Wednesday, 17 June 2015 Mercy Tour

We left early after helping at the Health Fair the second day, and with the other Senior Missionaries, were privileged to take a tour of the USNS Mercy. We got to ride on a smaller boat out to the ship. What fun! The water was so clear!

The ship was an amazing floating hospital with state of the art equipment. The fuel consumption on the ship is 110 gallons of diesel per mile. It has 2 helicopters and a staff of 1300 people. It also has over 1000 hospital beds. Many who were recommended and passed screening had been operated on here. 

This is where we had sent Brother Salaboni’s grandson for surgery. During the tour, we were introduced to and spoke to the LDS doctor over the surgeries. He said that all the cleft pallet surgeries went well except one little girl whose teeth were so rotten that they had to pull them all out. Then her gums were such a mess that surgery on the cleft pallet wouldn’t have held and couldn’t be performed. How terrible! We felt sorry for the little girl, but we were happy and relieved that our little two year old boy had gotten his done. What a life changing gift they had given him! We celebrated this. We felt that even if we didn't do anything more on our mission, helping this one little boy was worth traveling halfway around the world to serve for 18 months. We are blessed! Rex bought a souvenir hat to remember it.

This is the little boat we get to ride out to the hospital ship Mercy.

I like riding boats, I like riding boats ....

Coming up to the USNS Mercy

Hard to believe this was an obsolete oil tanker. Gutted and rebuilt.

Nothing like taking pictures of someone taking pictures of you!

We have amazing Senior Missionaries to work with.

State of the art MRI

I guess it's not a hair dryer!

Pin pointing where the Mercy will visit this trip.

Feeling very privileged to be part of this.

Our tour group.

Senior Missionaries with a member, the commander, and 
the man from LDS Charities who gave us the tour.

Salaboni's grandson Inia made it on the ship!

Inia

Time to celebrate!

He didn't bring a hat on the mission. This will definitely do!