I will probably only blog one more time after this one as we have
                                          25 SLEEPS UNTIL WE LEAVE SAMOA!

Today's posting is going to include some graphic shots of some of the things we have seen and also some graphic feelings!  Well, there really isn't that much but this has been an interesting couple of weeks.

the back of one of the many buses - these old buses will not be replaced when they give out - new ones are coming even now

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I feel like I have been to heaven and back – seriously, when we go to Uafato.  The drive is so rough that it makes it heaven at the other end – meaning there aren’t many visitors so they remain unspoiled and lovely.

Talai, the branch president’s wife is just a sweetheart.  She speaks English so we get along famously.  When she hears of a food I like, she gets the idea to make it for us.  One week she did fish, fried chicken, faalifu fae and talo and she sends us home with niu, esi, tipolo, etc.  Last week we had the piano out and were practicing songs from the primary book so she could learn them.  This week I took my card making supplies to have a session with Talai.  There was a little fellow named Smith who was there (her neighbor) and he was playing along the piano with me (last week).  He is 7 years old and although the notes were incorrect, as I played a certain timing and rhythm, he would do the upper keys in the same pattern.  What a sweetheart.  I just love going to Uafato.  We have brought Pres. Elama out from Apia with us 3 times now and his laugh is so delightful.  He speaks no English but I understand enough to know what they are talking about.  The cost of going there and back is out of sight - $300 tala round trip to Apia for a truck.  If there is only one person, they pay that amount or divide it amongst all the passengers. If they walk out (1 hour) to Lona, it is only $150 round trip.  When we take Pres Elama out with us because he has gone into Apia to take the tithing, it is a real blessing for him.  This past weekend was the broadcast of conference and it took 3 pickups @ $300 per truck to take all the members to Fusi for the viewing of General Conference – and that was  multiplied by two days!  Their budget pays for it as the members could not possibly afford it. The last time we went out we had passengers and loads of food (they had been given it at a funeral) in the back of the pickup.  We had passengers each way.

a view of the sea as we come back from Uafato, before actually coming back into Fagaloa Bay

It was Thanksgiving weekend at home a couple of weeks ago and I am so thankful for my blessings.  Family, testimony, health, beauty of nature, etc.  are my thoughts these days.

I missed a Kodak moment 2 Sundays ago.  When we were at Sauniatu, the car battery drained as the lights didn’t go off because I was in the car and didn’t lock it.  Roy has it on automatic and they stay on all the time except when the car is off and locked.  Well, I was down by the grass going to the waterfall and sat there in the breeze.  When the sun shifted and I was in the sun, I tried to start the car and oops!  Not happening!  One of the bishopric members is the automotive teacher at Pesega and he came with 3 others to boost it.  They did not have jumper cables and if I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it.  They took a battery (and I don’t know if it was out of their car or an extra one) and put it up beside our car’s battery.  They then took two of those cross wrenches that you use to tighten lug nuts on wheels and put one end on their battery post and the other on our battery post.  Two different people did one each so they wouldn’t be connected, the turned the ignition on and it started!  Amazing. 

this is the view out the window from our dining room - nice eh?

Last week on the  Monday of White Sunday, what a treat it was to listen to the ward across the street have a family activity.  The music was lively and fun, there were games and food and it was so nice to see them enjoying themselves together.  I really miss having ward activities as ours doesn’t let us know if and when they have them. White Sunday is a day the children all wear white and are given special treatment.

We have only 1 month left.  I hope it goes quickly as it seems to be just dragging.  I am already making lists of who gets what and trying to figure out what to leave behind.  We aren’t sure on the baggage situation yet so we don’t know how much room we should take up.  It would be nice to have just our big suitcases with our smaller ones inside but we may end up being given some things so we will not know until it is time to go.

this is the view up the side of the Lona chapel, looking inland

Conference was wonderful as usual.  We watched 3 of the sessions live on the computer and then watched the final two (well, the priesthood session was one of them and Roy went to the stake enter to watch it) at the stake center last Sunday.  It was fun to hear of Elder Packer's experience here in Samoa and Roy was a missionary here at the time.  No, he wasn't the Elder who didn't turn the light on!

I am having a really hard time deciding to blog anymore as I really don’t have much to say.  I feel I don’t have missionary experiences to talk about and that is what people want to hear.  I just go along for the ride and entertain myself as best I can.  I do meet with a few sisters in some of the places but I am a novelty and I think they think I need to be entertained.  I do enjoy doing the indexing and accomplish that  each day.  I set a goal of 15, 000 names and I achieved that this past week.  I have gone on to the intermediate level and it is a bit slower but is interesting.

  

Today I want to write about the churches here in Samoa.  I am so tired of using filthy dirty washrooms and trying to find a clean spot to put my computer to work.  I finally resorted to bringing a pretty purple flat sheet that is folded up and I can spread it out over any table and have a clean work space.  In the bishop’s offices where I sometimes sit, I put it over their piles of paper,etc. and have a designated work area for myself.  In many of these offices, there is a Xerox copy of a picture of a man in a suit with a zipper where his mouth is – teaching the bishops about privacy.

this is the picture

The washrooms in the churches are generally disgusting.  When they have paper towels, the people use them and leave them wadded in the sink and the water runs over and sometimes even runs out onto the floor.  If there is soap, I will wad up all the paper, put it in the trash and then wash my hands and dry them.  If there is no soap, I don’t usually do this as I would be filthy myself.  There is always paper on the floor and again, if there is soap and towels, I will often pick up, scrape up, wipe up the bits and pieces on the floor before washing my hands.  However, I am getting weary of this and look forward to clean churches when we get home.  I have cleaned enough church bathrooms to know that after you use water, etc. you wipe down the counter before trashing your paper towel.  I do this at the temple all the time here and sure wish the people here would learn. Whenever I am in a washroom with kids, I always pick up pieces, etc. hoping that they will see the example and learn a bit.

This is the damage some pigs did to the Uafato lino floor of the open church fale

I have blogged before about finding one of the churches where the bishop had moved his family into it and had been living there for about a year.  I believe they have since moved out.

Well, this week  Roy and I walked into a church to have a session and there was terrible smell.  I used the washroom (yes it was dirty) but that wasn’t where the smell was coming from.  As we walked past the kitchen, the door was open and there was a brown puddle coming out from under the fridge.  Roy went in and the fridge was turned on but the doors weren’t shut.  Inside the freezer part and dripping down through the empty fridge was a leg of cow!  It wasn’t in a bag or anything – just propped up in the fridge and a piece of meat on the bottom of the freezer.  We shut the doors and then when a sister came a few minutes later, we showed it to her (we see her every week and she didn’t act surprised).  The session was cancelled due to people not showing up and I was glad to not have to smell that smell.  As we left, there was a fellow who came and the two of them were in the kitchen.  In that village, I don’t imagine many of them have electricity so they don’t realize the doors have to be shut for it to keep anything cold.  What a mess.  Also, they don’t have refrigerators of their own so I am sure the church fridge is used for a lot of things.

THE fridge - it doesn't look as bad here and of course, you can't smell it!

The classrooms are also filthy, usually.  The tables and chairs have ground in dirt and mold, as well as dead insects, gecko droppings and sometimes piles of termite dust.  I could clean each and every church we go to and I would be tired and filthy and you still wouldn’t even notice what I had done.  This purple cloth I bring is my sanity, that is for sure.  I have come across maybe 4 really clean churches (out of dozens of churches we have visited) and have really complimented the bishops.  Am I frustrated?  Yes!!!

There is no way possible to teach all the people how to clean and what to expect.  They just don’t live that way in their homes as cleaning usually means shaking out the mats and whisking the dirt out.  Washing is done by hand in the river or in buckets or taps and then spread out on the ground on lava rock areas to dry. Bushes are sometimes used as clothes drying racks.  Occasionally someone will have a clothes line and what a treat that is.

the grass is so spongy in some places

There is a group of ladies in some of these villages who are the Matai’s wives and they come around each month to check your homes to see if you are keeping things clean, weeded and tidy.  They will fine you money if they find you are slacking.   You see the villages in the areas away from Apia and they generally don’t have piles of leaves or weeds growing etc. and this is one of the reasons.  In the capital area, they generally don’t have Matai’s governing things and that is why there is much more trash, etc.

Afalua, the mission cook, was telling me about her husband’s village.  There is no LDS church there and there are only Catholic and LMS churches. She said that in church, (it was the LMS church she was mentioning), they will fine you $5 if your baby cries or makes noise, or if you drop your hymnal or scriptures they will fine you as well.  They have the rule that only one person in the family is allowed to stay home to cook the food, unless they happen to be ill or really old.  This could be good in our churches too – too many people place importance on the Sunday meal rather than on the Sunday Service!  They certainly are ruled by the heavy hand in that village.

I do notice that generally you don’t hear children making noise in church.  As soon as anything happens someone will whisk that child outside and hush them.  That person usually ends up staying out of the meeting for a long time as well, and that isn’t good.

Yes, I have ranted a bit today but I also have a strong love for these people.  As I contemplate leaving behind the friends I have made on our temple shift, it is sad.  Most of them I won't have the opportunity to see again and email?  Well some have a distant relative that can take a message but direct contact will be hard.

night shot of the temple

Anyway, we plug away at the work and see little bits of improvement.  The best thing is getting to know these really wonderful people and feel of their genuine love and lack of social prestige, if you know what I mean. 

Thanks for reading the blog. I have taken excepts from my journal to make up the blog entry and sometimes I get things like the tense mixed up or whatever as I adapt it to today's writing.  Please excuse any of these errors.