August 14, 2011

Outside the temple

As it is now O-dark-thirty (very early in the am) and I can’t sleep, I am going to begin this blog update.  What can I say? – another day in Paradise!  The dogs are finally quiet (they go to sleep about the time the roosters wake up), I heard an oxygen tank gonging in a nearby village (they do that as an alarm to the village for rising, announcing a death, calling people together in the evening for lotu (prayer and singing in their families) and I don’t know what else. 

The yearbook was completed, printed and we coil bound the two copies we needed for this week.  It was a very busy time getting the typing all done and now, we will add the new missionaries that come and just keep it updated.  We won’t eliminate any missionaries for about two years as we don’t have much of the information from the ones that have left already and were companions of the ones still here.  So, there should be about a 2 year turnaround and we had to start somewhere.  It’s just that the ones leaving in the first few months won’t have as complete a book as those further down the road will have.

A Senior couple – Taylor and Kathy Macdonald- left early Friday am as Sis. Macdonald was quite ill with allergies, asthma, etc.  The Dr. told her she was allergic to Samoa and to never come back (the pollens, etc.).  If she happened to have another attack they probably couldn’t save her.  She spent the last 3 days of her mission in Med Cen – a fairly decent but expensive hospital.  She has suffered for quite awhile and finally got to the point she couldn’t breath. Her son and his family live next door to us – they are on assignment for 3 years and I am sure they will miss their grandparents. 

Roy is beginning to make plans to move onto another Stake to help with their membership records.  The units he is working with now are in varying degrees of success – some are up and running and taking responsibility and others are just “not there” – physically.  They don’t show for their appointments and it is rather frustrating to drive the almost hour to get there and they just don’t show.  You can only do your best and keep praying for them.

I continue to help at the AhMu Academy on Tuesday mornings – help really isn’t the word I need – I read and sing with ½ class for ½ hour and then we switch, doing 4 sessions altogether.  The library at the end of the school is where I do it – open windows, smoke coming in from the neighbor’s fire, noise from every source.  But, I am getting to know some of the children and they are a delight.  The new principal has plans to move the library up by the office and turn the current location into a staff room, plumbing it with a sink, etc. That would be nice, although the nature of the school will always have windows open where dirt blows in, etc.

    

 Sister Lolo phoned last week to see if I could help her son Lance with his reading.  He is 8 years old, attends a traditional Samoan school (in a fale, sitting on the floor, learning culture as well as curriculum in Samoan).  They want to make sure he is learning his culture but needs to keep up with his English for when they return to the States, whenever.  What a delightful young man he is.  We have only had one session so far but he is just adorable – I am going to enjoy this and can use a bit of creativity in our sessions.  We read and had spelling taken from the book he chose and then used play dough to spell the hard words.  He did well, despite his friends and his brother being right outside playing basketball and at the park.

    

High School kids who washed our car to raise $ for graduation

 Our ward party to celebrate Father’s Day (today) was on Friday night.  We don’t know a lot of people to begin with and they took the men and set them up at tables along the front and I had to find my own seat.  I sat with another lady who has just moved here from Australia (Samoan) and we tried to get to know each other.  The music was SO LOUD!  The sisters had all practiced their “items” and it was really fun to watch their dancing – traditional as well as modern.  Then the FOOD arrived.  We were each given two plates loaded with chicken, taro, palusami, breadfruit, cooked bananas, sausage, scrambled egg, cabbage salad, curry, chop suey.  My food was hardly touched and I sent it home with someone else (for her dogs she said but I hope not – what a waste).  Our friends the Bullocks are on mission in Malawi and their experience with those people who have so little food just makes me want to cry.  The Samoan people are not wealthy – in fact, monetarily they are very poor, but they always have food!  I just hate to see the amount of ward budget money that goes for food – but tradition is a hard thing to break and Samoans always make enough food so everyone takes home a huge plate full.

Two of the 3 weedeaters right outside our window - the cause of a serious headache!

So, Roy has Father’s Day again today.  The first was the regular one in June, which I forgot about.  The second was last Sunday where I planned and we had gifts, a nice meal, etc.  We were sitting in church and I asked the girl next to me if Father’s Day was on the 14^th and she said yes (I clued in as there was no mention in church about it).  Well, I had been in the Saraemila ward a month ago and all of a sudden in English they said “isn’t that right Sister Harker”.  Uh, please translate what you are asking me.  They said father’s day was the 7^th and I said I had no idea.  Well, that was my only reference to go by so I planned accordingly!  Oh well, so here it really is today! We could celebrate it again in September with the Australians too, I guess.

On Thursday at the Service Center where we are headquartered, they had a devotional broadcast from New Zealand, introducing us to the Area Presidency and their wives.  It was broadcast to the whole Pacific Area, as far away as Perth and all the islands.  I wondered if my brother was watching but they aren’t involved in the Service Center so probably not.  It was such a delight to “get to know” Elder &Sister Pearson, Elder & Sister Watson and Elder & Sister Hamula.   This was the first church gathering I had been in for months that was in English!!!  Yeah. 

Well, the birds are beginning to chirp – I love the early am and the relative cool and quiet.  Afternoons and evening are quite busy with kids at the playground right across from us practicing dances, playing basketball, etc. and the Stake Center (right behind the playground) with their dances, etc.  The music from there is usually nicer than the music we had at our ward party – oh my, that was unbelievably loud and the tunes were not recognizable.  At least the Lotopa Stake Center usually plays oldies and music that makes you want to sing along.

It is about 4:00 pm now and we just returned from our Sabbath day activities – our sacrament meeting (Vaitoloa 1^st), meeting with the clerk at Faleaseela (and I visited with some of the children I sang with that day on the wall and showed them the picture I took of them), stopping at the Lotofaga Chapel to do a little business and then lunch at Bishop Leituala’s.  We had enough to feed a small army – octopus, lupe(dove) soup, complete with the dove and feet with claws),  taro, povi masima (salt beef), roast pork, chicken, two kinds of fish (one was mullet – and I got the head!), chop suey, 4 kinds of dessert (choc cake, puligi (kind of a pudding-cake - g is pronounced ng), pani popo (coconut buns that I made) and milk with canned fruit in it.  No, I don’t need to make supper tonight.

 Well, I must close for today and I will try to do a better job of posting this with photos than last week!  As the  Samoan's would say "Go Forf wif faif!"