Lunch Buddies

When I am at home, Bob will come home for lunch. But when I go into the mission office Bob and I eat our Peanut Butter and honey or sometimes jam sandwiches with other people eating theirs in the kitchen at the area office. We have really learned to love that time of the day. The people that we have been meeting are so very interesting. For example, the maintenance man is Raymond. We had the funnest conversation yesterday. He is a Tahitian. His family goes back in the church 5 generations to the time Orson Pratt started missionary work there. Remember the movie "Whale Rider"? This is a movie about his family (in a way). He told us stories of their old customs and about at least 3 instances of whale riding in his family. One was his auntie when she was 12 years old. She knew the chants and way to call the family whale. She was in a spat with her family and called the whale and rode to a different island where he grandmother was. They all saw her coming in. When she got there she got a beating because she abused her whale privileges. The other story was of a relative of his that was put on a prison island. He called the family whale to get him back to the regular island. Then the whale would accompany the ships they were in to watch out for them and keep them safe. He also told us about a dog that would bring 2 fish everyday to his old crippled auntie. Raymond didn't believe that the dog could fish, but then he learned how he was doing it. Raymond was on his mission and saw for himself how sometimes the fish get so close to the shore and are bubbling up. He jumped out of the boat and all these fish just beached themselves. He started throwing them from the shore into the boat until the boat was actually starting to sink. Then he and his companion rowed to their beach. The branch president got wind of what they were doing. They gave the fish to all the people in the village, then Raymond got the stiftest of lecture from this oldtimer. (He said that it was so serious that he almost was sent home.) He told him the he was abusing the special gift of the sea and they were only to take what they needed and to put the rest back into the sea. If they abused this gift and ever used it for profit then the seas would stop giving. Raymond says that is what has happened now. The seas are so short of the amount of fish to give anymore. Raymond should not have taken the fish but thrown them back into the ocean. Then our friend Allen who is Samoan started sharing his stories and some Maori stories with us. They are all distant cousins so their traditions are very similar. We always end up in fun and many times very spiritual conversations with the wonderful people in the lunch room. We also have a ping pong table in the room next to the kitchen. There is usually a "meeting" going on in there.

Oh, this week I went to my first zone conference. There were 3 zones there and wow, I really loved it. It was a whole day of teaching from the mission president, zone leaders, Sister Cook and the Assistants. It made me more grateful than ever that I am here and have these special opportunities. I spent one day this week going over past mission histories. My 2nd great uncle Wallace C. Castleton was one of the first mission secretary in 1896. In the 20s his son, W. Lowell Castleton was a mission secretary also. I saw pictures of my cousins Mark & Boyd Crookston and Myra Harline who served in this mission. Floyd Crookston served in the South NZ mission. I loved that day reading many old histories. Now I will make an indexed list of them.