The Pacific Post

 Week 44 Church Reputation Management 15 June 2025 Hello Everyone. Happy Father's Day to all of the dads. Kelly and I love you and appreciate your service, sacrifice, and dedication.  This is an old picture (I forgot to take a picture during one of our many meetings this week) but is shows most everyone on our Public Affairs team for the Pacific.  There are new interns and one additional full-time employee not shown.  If there is a public affairs issue or event happening in the Pacific, this is the group to blame or thank.   We have often been asked what we do for our mission.  Public Affairs and Communication handles the inter-faith, political, media, and community relationships and events. We also provide all of the content (articles, stories, pictures and videos) for the Pacific Church Newsroom and also the Pacific Facebook Newsroom Group. We train, support, and coordinate all the national and coordinating council communication directors. We are als...

 Week 43 CPD (Comm/Publishing Department) Seminar 8 June 2025 We hope you all are enjoying some great summer activities and weather. I love June; having the children home from school, long summer evenings in the yard, family reunions, vacations, and a more relaxed schedule.  This week we spent the entire week with our department (24 people) up North at the Bay of Islands (about 3 hours away) in a seminar for training and planning. Our department has grown significantly in the last six month. Twelve out of the 24 are new hires and so with such a large Communications and Public Affairs group we needed to get everyone on the same page with processes, systems, assignments, coordination and planning. They are great people and we love being with them and learning from their talents and commitment to bringing the Church out of obscurity in the Pacific. Interesting fact, in the last year almost every single trackable statistic is up in the Pacific: baptisms, sacrament meeting attendan...

 Week 42 District Growth and Winter's Coming 1 June 2025 This week was a full in-office week and that hasn't happened in awhile. It was nice to catch up on some items we have been putting off for awhile. We are headed out of the office again this coming week for a conference with our entire department.   The other change is that the weather has changed. We put an extra blanket on our bed and are wearing a jacket everywhere we go now. We are grateful that it has been such beautiful weather. We are preparing for the rainy season. This is a follow-up to the BYU Women's soccer team visit. The team left about 50 soccer balls and some soccer cleats for the refugee center and we finally got around to delivering the donation. They were very thankful for the gifts and appreciated their time with the team. This is John and Linda Leach. They serve in the Area Office with us and are wonderful people. They are from Las Vegas and he serves in the legal office and she is area mental hea...

 Week 41 Visiting Vanuatu With Elder Bednar 25 May 2025 Meet the "Happiest People on Earth", the people of Vanuatu. I don't know who ran that poll but I would have to agree with them. They are kind, loving, trusting, friendly, and faithful. We made instant friend as we worked along side them this week. Yesterday we were asked why they are so happy. I don't know but, I think it's because they are basically untouched or uninfluenced by the world. They have so little but they don't know any other way of living. They don't have fast food chains, big department stores, and little internet access. They buy everything from Ma & Pa shops. They are very modest in their "island dress" even though it was the hottest place I have ever been. (I've been in 122 in Mesa but this humidity made it feel hotter.)  We were on assignment with Elder Bednar's visit to the Islands. He stopped at Vanuatu for 3 days and we stayed an extra day visiting and train...

 Week 40 Halfway 18 May 2025 It is true, we are halfway. This last week we hit our halfway point of the mission. Nine months has come and gone and another nine months is ahead of us. If the next nine months has as many wonderful, adventurous, and growing experiences as the first nine months then it should be exciting.    This is a very typical public affairs lunch. The individual next to Launette is Elana and she is the national relationship manager for UNICEF in New Zealand. We have developed a wonderful relationship with the entire UNICEF team. The Church partners with UNICEF on a number of humanitarian project in the Pacific. She is a wonderful person with a great heart and really wants to help children in need.  FYI, the two young people on the left are the two interns from BYU that just arrived. This is a typical national communication council meeting. The people at this table sit on the National Communication Council for New Zealand. There are media specialists...

 Week 39 BYU Soccer Visits NZ as Goodwill Ambassadors 11 May 2025    It's going to be a challenge describing the last 2 weeks, hosting the BYU women's soccer team in New Zealand. This event will certainly be a highlight of our mission. It was inspiring, uplifting, spiritual, fun, and eternal friendships were formed.  It has taken months of planning and coordinating to get all of the logistics, reservations, meals, devotionals, government meetings, and travel arrangements worked out. We must recognized the Lord and the tender mercies we experienced on the tour. It was almost a perfect experience of sharing love and goodwill. A traditional "lolly lei" welcome at the airport 6:00am Monday morning. No rest for the weary, after checking into the hotel, they ferried to Devonport and hiked up Mt. Victoria for a bird's eye view of Auckland. The second stop on this tour as "Goodwill Ambassadors" was the Refugee Replacement Center.  This is where the government he...