A Life of Streiff

May 9th Saturday

We have had a week of rain and cool weather so we weren’t sure what to do this weekend but when we got up Saturday the skies were just partly cloudy so we took off to Cathedral Cove.
Cathedral Cove is one of the locations that were used when they filmed the second Narnia movie. It’s about a 3 hour drive down south through Auckland and up around the peninsula to the East coast. The drive through the Coromandel forest was amazing but it was a really windy road and that’s why it takes so long to get there. It seems that anywhere you drive here is beautiful and the forests are so thickly wooded that you can’t see very far into them.

When we arrived at the parking area, we stopped at the look out and it was so spectacular. The sun had come out and the ocean was turquoise and there were little islands all around the cove.
To get to the actual arch that was in the film, was a 45 minute walk up and down a pathway that dropped about 200 feet down to the beach. It was a bit tiring but well worth it. It’s important that you go when the tide is out because if its high tide the water is about 6 feet deep and you can’t walk through it.

We spent some time walking around, taking pictures and then hiked back up to the car. As we were walking back we were talking about how blessed we are to be able to see so many beautiful places that God has created.

Earlier in the week I was feeling so homesick and wanting to be home with Natalie for the birth of our twelfth grandchild. Natalie gave birth to Elizabeth Hannah on the sixth and I was having a pity party for myself because I couldn’t hold that little sweetheart and kiss her neck. So the Lord blessed me by letting me see another beautiful creation on this land.
Elizabeth Hannah is named after one of my great great grandmothers and one of the most amazing things is that her birthday is also May 6th. Nat said that Grandma and little Beth were plotting all this in heaven.
Sunday May 10th Mother’s Day was another hard day for me. We went to church and in Relief Society the Priesthood brought us a hot chocolate mug full of candy. But the thing that got me was when the Primary children came in and sang mother’s day songs. I could just envision all my cute grandchildren singing them to me. I started to get a little misty and had to pull myself together again.
Monday May 11th
We got up at 3:15 AM to get to the airport in time to catch a plane to Tonga. It was raining like crazy which made it so hard to see the street signs as we wove our way toward the airport. We had prepaid for long term parking and needed to find the correct lot. As we pulled into the airport we saw a sign that read “Long Term parking.” There was an electronic gate where you had to take a ticket which we thought was strange but since it was the only lot we could find that said long term we went in. Big Mistake.
Once in there we quickly realized that it was the wrong lot. We tried to leave but the electronic gate kept saying that we needed to pay to get out. The problem here was that there wasn’t anyone around that early in the morning, it was still pouring rain and we had no idea how to pay to get out. We drove around and around but there just wasn’t a place to pay.
We didn’t want to just leave our car there because we had already paid for some other lot and it’s really quite expensive to pay again. About $150.
We finally saw a lady walking from her car so we ran over to her and asked how we could get out of the lot. She said we had to walk over to the kiosk near the terminal and pay the ticket and then come back and put it in the gate keeper machine and it would open. We ran through the rain sloshing all the way, made the payment and then rushed back to our car. Soaking wet but no worse for the wear the gate did open and we were free at last. This little misadventure had wasted a lot of time but we knew if we hurried we would still make our flight. We finally stopped in a gas station and a taxi driver directed us the proper lot. What a relief. We made it just in the nick of time and were off to Tonga.

We were met by our new friends; Mele and Afu are public affairs director for Tonga. They are really sweet people and are so willing to do the Lords work.

Tonga almost reminded me of living in Utah with so many chapels dotting the whole place. The LDS ones really stick out because they are the only buildings of any size and are so well cared for with beautiful grounds around them.
I said that Tonga almost reminded me of Utah with all the LDS churches, but the resemblance ended there. Tonga is very flat, and has lots of vegetation like a jungle. The highest point on the island is around 15 feet above sea level. So if a Tsunami ever hit, the whole place would be under water.
As we were driving around the island, I asked them how they had met and they told me that they met at Church College of Hawaii. I said that I had gone there also. I then told them that I had a roommate from Tonga and that her name was Faulatua. They looked at each other in amazement and then told me that they knew her and that she was Mele’s best friend. I said “Could it be the same person” and they said that there was only one person on the island with that name. They told me that she was married to the Area Seventy and had 10 children.
I thought that it was amazing to be on the other side of the world and run into an old roommate. Mele said that I wouldn’t recognize her and boy was she right, she must now weigh 275 lbs. We went to lunch with her and her husband and had fun talking about school. She couldn’t really remember me since I was only there for a few months but she remembered some of the other girls that stayed longer.

We drove all around the Island and found that it pretty much looked the same everywhere. Everything looked old and nothing was in good repair except for our churches. We did go to a beautiful beach area called the Blow Holes. The waves were amazing and when they hit the lava shelf, tons of water shoots through the holes in the lava. It’s really quite pretty.

We stayed there two days and just one night but were able to meet with the PA Director and the next day with the whole committee which is what we had hoped for.
As we met with the committee they related several stories to us about how faith and prayer had helped the church on the island. One of the best stories was when there was a problem with the land rental. The nobles own most of the land on the island but will lease it to the church on long term leases. The Liahona School, the distribution center, church office and all the housing for the missionaries and teachers is on a lease with one of the Nobles who happens to be the son of the King which makes him a prince.
He came to the Church about four years before the lease was up for renewal, and asked the church to renew the lease early at a higher price which would begin right then. He apparently needed some money because he is not rich and didn’t plan well. The church said no and indicated that they would wait until it was up. So four years later, when it came time to renew it, the prince was mad and said that now he didn’t want to renew it. Matters went so far that The Catholic Church was stopping by to check the place out and were planning all the great things they could do with our buildings.
Church headquarters sent Elder Groberg and Russell Nelson down to see if it could be renegotiated but they were not successful. So the Priesthood leaders decided to do a special fast with just the Priesthood leaders they didn’t want all the members to know what was going on because it might cause a panic. So they fasted for a couple of days and when then went to see the Prince. He informed them that he had changed his mind and would renew the lease. I guess other church leaders and government officials didn’t want him to renew it and if he did they told him he must keep it to just a few years. This just made him mad so he said that he was going to do it for 49 years. They pushed even harder which made him angrier so he said that he would renew it for 99 years and did. What a wonderful answer to all those prayers.
In meeting with the public affairs committee, we asked them what problems the church was having in Tonga that we might help with. They thought about it and said that they were having a problem with church members airing their grievances in the local paper. Every time the members did a service project that involved any work around government property like cemeteries, schools etc. They would write nasty letter to the editor saying that the church was wasting time and money to support a bad government and that the government should take care of the land they owned. They also complained if they didn’t like a bishop or Stake president who had been called.
We wondered if anyone had spoken with them but since they use a fictitious name, no one knows who they are. I guess the letters get other members stirred up so they wanted us to come up with a solution. We told them that we would have to think about that one for a while and we still are. I can see that we are dealing with a whole different set of circumstances than we encountered in Taiwan and will have to be very creative to help solve the problems we find down here.
We had a wonderful time in Tonga and are really looking forward to working with Mele and Afu over the next year and a half.
Tuesday night we flew to Samoa. They are so paranoid about swine flu that when we landed a nurse came on board and gave us a paper to fill out and looked us all over. Then when we disembarked the plane there was a row of nurses there to take everyone’s temperature. Luckily we passed.
Our hotel was beautiful, on the beach and reminded me of Hawaii but by the time we got there it was 11PM and we had to fly out early in the morning to America Samoa. So we just went to bed without any dinner and started over the next day.
To our surprise the next morning our airplane was a little puddle jumper ten passenger job.

Paul helping jump start the Plane

Since weight affects the performance of small planes, we had to get on the scales along with our carryon bags to see where they would seat us. I thought I should get a discount because I was the smallest one on the plane by far.

They put me on one side of the plane, a single seat, and Paul on the other side with double seats with a huge Samoan man.. When the plane took off Paul could only put one cheek on his seat and the other hanging over the isle. Luckily the man sitting by Paul moved up to an empty single seat near the front, giving Paul room to breathe and it was only a 40 min. flight. These small planes stay fairly low and the view of the island was spectacular as we flew over it. Paul said that he counted over 20 waterfalls. The water was gorgeous and it was a very smooth flight. I thought about how my sister Kathy would react to this teeny tinny plane. We would have had to put her to sleep.

We were greeted in America Samoa by Su’u, the director of Public Affairs. What a nice man. He took us to our hotel and then for a short tour of the island. The island is made up of mostly very steep mountains so the only place to live or work is the narrow belt of land around the coast. You pass small villages along the way, some with open walls on the homes where you can see right in. People would pay millions for the beautiful beach front lots if only they could be sold to outsiders. Instead they are occupied by what look like run down shanties but this is home to most of the people. Our little tour was cut short by unbelieveable rain that made it impossible to see past the front of the car. We decided to turn around and go back to the little town for lunch. The little café served wonderful sword fish steak for just $8.00. Paul had that but I made the mistake of ordering chicken teriyaki. It turned out to be stringy thigh meat which was not good at all.

We met with just Su’u the first day to get an idea of what he knew about Public Affairs and to find out what training he and his committee would need. He outlined some of the problems that they were having and most seemed to be within the Church rather than with Government or other denominational leaders. He didn’t feel that he or his committee was getting any respect from Stake or ward leaders and mentioned that he had never even been set apart for their calling. They were having a very hard time getting any cooperation for other leaders and thus nothing was really getting done.

The next day we met with his whole committee. His daughter who was pressed into service at the last minute is about 40 and is so cute and friendly. Paul was desperate trying to communicate with her dad, Su’a over the past month or so, but could never find him. He finally got her one day and they struck up an immediate friendship. When she told Paul that her father was a chief and that we should address him by his chief name, Su’a, rather than his given name of Carl. He asked her if she was then a princess and she replied “no I’m just a gopher” so Paul dubbed her “The Princess Gopher". And it stuck. She is officially the committee gopher and a darned good one too. You would never know that she was Samoan by the way she talks, her English is perfect. We had a great lunch meeting and found lots of things we could help them with over the next year or so. They were all so friendly and Su’u kept telling us how grateful he is that we are going to be so close to help him.
After the meeting we rented a car and drove down to the end of the island. The roads had huge; and I mean huge pot holes in them. You are dodging them the whole time. Of course they drive on the right side of the road like all Americans so now Paul, who finally got used to driving on the left hand side was back to turning on the windshield wipers every time he tried to use the turn signal. The poor boy just gets use to doing it one way and then has to go back to other. I have now taken over turning on the wipers and he operates the signals.

Paul found a boat he could pick up really cheap

We left the next morning to go back to Samoa. And had another interesting airport experience. After we checked our bags and were waiting to go through security, we saw people going through a door to the security area so we thought we should go there too. so we did. We realized that after going through the door that we had bypassed the X ray security check. We looked up and an attendant just waived us to come on over to the seating area. He came over and chatted a bit, it was obvious that he was a church member and I guess figured that we didn’t need to be checked. We just got on the plane and off we went. It was another small plane like the first but we made it safe and sound. This is the arial view of the Apia temple and our complex

We were greeted in Samoa by Hatu who is the service center manager for Samoa. He was proud of the fact that his name was Utah spelt backward. He asked Paul if he was a Utah or a BYU man, and of course we all know the response. Hatu said “Good, we have too many BYU fans here. But after further examination we noticed that he had on a BYU tie so Paul gave him the usual crap and Hatu said “hey man it was free” we all had a good laugh but I think in reality he does have blue leanings.
We had a tour of the service center and then went to lunch. I think that he really liked us right from the start because he wanted us to live next door to him. He then took us to the complex that we are going to stay in. There are probably 10 homes in this gated area, which is a ten minute walk to the service center. We stayed in the temp unit next door to the one that we will be living in. There is a couple living in ours now but they are leaving in two weeks.
We went in and started to unpack. I looked around and noticed that this unit was kind of grimy and there were live ants, and a few dead centipedes and those little dead worms on the floor. I started sweeping immediately.
The first night it was so noisy because this unit is just off the road. At 5 AM the roosters start crowing and a few dogs weren’t too happy and started barking. It was hot and humid and I decided that maybe this location was going to be my trial.
Hatu arrange for us to have a car, so on Saturday, we drove around the north end of the island and it took us just a couple of hours to do so. The island is beautiful and has LDS chapels everywhere. We didn’t see many beaches because they are small and you have to go down jungle roads to find them. We thought we would wait to move there for that experience.

The other main island of Samoa is just a little south of here, about a 30 min, ferry ride. And everyone says it has the most beautiful beaches and wonderful snorkeling and other water sports. We thought about going there but Hatu didn’t think we should because we would be flying out on Sunday and if the weather turned rough, the ferries stop running and you can get stranded for the night and miss your plane. I guess we will wait for that adventure as well.

I’m thinking that we might get a little stir crazy on this small island after a few months there. Having lived in Taiwan with 5 million people in the city and in New Zealand with so much to do, this just seemed so small, I’m sure we will adjust and anyway, we’re not here to play and there’s plenty of work to do.
There is only one main road around the island and you couldn’t get lost if you tried too. We found a McDonalds and treated ourselves to an ice cream. That is the only fast food American restaurant that we could find. We did find a great place for coconut battered sword fish that was yummy and they had a great salad, so all is well.
We went into a lot of stores and they actually have more American products than New Zealand does except it’s quite expensive. A box of cheerios is $12 US dollars. On the other hand, they have a small theater, kind of like the old days with broken seats and all. They show first fun movies and it only costs $2.00 U.S. We took in two movies since we couldn’t watch TV and they were really fun. All the little kids were laughing and having a ball, just like the old days. It was great.

Paul has gone native and this is outside our home
We met with the PA Council and it was about what we expected. As we spoke to them about Public Affairs the director just sat there with a blank stare and wasn’t taking any notes. We asked him about the normal projects that public affairs is over and he would just say “, we can do that once you get here” I think that he is hoping that we will do his job for him. We now know why this is the place for us to be. This council needs some major help.
Later in the evening we met the couple next door and were able to tour their(our) house, and it was much better than the one we had stayed in so I was a little more enthused. They told us how much they had loved it here and we’re sad to be leaving. That also encouraged me.
That evening we ate dinner with this cute couple and Hatu’s family. She made fish and chips and it was delicious because the fish was fresh Mahi Mahi or maybe fresh tuna. It depends on who you asked. She told me it was Mahi Mahi but Hatu told Paul it was tuna. Hatu’s wife is darling and has such a cute personality and it was fun to be around their 5 children.
I wanted to take her little six year old and kiss him to death. Hatu is from Nuari (an Island off the coast of Australia) and his wife is Maori from New Zealand. It was so fun to be around them.
Sunday we joined them for church at 7:30 AM. There are two wards that meet in the same building and they start early because it’s too hot in the afternoon. I thought 9 AM was early!!!!
When Hatu took us to the airport he asked us which of the homes would we like and that if we wanted a three bedroom one he would give it to us for the same price as the two bedroom one. He said that he would take good care of us and get us anything we need.
There are three TV stations, one plays music and shows different vistas, one is the BYU channel and the last one is in Samoan. So I think cable is going to be a must and hopefully a little more variety. By the time we left I was a little more excited because everyone says they love it and it is a beautiful place with absolutely lovely people