Timor day 5: Church

June 12th: Day 5 on the ship

    Church was a blessed relief from the culture shock of the Navy. Just sitting next in that tiny little chapel with people that understand me was uplifting, and the speaker from New Zealand had a wonderful talk to share. Chaplain lieutenant Williams invited the only LDS people living on the island to come on board and attend the meeting. There is one senior humanitarian missionary couple and a student from Canada who came to teach English at the local college. It was fascinating to hear the story of the church in Timor, and realize huge things are happening right now to bring the church to its golden minute here. A few months ago there was no church presence at all, and the area authority in Hong Kong decided to scout it out for himself. Immediately after Jeffrey R. Holland contacted him and told him to look into sending missionaries. The Johnson couple were the first to put boots on the ground here. They're still actively working with the local government to get permission to proselyte. Holland came here a few months ago, and dedicated the country for missionary work right on the very platform at Christo Rei that we climbed twice. What a spectacular place. There was a very small number of people there because the only Timorese members of the church don't actually live in Timor anymore. The country is very new. Timor gained a bloody independence from Indonesia in 1999, and things haven't been very stable since, at least not till very recently. I feel like I'm taking part in the very beginning stages of something huge and wonderful. Timor lest has a 96% Catholic demographic, so there should be too many barriers to the gospel here. The  Johnsons invited us to come inland later this week and work on newborn kits for the locals. We were all pretty excited about it since the navy's land missions didn't really work out for us. Dave is getting permission to distribute some of them at the local clinic screenings he does every day with the MD group. I hope all approvals line up, because there is a big need here and we'd love to do our part.

1515: Officers quarters! The sight makes my eyes water with joy. I practically ran down to the enlisted bunks and tore my bedding off and threw my stuff into bags and ran back up the stairs to move in. I randomly ran into the man who is in charge of assigning bunks, and he mentioned that they had some available. I pushed a little obnoxiously, and he gave in and got us some. I arranged for our whole group to get spots in the officers quarters. Instead of 100 people in a room it's now 4 of us in a small room, with tons of locker space and our own sinks and mirrors. I'm so excited in taking pictures.

I feel like I'm in a 5 star hotel suite with a view. Apparently our degree as registered nurse auto qualifies us to lieutenant officer rank as civilians, so they try to treat us as such when they can -but apparently only after 4 days of suffering and one very squeaky wheel. I'm just ecstatic to be able to sleep during the day without the sound of slamming lockers and doors constantly. And now I only have to climb 10 flights of stairs to get to the galley in the morning instead of 12. This has made all the difference.

   So far I've met two bunk mates, the midwife NP Captian McCrary who organized the midwifing trip, and a vascular surgeon that introduced herself as just Erin. They're very nice and clean, and I'm curious to hear about the work they're doing.