April 10, 2012

Oh my I have neglected writing for so long.  Let me begin last week. By the way, sorry no pictures this time.  I spent a lot of time preparing and downloading and things just didn't work out so I will post pictures later.

We made two trips to the airport to pick up Brother & Sister Roth – Sat. am at 12:30 was their scheduled flight but we found it was cancelled.  The next night they emailed which flight they were coming in on and we got to the airport at 4:30 am and no flight.  We got home and had an email from them saying it was cancelled due to the cyclone in Fiji and the runways were under water etc.  They now had a scheduled flight for Tues am but surprised us and came in the night Monday – a quick decision to come and they couldn’t let us know.  So, they took a taxi in and woke Hatu up and he got them into their house.

I have spent a few days over at the dental clinic helping them do some organizing that they want done and they started today with some good work – extractions, cleanings, etc.

Roy and I went to Savaii on Saturday to meet with the bishops, clerks, etc. in the Savaii South Stake.  We stayed over at Lucia’s Lagoon Chalets for the night and caught the 2:00 ferry back to Upolu after attending church at Faala 1^st ward .  Brother Tapusoa from the bishopric invited us over to his house for lunch after – so nice of him.  He had some adorable kids – Hinckley, Mary, Carl and I can’t remember who else.  They have so many cousins and friends at the  house that it is hard to tell who is who. This will begin a 10 week course of going over to Savaii for a few days each week for training.

We have continued to go out to Amuia’s home each Saturday and exchange books with them.  I had some good time with Felicity and Nance this week and we read and talked about books.  Nance wanted to keep a book of words and of course she could.  She is such a dear.  Felicity actually spoke up a bit this time and read by herself and with me.  I guess Johnson will sometimes be nowhere in sight and they will call him and he says he is in the other house reading the books Kathy brought.  Their reading really is not as advanced as I would have expected so this is good for them. 

Friday we went out with our FHE Senior group for dinner.  The Gertshs had arranged for us to go to the yacht club but we were almost there and got a call from them “It is closed – due to Good Friday”.  We ducked into the Amanaki Hotel and had a nice dinner there instead.

FHE this week was focused on genealogy and we were all to try to bring in 8 generations and the group leader is going to try to put it all into a database and see how many connections we can make between the senior missionaries. They did this in the Washington DC temple group they were on mission with and found over ½ of the people had some connection to someone else.  We also watched a movie about how photographer Mark Mabry and his crew did the book Reflections of Christ.  It was a fascinating movie (well, documentary) and the music was divine.

Tonight we had a dinner at the mission home for new missionaries that came in today (14) plus the new senior couples from the past couple of weeks and we were invited as the Senior Zone Leaders.  It was good, as usual, as Afalua is a good cook.  I only stayed for part of it as we had our ward reading group today.  This is two out of three times that the rooms haven’t been available for us to divide into groups.  They were cleaning the church with hoses, ladders, water everywhere, etc.  We stayed in the one room (RS room) and divided into two groups.  Renae was the only other person there when I had to leave for the dinner but she said Naomi came later and helped.  When I came back, things were packed up and we were ready for choir practice.  The practice was for ward conference in two weeks and for Sose Hunt’s funeral.

Sose passed away on Saturday and her funeral is yet to be scheduled.  They are waiting for children to come from overseas.  She was so weak the last time I saw her (the picture on the blog about 2 posts ago).  I can just imagine her dancing up in heaven – what a sweety.

Easter was another normal Sunday for me.  There were no musicals and the talks were a word here or there translated saying they were talking about Christ.  I took the time to read in Matthew about the last few days of our Savior’s life and the video on Monday at FHE was nice. 

A treat for us on Sunday night was Pulalele Atoa Craig bringing my fixed glasses back from Canada and there were some Easter chocolate eggs with them.  Thanks Brooke! 

We started another Book of Mormon scheduled reading for the missionaries.  This time, we are marking any references to or examples of faith in the Book of Mormon.  Roy and I are continuing to read the New Testament also so that is a nice beginning and end to our day.

BYU TVwas re-hooked up in time for Conference so it was a treat to wake up at 4:30 am to watch it live in our living room – in our jammies.  I must admit that on Monday, I did miss part of the Sunday session due to our going swimming in the early am (about 7 ladies).  We will have the whole conference again for the country next weekend and we can catch it on the internet as well.  Every 6 months I get so pumped up by the talks!