Pioneer day in Samoa

July 22, 2009
On Saturday we had another exciting adventure. We went snorkeling over on the south side of the island. We first stopped at the Coconut Beach resort that Paul had read an article about last week. We were scanning articles that mentioned the Church and this one popped up. It was from a dive magazine and the writer had come to Samoa to do some diving and snorkeling. As he was describing the sites as he drove along the north side of the island, he mentions the Huge Mormon Temple that towers above everything else. That was the only mention of the Church but Paul had to read the whole article and discovered that it had a wealth of information about great dive and snorkeling sites. One of them was near the Coconut Beach Resort and it said to check with Roger at the dive shop. Paul went in and asked for him but the lady at the desk had never heard of him. We asked some other people and finally discovered that he had moved away probably 5 years ago and no one there had any idea where the place was as mentioned in the article. We later discovered that the article was from 1989 and we have no idea why the scanning service that we pay for picked it up now. In any event we were out to snorkel and snorkel we did, but not at that resort. We drove about ten miles east to a beach they we had been to before at Vavau. It was incredible. I can’t believe how beautiful the Coral and fish are. There were so many different types.
The blue star fish is my favorite because it is such a bight blue lying on the white coral and makes such a great contrast. We also saw an eel that was all the way out of its hole just lying on the sand. It had really different designs on its back which kind of resembled a rattle snake or something similar.

The couple we were with had just brought their new underwater camera and were on their way over to take a picture but it swam back into the coral before they could get a shot. They took all of these pictures you see here. We also saw several star fish which are called Crown of Thorns. It's below

They are very big and beautiful. They have a grey colored skin with bright red thorns covering their entire body. The first time we went snorkeling, we only saw one of these and thought they were somewhat rare. Today they were all over the place and we probably saw ten or more so I guess they aren’t that rare after all.

This picture is so great because you can see the reflection of the top of the water in it.
Paul and I were on our way back to shore when Paul turned out toward the reef to look at something. All of a sudden we felt like we had entered a river with the current flowing very fast toward the ocean. The coral was getting very shallow and the current was pulling us out to sea over the coral. I didn’t have gloves on and was flying along when Paul, who was able to grab the coral, caught me by my fin and helped me to turn around. He hung onto the coral with one hand and me with the other, pulling us along until I could start swimming again. It had been too shallow to swim because you would hit the coral with your arms and legs. We pulled and swam just a short distance and then it was calm again. We came out with very little damage; I only had a few scraps on my hand and one leg. My other leg must have washed out to sea. Just kidding. We were a little tired after that and had a good rest on the sandy beach.

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On the way home we decided to stop at the National Park where they have this nice little waterfall. There were several pools at different levels. From the upper level of the falls you have an 8 foot jump into the first pool. It looked a lot higher to me but I was looking down at the pool and it’s a bit deceiving. Once you’re in the first pool, there is no way out but to jump into the next pool down. This one is about ten or more feet. There was no turning back once you made that first jump because the stairs that go back up are all the way at the bottom. Paul just jumps right off without a care in the world. I’m a bit more cautious and checked the situation out a little better. I was worried that I might hit the bottom of the pool but I closed my eyes and jumped and was amazed that I never touched the bottom. It was much deeper than I thought.

This is Paul's jumping off the first waterfall.

This is the second jump but you can't see how high is was.
It was great to be in fresh water and I was amazed that I never got cold. In fact I haven’t been cold since we got here. Well, almost never, the other night it got down to 75 and I had to get up and put on a long sleeve shirt. They have a saying here that if you ever get cold, you need to turn off the Air Conditioner.

Shopping at the out door market

Pat trying to pick out some new coconuts

We have had meetings this week with several retired members who now dedicate their time to helping those who are less fortunate. They are Felix Wednt, George Hunt and Daniel Vaoifi. They work as volunteers in the humanitarian services area trying to help others succeed. We’re hoping that they can help us come up with some good ideas for Public Affairs, to help further the work in the islands. They have a really good feel for what’s going on here and seem to know most of the important government contacts that can make things happen. And since we’re always looking for good material for news articles, they can supply us with the information we need from their many projects to just about fill our need for the rest of the year. Right now they are working on several projects including Water systems for remote villages, Computers for a Catholic School and the handover of one of our older churches to a village for use as a community building. We will try to accompany them to island of Savaii next week to help install water tanks and collection pipes for a new water system. We hope to get some good photos and perhaps a few quotes from the village elders about what the new water system will mean for their village. In many of the more remote villages, there currently is no water source and the villagers must spend much of their time each week walking, hiking or paddling canoes to a fresh water source and then back again.
The other day we saw an older lady pushing a wheel barrow along a jungle road with water jugs that she had filled from a spring and was now taking them back to her village. They have to work very hard for things that we just take for granted and it’s such a blessing to see the Church provide so many good things to make their lives just a little better.
We met with our director for public affairs again this week and he is starting to get the vision of what Public Affairs is all about. We get all excited when things start to happen and we see the work moving forward. We have had two stories published in the two weeks we’ve been here so things are progressing nicely

This is Sister Shuster from American Samoa, her husband is the PA Director from there. She is so cute and we love her.

We also met with the PA director from America Samoa this week and took him and his wife to lunch. They are wonderful people. He worked for the U.S. government most of his life while they were living in California. After he retired he decided to move back to Samoa where he could find ways to help the Samoan people improve their lives. They currently live in American Samoa where most of their children are but spend a fair amount of time in Western Samoa where they are building a second home. Or should we say a forth home, because they still own a home in Seattle, and have two homes in American Samoa. He has children living in those extra ones. His wife is a cousin to the royalty in Tonga and Su’a is a chief in American Samoa.

After a busy week of meetings, it was fun to enjoy a Saturday celebration of our pioneer heritage with the members of our ward. In honor of both the original pioneers from the U.S. and also the early Samoan pioneers here on the islands. They decided to have a short trek up the canyon to a place called Saniatu (Prepare to go forth). Everyone met at the main road and then the hearty ones made the 4.5 mile trek up to the property. The road started out fairly steep but quickly leveled out and was just slightly uphill the rest of the way. We had been assigned to drive up and down the canyon ferrying the drivers of cars back down to the starting point after they had parked their vehicles at the top. Once we had everyone on the road, then we just made sure that everyone was OK and not in need of help. Many of the older members also walked and they are in the late seventies. Pat joined in the walking about half way up and made it to the top with just a few blisters for her trouble. Since I’m still having trouble with the joints in my big toes, I stayed in the car to provide help and water to anyone that needed it.

Once there we enjoyed a delightful afternoon of playing in the water, jumping off cliffs into beautiful ponds that are fed by stunning waterfalls.

This is Paul and Sister Anderson. Notice that everyone wears their clothes when they swim.

Our Dinner was hot dogs and sausage’s and we ate until we were about to burst (they call this a sausage sizzle) and then we listened to the stories of the early Samoan Pioneers and all the trials that they faced after joining the Church.

Our sausage sizzlesSaniatu is an 800 acre piece of land that the Church purchased from a German rubber plantation back in the late 1800’s. As missionaries went forth teaching and baptizing people, a problem arose when many of them were rejected by their villages for joining the new Church.
They were expelled and even assaulted with stones and clubs and told to never come back. They had nowhere to go so the Church bought this land as a haven where they could live in peace. There were many tales of the hard ships and trials that they experienced over the years as well as the many miracle’s that they witnessed of healings of the sick, turning away storms and lightning by priesthood power, and many others.
We have found that the Samoan Saints have such great faith and testimonies and miracles are almost a daily occurrence for them. One group of saints after being rejected by their village, were told that they had to pay for their past food that had been consumed in the village. Not having any money or other earthly goods to use as payment. The group promised to pay the village back just as soon as they could harvest crops from the new land they were going to. The village elders rejected this offer and demanded payment before they would let them leave. All they had was the clothes on their backs so they gave them everything that they owned and then made the trek to Saniatu totally naked.

We suggested that they recreate that version of the trek on Saturday as we were sure that it would make a splash in the local news papers. We public affairs people are always thinking, that’s what we’re good at.
Over the years, the Church has developed the property and today it has a beautiful school, a modern chapel and homes for all the teachers. It sits in a most beautiful setting with streams running along both sides of the property, with cascading waterfalls and pools along the way. The Prophet David O. McKay paid a visit to the site in 1921 and declared it the first Temple in the pacific. A traditional Samoan Fale was built for this most special occasion and remains to this day with a plaque identifying it as the McKay Fale. It was truly a marvelous day and one that we will remember for a long time.

This is the McKay Fale

The Kimball's, Squire's and us eating fish and chips before the trek.
Our featured couple this week is Elder Ron and Sister Janice Squire. Ron was born in 1948 in Canyon city Colorado and was raised in Westcliffe Colorado. He attended Western State College and majored in mathematics. Upon graduation he took a position as a High school Math teacher in Snow Flake Arizona. There is an old story that still circulates around the town, to the effect that Ron and his friend rode into Snow Flake on Harley Davidson Motorcycles with sporting long hair and beards. Ron denies this story and said he didn’t buy a motorcycle until years later but local residents swear by their version.

Ron worked in the school system and eventually became the principal of the school. He was a non-member when he and Janice married in 1973 and joined the Church in 1996 after attending and holding calling for much of that time. He eventually became Bishop and also worked in the Boy Scouts, Young men and Stake High council.

Janice was born in Rigby Idaho and raised in Ririe Idaho on a Dairy farm near the Snake River. She lived there until going off to first Ricks College and then BYU where she received a teaching degree. She was offered a job at the High School in Snow Flake Arizona. Where she met Ron and married in 1973. She was a lifelong member of the Church. They have 4 children 2 girls 2 boys. And have 8 grand children with one on the way. This is their first mission and they are serving in the CES dept. They teach school in Apia and will begin teaching local teachers in the next month. The Squire’s have become great friends, and we spend most Saturday’s with them, exploring the island and snorkeling in the beautiful ocean around Samoa.

The Samoan Life

Monday July 13, 2009

We have survived our first full week in Samoa and loved the experience. We especially love the people we work with. We sit in our office and hear the people laughing and singing all day long. Everyone seems to really enjoy life and love what they are doing. And they are so helpful and kind to us.
Paul has signed up to learn the ukulele. The IT specialist that helps us work out all of our computer problem, is a professional player and has even been in some movies singing and playing his ukulele. He has a great voice, is very talented and has consented to teach Paul. I’ve got to think of a reason not to be home on Wednesday evenings.

This is a Fale and Paul wants to build one on the grass at Bear Lake.

I am still having trouble sleeping because of the dogs and the roosters but I now turn my fan on, use earplugs and sometime put a pillow over my head and then get some sleep. Everyone says that you get used to it, so hopefully I will start sleeping a little more in the near future.
The other night Paul found a whistle in the desk drawer and thought it was one of those silent ones that have a really high pitch when you blow it, the dogs hear it and leave because it hurts their ears.
I was in the bedroom and all of the sudden I heard this high pitched whistle and it was killing my ears. I ran out into the front room and there was Paul blowing the whistle. I told him that it was killing my ears and to stop it. He said “Can you really hear this?” I said “Yes, it’s loud and very high pitched.” He didn’t believe me because he couldn’t hear anything. I finally convinced him that I could hear it. He’s now convinced that I have dog ears and has threatened to take me to the vet to get me fixed. “Ouch!”
Our work is slow but I think when we get a committee organized and start having regular meetings that we will be able to do great things here. Our contact here was finally able to meet with us and by the time we left we could see that he was starting to see the big picture and maybe getting the vision of what public affairs can do.

Sister Squires and me at a cave. Notice the reflection of the moon on ther water.

There are so many wonderful members here that are trying to do good things for their country. A lot of them have gone away, became highly educated and then returned to help their country.
Friday we went to the Temple for the English session. What a beautiful temple. The Celestial room ceiling was incredible. It was painted in a beautiful geometric design with lots of gold leafing. It’s too hard to describe but it was really beautiful with a large crystal chandelier hanging below it. The seats in the endowment rooms were not very padded, they were very firm and there are no arms on the sides.

Saturday: We went with the Squires, another senior couple, for a little sightseeing and snorkeling adventure. They took us to some of the most beautiful waterfalls. I swear that one of them is the one in the temple movie.

This the top of the water fall.

The actual Fall

Looking down the waterfall.

The land for each waterfall is owned by an individual or village and their home is usually out front where you pull in to park. Once you get out of your car, someone from the village or home comes out and you pay them a few tala’s (Samoan money) usually around $3 US dollars per person. Then you can walk through their yard and to the view area for the falls. We saw 4 waterfalls and they were incredible and if you can imagine, they are right in a person’s back yard! Now that’s a view I could live with.

Another waterfall. I wish I had written down the names.

We then went to a lovely beach called Tafatafa. It was a gorgeous white sand beach with little fale’s all along the upper edge interspersed with beautiful palm trees. A fale is a hut like structure with thatched roof and a wooden floor about two feet up off the sand. You can set your beach chairs, mats or towels down and then sit or lay in the shade while looking out on the most amazing beach and azure blue water. We did do some snorkeling and I couldn’t believe how warm and comfortable the water was. We were out for more than an hour and I never got even slightly cold. The coral and fish at this beach wasn’t as spectacular as other places on the island but the beautiful beach and warm water more than made up for it.
Just a beautiful day at the beach with the Squires

Lunch Yum. Notice the pinkish red. That's the pig being uncovered.

We decided this week that we would feature one of the local members or a senior couple each week so that we could remember them when we get home and also so that our friends and family could get to know a little more about those who we are working with.

This week, we would like to feature Elder and Sister Kimball. Elder Kimball is a first cousin to Dr. Gordon Kimball who many of you know and love. He was born in Provo Utah in 1939 and spent most of his life down there. His father was an athletic trainer for BYU so the family had deep blue running through their veins. I won’t hold that against him.
Elder Kimball was an educator all of his life and now serves in the ICS department and teaches professors from BYU Hawaii.
Sister Kimball was also born in Provo Utah but grew up under rather harsh conditions in Kemmer Wyoming. Her parents were not members of the church. When she was 13 years old she was in the band and there was a senior girl that she admired. The senior girl was always so kind, happy and had wonderful standards. Sister Kimball wanted to be just like her so she looked into the church and became a member just because of the good example of this senior girl. Elder Kimball said that he wished they could find her and tell her how much they loved her because of the way she lived her life had blessed their whole family. Her family later moved first to Delta Utah and then to Provo where she met Elder Kimball at B.Y.-High School.
In addition to her mission duties, Sister Kimball teaches key boarding to the local members and has 16 students who can now play the piano for their church meetings and other social gatherings.

The Kimball’s have 9 children, (6-boys 3-girls), 25 Grand Children and 2 Great Grand Children. This is their second mission, the first being to Zambia Africa. They leave for home in about 5 weeks but hope to serve another mission in the future, health permitting. They are one of the cutest, most dedicated and helpful couples that we have met and we love them dearly. We have only known them for a little more than a week but we will really miss them. One last note, they sang in Church this past week and Elder Kimball sounds a lot like Willy Nelson, or maybe it was Gene Autry, one of those two.

Paul organized a party to watch the 2008 U of U football highlight DVD. All the public affair missionaries in the Pacific Area office are Utah Fans. Amazing

Elder and Sister Hilbig. He was just released from the Pacific Area Presidency.

June 21st Fathers Day
We decided to pack a picnic lunch and go to the beach. It was a little cold but we did it anyway. We read our books lying on a blanket and as soon as the sun went behind the cloud we froze. So it was a short picnic.

Long Bay on Father's Day

Friday July 3rd

Well we finally made it to Samoa but for a time it was touch and go. It was weird to leave on the first of July and arrive on the 30th of June and then re-live Wednesday all over again. If kind of felt like the movie “Ground Hog Day”.
It was hard to pack. We had three places to put things. One place was for things to stay in New Zealand; the second was for things to have shipped and last were the things to pack in our suitcases to take on the plane with us.
We decided to leave all of our warm clothing in New Zealand because we knew we wouldn’t need it in Samoa and figured that we would be back to NZ at some point before going home. If we never make it back there we can just have them shipped home.
Our cute friends the Carlston’s had a storage area in their apartment garage and so we packed up our winter things plus the few household things that we bought and took it to them. Then we packed up our office and added some more household things and then had two boxes shipped. We packed the rest in our suitcases, weighing them so carefully so that we were not overweight.
When we arrived at the airport and presented our tickets and put our luggage on to be weighed they told us that they had changed the weight limit that day so all of our checked bags were overweight by about 3 pounds. We asked if we could just pay an excess baggage charge for the extra weight. But they said that this was a smaller aircraft and could not allow you to pay the difference. We said what do you want us to do, throw our stuff away? Then smooth talking Paul got involved and told the agent that you can’t do that to people who travel to New Zealand on their airline with one baggage limit and then change it before they leave, causing them to leave some of their belongings behind. She said that if we could produce our tickets into New Zealand that we could use that as a way to keep that same weight limit. Of course we didn’t have our tickets from 4 months ago but I told her what day we arrived. She was able to pull our flight up on her computer and left to talk to her supervisor. Our time was running short because it had taken us one hour to just get up to the ticket counter. After 15 minutes she came back and allowed our baggage to go through. Whew!!!
We hurried up stairs to go through security and they pulled us aside to weigh our carry on bags. Three of our four carry on’s were overweight too as they had just imposed a new 7k limit on them. She treated us like criminals, trying to cheat the airline and told us that we would have to take a pink slip and go back down stairs and talk to the supervisor at the main counter. After waiting in a shorter line we spoke with another ticket agent who was much nicer and said to re distribute our belongings so that none weighed more than 10 kilos and then he told us to go through Premium check in which allows 10 kilos. We went in there and unpack our bags put some in my purse and some in Paul’s computer bag which got us close to the limit. I had two sets of scriptures in my poor purse. When we went through security the officer was a member of the church and let us though without even weighing anything.
We made our flight with 5 minutes to spare. We were both exhausted and our arms were full but we made the flight. It’s a good thing we prayed that morning that things would go well with us. I can’t imagine what would have happened without it.
We arrived around 8:40 and were picked up by a cute couple, the Kimball’s. It was about 10 PM by the time we got through customs and we were exhausted and were excited to get a good night’s sleep. They told us that they would pick us up for breakfast at 7:30 and then take us around to get things all set up.
The night was not a very restful one. We were used to our quiet little house off the road in New Zealand and now were next to a somewhat busy road with dogs barking all night and roosters crowing from 3:30 on. This might take a little getting used to.
We had a good breakfast with the Kimball’s and then off to get Paul a driver’s license. You can’t drive here unless you have a Samoa driver’s license. That went well except the machine that prints out the license broke down and we had to wait about 40 minutes. I’ve heard of a face breaking a camera but never a driver’s license machine.
We went to the IT department to get our security badges that allow us in the offices and then it took the rest of the morning to get our cell phone working. They showed us our office, which was great and said the computers would be in by tomorrow.

Thursday was spent getting some household things done. We went grocery shopping and cleaned up our home.
Friday we meet with the mission president and his wife. President Haleck is like the Donald Trump in the islands. They own hotels, rental car agency, gas stations, an Airline, grocery store chain and who knows what else. He is an amazing man. He is a Samoan who lives in American Samoa but I think they also lived in the states for a while. It will be great working with him. Since his arrival the baptisms have really gone up and last month they had 195 in just this mission. That is amazing
We went to dinner with three other couples at the little yacht club sitting on the seawall overlooking the ocean. We had a wonderful meal of fresh fish of the day (Albacore tuna) cooked on the grill and spent the evening getting to know these wonderful couples. It is amazing how many connections we find with each one of them. It might be family connection or scouting, or the fact that they have served other missions in the same place. We all have something in common even if it’s just the gospel.

Elder and Sister Kimball

Saturday was our ward high priest party. It was about an hour’s drive to a beautiful cove on the other side of the island. Paul went snorkeling and said it was amazing. He said that he has never seen coral this beautiful and with such a variety. He did manage to scrape his leg on a piece of coral and came out with blood running down his leg. He always seems to find a way to hurt himself while having fun.

This is Vavau the beach that we had our ward party at.

We are so happy to be here with such wonderful people. We have had fresh fruit bought to us, and have been invited to dinner twice and have gone out with five different senior couples. This is a little bit like being in heaven. Isn’t Life great? The Lord is watching over us. This is our cute little house