establishing a center of strength in the area! We could not be more excited!!! The people are SO ready and willing to help! We have 8 people on date to be baptized, and plenty more progressing!! I am so grateful for these people. 

Funny story: So this week I got really, really sick.  At first I just felt crappy and so I got my flashlight and walked to the bathroom, I came back and still felt crappy so I went and got a dish and set it by my bed just in case.  All of the sudden I felt sweaty and I knew I was going to throw up...you know how much I love to throw up.. NOT! An hour later I started throwing up like crazy.  My companion was still asleep and I woke her up with my awful noises of throwing up..haha. She sits up and says, "Sister Brown, are you throwing up?" I was still throwing up and I was thinking.. (No Sister, I just felt like making these awful noises in the middle of the night...) I finish throwing up and she is still sitting in her bed and she asks AGAIN," Sister Brown, did you just throw up?" hahaha... are you serious? I looked at her, showed her the dish and said, "Yeah, I think I might have..." hahaha....to give her the benefit of the doubt, I think she was still half asleep...hahahaha.

I am so grateful for all of the support and love!!!! Stay strong, read the Book of Mormon, and find people that are ready to hear the good news of the gospel!!! Missionary work brings a joy that nothing else will ever bring into your life!! I love you all so much!! I hope you have an amazing couple of weeks!! :)

I love you!!!

Love, 

Sister Broan

P.S. About the Christmas package, wait to send it because I don't know if we are getting packages right now.  The ship only comes once and awhile to the island, so it may be at the mission office in Vila.  I will check when we fly out for zone conference. 

P.S.S. how are mike and E doing?!
P.S.S.S. Sorry for any mistakes, Bislama is spoiling my English.

The first pictures is me with one of my favorite tongan sisters sister Lutui and two elders serving here on top of the volcano.  That is not snow in the pictures, but vocanic ash! The other one is me standing above one of the areas we hike up and down to. 

Where I Live