Hello everybody, sorry I haven't been able to post anything since leaving Hawaii, we didn't get internet here in Palau until Monday, and even then the internet has been too slow to even load any websites. That also means that unfortunately I probably won't be able to post many pictures to the blog.

Everybody's been asking me how it is here in Palau, so I'll just describe what we've done since we arrived last Thursday night.

Upon arrival to Palau, we were greeted by a large group of locals that consisted of church members, students, and coworkers from the academy. Among this group were also our Palauan parents. These "Palauan parents" are members of the church that chose to "adopt" us for the year. I had the pleasure of meeting my Palauan mom, a widowed older Palauan woman named Naomi. She was so sweet and made me a huge lei made from white and pink flowers, and then also gave me a bag of groceries and said, "this is for your breakfast." It was such a nice gift, and to top it all off, in the bag was a box of my all time favorite cereal, Honey Bunches of Oats!
After meeting all the locals and taking group pictures, we loaded up trucks with our luggage and piled in the school bus which took us to the academy. That first night we all slept in our principal's house.

The next day we woke up and had a delicious breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and potatoes. It also happened to be my birthday that day, so they all sang to me after we ate. After cleaning up, we took all our stuff down to the apartments and moved into the rooms we'll be staying in for the rest of our time here. The six of us guys moved into a 3-bed/2-bath apartment, two of us sleeping in each room. After getting settled into our apartments, we got boarded the school bus and took our first trip into town as missionaries. The first thing we did when we got to town was go to Surangel's, a supermarket similar to Stater Bros or Von's. It was interesting to see the difference between the groceries that the guys and girls bought. For most of us guys, it's our first time ever really having to completely cook for ourselves, so our carts were filled with food that is easy to prepare. This included ingredients for PB&J's, burritos, pasta, rice, and frozen vegetables. Our inexperience quickly showed when we realized we forgot to buy many of the essential ingredients, like salt.
After shopping we ate lunch at a restaurant called "Rock Island Cafe", which is owned by the chief of Palau. Once the waiters found out that we're the new group of missionary teachers, they went to the back and brought out the chief himself. It was quite the experience being able to see the chief and have him welcome us to the beautiful island of Palau.
That night we had vespers in the chapel, and at the end they surprised me with a Red Velvet Cake. My favorite!

On Saturday we went to church in town. We all went and sat with our respective Palauan parents. My Palauan mom, Naomi, called me over and gave me a bag that had a papaya and a loaf of bead that she baked for me. It was great being able to sit with her and ask her more about herself and her life.
After church we enjoyed potluck with some of the church members, mainly the elders. It was exciting being able to try new foods that we had never seen before. The church members were so kind and let us serve ourselves first, and even prepared plates to go for all of us after the meal was over.
After church we went back to school, changed, and then went over to a nearby waterfall where we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming, taking pictures with our GoPro's, and enjoying good company.
The next day we woke up and found out that half of our group had been fallen sick with diarrhea. Due to most of our group being too sick to do much work, we cancelled all plans for the day and let them rest. Fortunately, I wasn't one of the ones to get sick, so I spent the day hanging out in the apartment with my friend Jake who also dodged the diarrhea bug.

Monday was our first day of getting actual work done at school. We were all given our textbooks that we'll be teaching out of and keys to our classrooms. The whole day was spent cleaning classrooms and looking through our textbooks to get an idea of what we would be covering this year.
That night, the girl missionaries called our apartment and told us that we had all forgotten that it was Jazmin's birthday.(one of the female missionaries) Since there were still a couple hours left of her birthday, we all went and surprised her in bed with balloons and a small cupcake topped with birthday candles.

Tuesday morning we drove into town to have a meeting at the elementary school with all the teaching staff. (PMA is the high school where we live at that is located in Airai, SDA is the elementary school and is located in Koror) After the meeting we all split up and had lunch at different restaurants. All the girls decided to go back to RIC, the place we ate at on Fridays. All of us guys went to a restaurant nearby that serves a gigantic portion of chicken fried rice for only $3! After eating, I went with Joey, Rachel, and Linske back to Surangel's so they could buy groceries while I bought snorkel gear in the upstairs shop. Upon exiting the market we found that it was raining sideways outside. The store is a couple blocks from the elementary school, so we tried to run from building to building to not get too wet. This plan failed horribly because the second you stepped out from under the covering, you were instantly drenched by the rain. We got back to the school and were pleased to find that we were not the only ones to get soaked by the rain.
After dropping all our stuff of back at school, we changed and loaded the bus and drove to Melekeok, the capitol of Palau. While driving by the Palauan Capitol building, we were amused to see how much it resembled the US Capitol building. We spent the afternoon there in Melekeok snorkeling around the rocks. Although there wasn't much to see there in the water, it was a good introduction to the waters here in Palau.

Wednesday was spent working on classrooms, unit plans, and lesson plans. Fortunately I'm sharing a classroom with one of the math teachers, so she had already decorated the whole classroom. Therefore I was able to spend more time working on planning out my yearly unit plan.

All in all I am really enjoying my time here in Palau. The people are all so caring and island is absolutely beautiful. Classes start next Thursday for the high school, and we are all nervous to teach for the first time I'm our lives. Fortunately we know we have an amazing and powerful God to lean on and gain strength and wisdom from. I ask that you all continue to pray for all of us as we go through this year, changing our perspective on life and strengthening our relationship with God.

Thanks for reading,
Andrew