Ebeye 2nd Branch - my home branch for the year

The familiar font of the church’s logo is pasted on a plain white wooden building. The taxi driver, who picked me up the last mile of the 5 mile hike to church, has taken me to the right place. The driver refuses payment. Maybe one of the other 12 riders piled into the cab and back of his pickup truck has already paid him enough, or maybe this is his contribution to churchgoers on the Sabbath.

I walk to a shady spot by the front door to change my hiking sneakers for zoris, remove my sun-protect hat, and try to freshen up a bit before I enter the Lord’s house. I find my way to the Relief Society room, where the meeting is already underway. Naturally, my lone new white face in a sea of beautiful brown Marshallese faces causes a stir. The teacher asks a Marshallese woman to sit next to me to translate. They ask me to introduce myself. I say “Iokwe aolep” (hello, everyone). The translator gets up to move back to her original seat, saying “Oh, she speaks Marshallese.” I plead, “No, don’t go! I’m almost out of words!”

The translator gives me a sentence or two sporadically throughout the lesson, but I’m fine meditating on the topic of the lesson: Christ’s atonement, making resurrection possible. At the end of the lesson, someone chooses one of the 44 hymns in the Marshallese hymnbook for the closing hymn. With no chorister or piano, a woman in the back row sings the first line of the hymn, setting the pitch and cadence. Although only the melody is printed in the hymnbook, the other women join her in beautiful spontaneous two-part harmony. I joyfully add my tenor for a third part, and instantly feel at home in this roomful of my sisters. God hears every language.

Conference Talks: Tapped on the shoulder, Virtual home tour

My friends at Ajeltake Branch, Majuro, which I attended during the
month-long orientation before traveling to my assignment

I have always enjoyed the conference issue of the ENSIGN, which I study cover-to-cover. But it is a particular treasure now, when I’m surrounded by unfamiliar places, sights, food, smells, and people. Reading a conference talk each morning for my scripture study is like inviting some of my favorite, most trusted friends to share a morning chat with me, reminding me of what’s most important and inspiring me to walk with God each day. I hear their voices in my mind, from years of listening to them speak in conference: L. Tom Perry’s twang, Richard G. Scott’s gently entreating voice, Henry B. Eyring usually struggling not to get choked up, Dieter Uchdorf’s clipped German accent, and Pres. Monson’s grandfatherly inspiring storytelling voice. Imagine how these words sound as I read them from my sleeping mat on the floor of a classroom at Ajeltake Elementary. This is from Elaine S. Dalton, General Young Women President:

“Just as Winston Churchill said in a critical hour during WWII, ‘to every man there comes . . . that special moment when [they are] figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to [them]. . . What a tragedy if that moment finds [them] unprepared or unqualified for [that] which [could have been their] finest hour.’” ENSIGN, May 2009, 123.

Sister Dalton continues, “This is a critical time. You are preparing for eternity.” Most often in my life, God’s tapping me on the shoulder hasn’t been quite so dramatic as this call to Kwajalein Atoll. But whether the tapping on the shoulder is to go across the street to visit an elderly neighbor or to go across the world to teach high schoolers, God’s voice is still and small, but unmistakable to me now that I’ve learned over the years to recognize His voice. I know I am here to fulfill God’s will – and He will gradually reveal it to me as I begin my work here.

Or imagine how these words sound as I read them in this foreign land, from Gary E. Stevenson of the Seventy:

“Take a virtual tour of [your] home using your spiritual eyes. Wherever your home may be and whatever its configuration, the application of eternal gospel principles within its walls is universal. Let’s begin.

“Imagine that you are opening your front door and walking inside your home. What do you see, how do you feel? Is it a place of love, peace & refuge from the world, as is the temple? Is it clean and orderly? As you walk through the rooms of your home, do you see uplifting images which include appropriate pictures of the temple and the Savior? Is your bedroom or sleeping area a place for personal prayer? Is your gathering area or kitchen a place where food is prepared and enjoyed together, allowing uplifting conversation and family time? Are scriptures found in a room where the family can study, pray, and learn together? Can you find your personal gospel study space? Does the music you hear or the entertainment you see, online or otherwise, offend the Spirit? Is the conversation uplifting and without contention?

“That concludes our tour. Perhaps you, as I, found a few spots that need some ‘home improvement,’ hopefully not an ‘extreme home makeover.’” ENSIGN, May 2009, 101-2.

As I read this from my sleeping mat at Ajeltake Elementary School, I look around at my space: one spot near the oceanside window in a classroom with 11 other women. My two checked bags and carryon are now my three “bureaus” for a month. A small classroom table is my bedside table, keeping my scriptures and teaching resource handouts off the floor for the occasional wind-swept rain through the wooden window we sometimes forget to close. (Yes, the window is made of wood, not glass.) My pillow is a stack of clean clothes, carefully folded and placed in a pillowcase. (Luggage space had to be carefully conserved, and medicines and teaching supplies felt more important than a pillow.)

I survey my space. Opening the front door to Jikin Wiki (Sleeping Space) #3, I kick off my zories, adding to the multicolored jumble of other flipflops from the 12 occupants. I notice the borrowed mumu on one woman’s mat: handwashed, line dried, and returned to its owner. I marvel at the way these good women care for each other, helping each other adjust to a new way of dress until they have time to find everything they need during our infrequent trips to town. This room IS a place of love, peace and refuge from the worldly. In fact, it was our cozy, inviting room, not Jikin Wiki #2, that took in extra women over the last few nights, refugees from the Richter-scale snoring in room #1 before he was banished to a room of his own.

My sleeping space is indeed a space for personal prayer: private, invisible – far more comfortable for me than a public kneeling, even silently, in front of the other 11 women. But I feel the connection to heaven in the privacy of my first-awakened mind and last thoughts before sleep.

The kitchen is indeed a place where food is prepared by jippan (chore) teams and enjoyed by the entire World Teach family together. I say a private blessing on whatever we eat without asking too many questions about the contents.

My scriptures are found right next to the head of my mat, where I can reach for them as soon as my eyes open after prayer. My only entertainment is my Ipod, which plays Marshallese language lessons, followed by one soft rock song for a treat after a long study session. The only other music is the rhythmic surging and retreating of ocean waves.

I seek to make my little spot of floor a holy place, where the Spirit can dwell with me and where God and Christ in their mercy can draw near.

And finally, from Pres. Monson, quoting M. Louise Haskins:

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown!’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than [a] light and safe than a known way.’ Fear not. Be of good cheer. The future is as bright as your faith. Heaven’s blessings await.” ENSIGN 5/09, 91-2.