Monitor Lizards, Spiders and More Coconuts

Before I get started, I thought I'd share a little status report on the Kingdom Hall and Missionary Home.  The Kingdom Hall is very close to being completed.  Painting is done, inside and out, the stage is tiled, the lights and fans are all installed and the doors and windows are in the process.  We're planning on being finished with the Kingdom Hall by the end of the week.  As for the Missionary Home, it's slowly getting there.  Brandon Chinen, a brother from Guam, was here this week installing all of the air-conditioners .  It was a lot of fun having him here with us.  Mike and I are still chipping away at the many cabinets that need to be finished.  He goes back to Texas on December 1st so hopefully we're done by then or else I'll be a lost carpenter.  One of the missionary couples should be able to move in by the beginning of December.  Well there you have it.      

A monitor lizard we spotted in the backyard of the missionary home.  

This guy was kind of small, they can be grow to almost double his size.

Plenty of spiders around.  Usually they're all shriveled up after they're smashed by someone but I think this one was poisoned so you can still get an idea of how big they are, probably not as big as some places, but still a decent size I'd say. 

I may have said this before, but there's nothing like an ice cold coconut on a hot day in the tropics.  Here we have Zak giving me a peek inside the cooler of goodness.

The happy couple working together, Jake and Amy Felbe, painting the doors inside the Kingdom Hall.  

Ramir doing some finish painting outside the Kingdom Hall.  From here on out I was pretty much just walking around taking a picture of everyone around.     

With the missionary rooms having air-con now, and one of the missionary couples on vacation back in the Phillipines, Jake decided to move his office into their room for now.  So down goes the old office.

Tyrone loves demolition, but first you have to take out the more delicate stuff.

And just like that, within a matter of hours, it was gone.

Secretly, Tryone isn't actually from Palau...sometimes he just can't help but let his Arabian side come out. 

Dave the master tiler.  Tiling the stage of the Kingdom Hall.

Dave's loyal tile-cutter, Brennen.    

Over in the bathrooms, we have another tile crew.  

The tiles start with Obed, checking for any chipped corners and cracks...  

...Shem cutting the tiles to size...

...and then Alan, the tile layer.  But really, Shem lays the tile too. 

Classic Sammy Face

During this weeks service meeting, there was a big event across the parking lot in the gym.  These boys were wandering around and slowly started coming inside.  By the end of the meeting, this is what we saw.  I'm pretty sure none of them had ever been to a meeting before.  They were all ready to pose for the many who wanted to take pictures, so were Tyrone and Sammy.    

As you may already know,  on Kosrae there is Sabbath on Sundays.  So we try to get as much play time as possible on Saturday before we are forced to do nothing recreational on Sunday.  We all said that we wanted to play volley ball Saturday afternoon, but after the pioneer meeting this Saturday, it of course was raining.  We were desperate enough so a few of us ran out and started playing and eventually we had a good game going.  We thought it might eventually let up but no, it started POURING.  At one point, you couldn't even look up to see the ball coming without your eyes being pounded  by the rain.  Surprisingly though, that was probably the longest we've played at one time.  It was so much fun.