Week 69

Travel, Training and Christmas

14 December 2025

What a great week! December is a wonderful time to serve a mission. The opportunities to talk about Christ are endless. Read Alma 7:10-11. Alma talks about Christmas and then Easter back-to-back. I am eternally grateful for the life of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

This is New Caledonia.  I suppose most of you may never have heard of the country.  It is North of Australia and South of Vanuatu, a small island in the middle of the Pacific.  It has a population of about 300,000 people and about 2,500 members.  A temple was announced in NC at April conference. Not easy to get to.  It took us 13 hours to get to the country from Auckland.  That included a 6 hour lay-over in Brisbane.   It is a French territory and so everyone speaks French, so this trip included more pointing and one word sentences than most.   

One additional item we learned is that cell phones don't work in NC without a portable wireless we purchased at the airport. Travel is interesting.

We rented a car to get around, only to find out they drive on the right side of the road so I had to do the brain switch AGAIN.  Launette started to count how many times I turned the windshield wipers on when I was trying to use the blinker.   

The purpose of our travel was to train the new communication director in NC. The budget allows for one personal visit when they are first called. That budget item has provided opportunity of us to travel a bit.

  A little more about New Caledonia: it is actually more developed than most of the island countries.  France has put a ton of money into the country.  They had a civil war about a year ago trying to free themselves from France. For six months they pulled the missionaries out.  The problem is basically solved and the missionaries are back in the country now, but we managed to wondering into a scary part of town trying to find the market.

This is Elder Guidi and his wife, Rachel. Lovely people!  He is the Area 70 for New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Solomon Islands.  We had a great 3 hour dinner with them and learned all about those countries and discussed the communication and public affairs needs.

I had to cook my own dinner???

OSHA would have a party at most of the worksites in the Pacific.   This is a team drilling holes to stop erosion on one of the motorways. Tyler would have volunteered for this project. :)

In case you needed to see the view of French water aerobics from our hotel balcony. It was so funny listening to the French animated male instructor.

I will accept any explanations of this cultural mix anyone would like to provide.   Evidence that almost every country has a China town.

Can you fry any more than this?  Reality, when you are homeless in the Pacific, the weather almost always accommodates.

Before our meetings, we took a water taxi to a beautiful island 10 minutes away.  In broken English/French, we convinced him to do a half day run to the island and back. One thing about the Pacific, almost everywhere you look, it looks like a postcard.

Farewell to our interns. We will miss them.

YSA RS white elephant Christmas party. So fun. It felt good to laugh with them.

I almost got stuck with a Lego floral dome! Phew! They thought Elder Shaw would love it. :)

Merry Christmas from our Zone. This is our senior missionary Christmas party.  Such great people. They released us as the leaders and called a new couple to take over our responsibilities. It was our real first wake-up call that the end is near. 

Nailed it!

This is Elder and Sister Wheatly. (Yes, he does have a beard and mustache. Go figure?) They serve as MLS missionaries in New Caledonia and they have definitely had some challenges and blessings.   Inspiring to hear everyone's story. We like to take senior missionaries out to dinner in the countries that we visit so we can learn about how the work is going and the challenges that they face. We have also found that they often just need a pick-me-up and a shoulder to cry on. It was great to be with them.

I'm sad that we didn't get a better picture of Sylverine Puluiuvea, our new trainee. We spent a few hours with her, and decided she is a keeper. She is 38 and is a great leader in the ward and stake. She has a strong desire to serve the Lord and do everything perfect. She organized 2 events during the month of December as a new CD, a interfaith dinner and a community music event with booths. I can't wait to see pictures. She is a go-get-her. (What ever that means.)

 

We are so grateful so many people who make such great sacrifices to serve the Lord. It is inspiring to see members, leaders, and missionaries being so dedicated to helping the Lords kingdom. Our new communication director in broken English told us about the hours she spends arranging inter-faith dinners and meeting new people, Elder Guidi talked about how he made arrangements with his employer to work extra hours during the week so he could catch a flight every Friday to fly to a Stake Conference, and the senior missionaries that survives a civil war and love the junior missionaries and members everyday.   So much good being done by so many people.  It is inspiring. We feel the Lord's love for them.

We love you and miss you.

Elder and Sister Shaw