A Little Bit of Paradise.

Nate and I just got a chance of a lifetime. Nate's parents are serving as Mission President and Mission Mom of the Guam Micronesia Mission. Since the islands are so spread out, they travel to zone conference on the islands instead of bringing missionaries to them. Over the last 18 months they have racked up some serious air miles. So, we got to go back to Guam and tour part of the mission with them!! One catch, NO KIDS. No problem with me, can you say VACATION!! Wahoo! We ended up going to the island of Palau (pronounced Belau) you know, like Survivor Palau, and a smaller island called Yap. It was amazing. Here are the details....First we had to fly for 24 hours, from SL to LA, LA to Hawaii, then Hawaii to Guam. It sucks. Christmas 2008, we did it with 2 kids. We were giddy we didn't have to suffer that stress again. Nate even got a nap in the LA Airport.
We were only on Guam for half a day. Then hopped another flight to Palau, the flight stuff is more important later, so hang in there. We got to stay at a resort called the Palau Pacific Resort. Its BEAUTIFUL! Here is the picture out our room window.

Palau doesn't have many restaurants (or ones you would dare eat at) So we manly ate at the hotel. Nate and his mom having lunch. Again, the view, AWESOME!

The first official day was Saturday, we chose to attend Zone Conference to watch the Elders and President and Sister Dowdle do what they do best, CHURCH work. Here is the Palau Zone.

Elder Lyman, the Zone Leader there, taught about Charity and Love. He did a great Job. I have never done a Zone Conference before, it was a great experience. One of the object lessons was to have us open coconuts with machetes. Yep, real machetes. All missionaries carry them so they can hack their way through the jungle, help do service to others and open plenty of free coconuts. They even take them home with them.

Yep, I got it. It only took a couple of tries. After Zone Conference we had just enough time to drive around the island and see the Capital. Palau was a territory of the United Nations (controlled by the USA) but was granted independence in the 90's. They are now their own country. More later... President (Mike) Dowdle said he has been to the capitol several times now and its never open, for us, it was still closed! Sunday, we went to Church. The branch in Palau is decent size. I even got to go to Relief Society, so nice since I am in Nursery here. After Church, President Dowdle had church work to do, so Nate and I went snorkeling. The islands are surrounded by reefs. The snorkeling is awesome. It also makes it so the waves crash a good 50 feet off shore making the water easy to maneuver it. I loved it. We were only a few feet off of shore and we saw tons of super colorful fish, giant clams and other beautiful ocean life. It was so relaxing.

Monday we went on a Ocean tour. We were the only Americans on the tour, we even got our own guide. Palau is only a 3 hour flight from Japan, so most of the tourists are Japanese. First we went on an ocean kayak through a mangrove tree forest to an inland lake. Yep, thats for real. Here are the pics.

We called this the tree tunnel in honor of Jordan's obsession with tunnels.

Mike and Gayla taking a slight brake from President and Sister, but the did talk to our guide about the church, pure passion and love for the work.
Part of the Lake,

Then we headed to the "Milky Way". They use this sand at the bottom of the Ocean for soaps etc. It is a great exfoliate. You get to rub it all over then jump in and wash it all off. It was great fun.

Then we were off to Jellyfish Lake. This is an inland lake that is FULL of Jellyfish, because there are no predators and a low salt content the Jellyfish DO NOT sting. You just swim with them and touch. It was so cool. This is really what it was like.

Lastly we went to "The Cemetery" It is a snorkel place. The snorkeling was incredible!!!
Now we are on to Tuesday.... This was a fun day. The Palau Branch President is also a Delegate in the Palau Government. He was able to take the day and give us a tour of the Rock Islands, mainly Angaur and Peleliu. It was CRAZY!

In Angaur, we first searched for the Monkeys. Monkeys are not native to Palau. Some miners brought them to Angaur years ago. They would send the monkeys down the phosphate mine shafts to see if the air was toxic. If the monkeys came up alive, they did they would go into the mine. If not, then they would stay out. There were 4 original monkeys when they were first brought on the island, and have now taken over and are eating all the natives food.

Our Tour guides. Rebluud, the Branch President and one of his employees whose job that day was to tag along. We sat on wood blanks in the back of this truck for our drive along the island dirt roads. Notice the Rust!

The awesome trees in the island. Look at those roots. They grow above ground!

There is an American couple who build this AWESOME "house" more like a platform with canvas walls that go up and down, on the island. This is their outdoor shower Rebluud is standing in. Notice the background, its the ocean. There is not enough boat traffic to worry about. They stand naked looking all the way to the horizon.

These islands were an interagal part of WWII. There is evidence of it EVERYWHERE on Anguar and Pelelieu. Here is 1 of the tanks.
Anti-Aircraft gun in the side of one of the rock islands. Its Japanese, the soldiers lived in another cave just to the left.
How do you like them guns, here is another Japanese Anti-aircraft gun.
The USA Memorial. There is also a Japanese one.Rebluud took us to the local swimming hole. At first we were really scared by the water but when you get in it is super clean. Its not mossy at all. It was refreshing on a hot day. Rebluud is the one trying to get out of the picture.

Going to Anguar and Pelelu was very humbling. We got to see some amazing things but to see the WWII items was very sad. To know so many of our soldiers and Japanese Soldiers died such horrible deaths was hard to take. Even now, our soldiers are fighting, just a different war, just as ugly. Bless our soldiers.

Believe it or not, I did leave a few pictures out. We are now off to Yap, our flight leaves Palau at 2:00 am. We had to be at the airport at Midnight. We got into Yap at 4:00 am, slept until 8:00 and then went to another Zone Conference.