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.
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.
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
The Lord is watching over us. This is our cute little house
2 comments:
That does look like a bit of heaven.
Congratulations on your arrival which almost did not happen, thanks to the airlines. You are suspicious looking people.
Well, I'm off to France on a two week painting trip. I am very anxious to get there and start seeing the beautiful hill towns of Provence and get my daily gelato.
I'm worn out just reading about your adventures!!
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