President & Sister Court · Solomon Islands
Dispatch 01
June 24 – July 13, 2026
Month One
A bullet train, twelve delayed bags, and a joyful beginning on the other side of the world.
we carry you with us every day!
Imagine you are at the Kurikoma-Kōgen Station in Tokyo, as a bullet train, not scheduled to stop in that station, just roars through. On the outside of the train, there are handles, used to climb onto the top for maintenance. This is the picture Elder Bednar painted for us when we met with him.
Arriving into the mission field, as new mission leaders, is like standing in a Tokyo train station and grabbing the outside handle of a bullet train, not scheduled to stop at that station. In this, as in many other things he’s taught us over the years, he is a prophet. It is exactly like that, and difficult to really describe.
One of the things not difficult to describe is our testimony of this line of this verse - “…I am able to do mine own work” (2 Nephi 27:20). We have seen that the Lord can and does His own work! We’ve been invited along for the ride and what a great ride it already has proven to be.
“We have been invited along for the ride—and what a great ride it already has proven to be.”
01
Two carry-ons and 119 missing bags
Elder Bednar made an offhand comment when we were having dinner with him and his wife at the MTC. “Susan and I have learned that if you have a carry-on suitcase with a change of clothes and toiletries, and you can do your laundry every once in a while, you have everything you need.
Not surprisingly for Kim, but somewhat surprising for me, we listened to that off-hand comment and repacked our carry-ons for the trip to Solomon Islands. It wasn’t easy to keep this counsel either. In Los Angeles, they actually tried to take our carry-ons, saying they were too heavy and so they would have to check them. What? They would weigh the same under the plane, but while wearing name tags for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you don’t argue. But what we did do was start the process of taking things out and putting them in our backpacks. After about ten minutes of reorganizing and reweighing, she finally gave up and we got our boarding passes.
Long story short - 18 hours later after landing in Honiara, Solomon Islands, we were waiting at Customs when this announcement came over the intercom - “Passengers of Fiji Airways arriving from Nadi, because of weight restrictions 119 bags were not loaded on the flight. They will be on the next flight - Sunday, June 29th.” It was Wednesday!
What did Kim and I have? We had two carry-ons with a change of clothes and toiletries. Thank you, Elder Bednar.
So, for the first six days, we wore the same clothes every day and washed them, but at least we had them. He was totally right. BTW, the kind senior missionaries let Kim borrow some of their clothes too, so it all worked out.
How is this a miracle? Well, one, we were able to function for six days while waiting for our bags which we got from Customs on Monday. But the group that got their bags on that first flight had each and every bag so scrutinized. They were put through a scanner, opened and examined. Many lost contents to confiscation and it took hours.
But when ours came, one of the Elders that was with us, prayed that their hearts would be softened and we would be able to get our bags (there were two brand new missionaries that flew in on our same flight from Fiji and they didn’t get their bags either). Well, the Customs people couldn’t get us out of there fast enough! They scanned only three of twelve bags and didn’t open a single one. We got out of there in just minutes with nothing confiscated.
