October for the Streiff's

Oct.7 2009

Well, the Big relief plane from SLC that was due at 9 PM didn't arrive until 12:30 AM. We sat in our car and tried to sleep while waiting for it but too many things were going on like mosquito’s biting us and people knocking on the window to talk to us. But when it did land it really looked huge compared to the other airplanes at the airport. It was hard to imagine that we would have to unload that whole thing tonight.


These are the cute missionaries unloading the plane


There were five crew members and our two media guys on the DC10. What a way to travel for those guys. They could walk around lay out flat on their sleeping bags and one even got to sit in the cock pit while taking off and landing.
The airport didn’t have a high enough lift to reach the cargo door on the plane so they had to unload each pallet by hand onto the lift, lower it and then reload the pallets to load them on the trucks. There were about 30 young missionaries there pulse 4 senior couples and several employees from the Church Service center. Those poor young missionaries had been working up in the hills all day, digging latrines and would now be up all night unloading and then loading trucks.
Our missionaries digging toilets.


It was a very long process unloading the plane. The media guys were there to take pictures of the whole thing for a documentary. Garret Batty and Lucas McGraw were both from SLC area. After a little conversation we found out that Garret had been Jennifer’s home teacher in Draper and still lives in her ward. Small world isn’t it. They also had to do interviews with several of the missionaries and didn’t finish until after 4:30 AM . We were a bit tired by the time we arrived at our home just after 5AM. It's 3:30 in the morning and Paul is supervising in his lava lava.

We had planned to take them with a group from the stake that was going out to do a Helping Hands clean up project but we were all much too tired to continue without any sleep. We decided to meet at the service center by 8:30 so we had to sleep fast. I had told the two boys (I guess they weren’t really boys, they were both married, but I called them my boys) that we would have them for breakfast at 8 AM. I had to get up early and make apple pancakes for them. So I got 2 hours of sleep that night.

We took them to the service center and got the agenda for the day and then met with the Ministry of Health and the head of the Red Cross. We did interviews with them and took pictures of all the food that had been brought to the warehouse during the night. The last two flatbed trucks had just arrived from the airport at 10am and the TV media was there taking lots of pictures and interviewing our Public Affairs director and our humanitarian director. Each of them was so impressed with how fast the church responded to this disaster. We found out later that Paul and I were on TV that night but we never saw it. We thought we were just in the background helping our media guys.
The Head of the Red Cross


After the ministers had left and all the pictures were done Paul said to me, what’s that big grease spot on your shirt? I looked down and sure enough a big dark spot of grease. I then looked at him and he had two grease spots on this tie. We couldn’t image what we had rubbed up against but we were both stained. A great way to appear on Samoa television.

The minister of Health of Samoa

We drove the film crew around for the first day and then the next couple of days they traveled with the Area President Elder Callister to the affected areas. They got some great stories and shots so hopefully they have some good footage for the story they are doing.
Paul has been busy writing stories of a few of the tsunami victims. Two or three of these have appeared on the country web site for the Church. He has quite a gift for writing and since we still don’t have a media specialist; it’s up to him to get that part of our job done.

Friday 17th
Paul was invited to go with the priest quorum on an overnighter. He and our neighbor, Hatu took ten boys plus all their gear in one Toyota pickup truck up into the mountains. It actually took them two trips but it seemed weird that they would only have one vehicle for a Priest outing. They went up to the top of the mountains which are south of where we live and spent the night in the jungle.
I guess they found an old three sided shack that they cleaned out and used for sleeping, cooking and just hanging out. Paul borrowed a Dutch oven from the Dentist that lives across the street and made the boys some of his famous soda pop biscuits. They must have been a hit because he used the whole bag of flour and said they ate them all. Paul was very impressed with how nice these young me are. Hatu made food and other assignments prior to leaving and the boys took care of everything. Cooking, clean-up, camp fire scripture discussion, the works. It was all very impressive. Once the camp fire session was over, the boys settled down to a good game of checkers. No one brought phones or electronic games, just two home made checker board with soda pop bottle caps for pieces.

They played this till about midnight when Paul and Hatu went to bed. The boys stayed up and sang around another fire they had built out side the shack and kept this up until 6:30 in the morning when Hatu got up to heat water for breakfast. That was one long night.
After a small breakfast of buffalo eye eggs that Paul prepared, they went on a two hour hike to a lake off in the jungle some where. The trail went up and down over mountain ridges and valleys, through very red mud and thick jungle. The lake, which is an old volcano crater was really pretty and offered a cool dip for the sweaty boys. They only stay a short time and then made the two hour hike back to the truck. They arrived home just after 12 o’clock very tired and very dirty, I couldn’t believe how dirty all of his cloths and socks and everything else were but he had a blast. I guess he really misses being with the scouts back home.

Oct 20th Tuesday

Elder Hamula the 1st counselor of the Area Presidency is here for a mission tour. The Haleck’s asked us if we would skip the conference and entertain his three children Julie (17) Jared and Joseph. (13) So we took them for the day. We went first to Palolo Deep for a snorkeling outing and they loved it. It was a little breezy but not too bad, we saw lots of fish. We stayed there for a couple of hours and then we headed for Sauniatu.


At Sauniatu there is a big pool at the base of good sized waterfall. You can jump off the side wall and try to swim to the base of the falls where you can climb up the cliff and actually sit under the falls. It’s a difficult swim because you are swimming upstream and the current can be strong. If you get tired, you just stop swimming and you float back to the shallow area. They really had a fun time there.

Paul in his lava lava but having some trouble with buttoning his shirt.


One of the twins, Joseph climbed up the side of the falls a couple of times and I was a little nervous that he would fall and get hurt (on our watch) but thankfully he was careful.
Salu, Hatu’s secretary, brought Sister Hamula and lunch and met us at Sauniatu I’m not sure what the beef was but the chicken leg was our best choice. I think Paul took one bite and then suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore.

The famous McKay Fale at Sauniatu and the Hamula's children

Sister Hamula really wanted to go to a beach so we drove over to Tafa Tafa for a little beach action. By the time we got over there, the day had become overcast so Sister Hamula and I just sat on the beautiful beach. The kids were playing on the beach and drawing “I love Samoa” in the sand. We took photos of them doing pyramids and just playing around.
Paul noticed a lady from the local village, filling up a wheelbarrow with sand and pushing it across the sand to her fale so he decided to help her. In just a few minutes he was wheeling children back from the village and trying to dump them into the ocean. They were too fast for him and would jump off just before he could dump them in the ocean. They would fill up the wheelbarrow and he would wheel it across the sand and return with a wheelbarrow full of kids. They were having a great time.
We really enjoyed the day with Sister Hamula and her children. They are such wonderful people, so down to earth and fun. We got home around 6:30 and were really hungry and since there is no fast food places here except for McDonalds, I thought I would have to fix them some dinner. I looked in my fridge and came up with quesadilla’s. I thawed some chicken fast and cooked it up in my little George Forman grill. I put some taco seasoning on it and cut it up for quesadilla’s.
Just as everything was ready Elder Hamula was at our door trying to find his family. So we invited him in for dinner. It certainly wasn’t one of the fanciest dinners I have ever made but the kids said that it was the best they have had since they left the States.
I thought of what a privilege it was to entertain and laugh with a wonderful General Authority. I was so impressed with him because he is so approachable and warm. I loved his wife the minute I met her. They were going to Pago Pago for a zone conference on Thursday and she asked if there was anything I needed from there. I told her that I didn’t need anything and she just kept asking me so finally I said “OK just get me some Honey Nut Cheerios”. I tried to think of something that didn’t weigh too much because all you can take on the plane is 40 lbs.

Wednesday 21st
At 9PM the mission president called and asked if we would to Pago Pago, American Samoa the next morning and that they would try to get us out on the earliest plane. I had heard rumors for the last 3 weeks that they might need nurses there and that I was going to go, but no one had asked me to go until that night. I hurried and did the wash and packed.


Sister Derrick and me boarding the tiny plane.

We arrived at Pago Pago and were greeted by the Elder and Sister DaBell. They are such a great couple who do so much for the mission.
We stayed at their home along with Sister Derrick, the mission nurse who had accompanied us.

We arrived just in time for the luncheon at the Zone conference that was being held that day and were able to hear President Hamula’s closing remarks about missionary work. I was impressed with his remarks about the earthquakes and total devastation that the Nephite’s experienced after Christ’s crucifixion. Christ came and showed them his wounds and let them all touch him. But then the first instructions were for Nephi to come forward and he asked him to baptize the people. He didn’t say, get all the damage cleaned up or get the people fed or into new homes. He said “Baptize the People”.
Elder Hamula then compared it to Samoa after the tsunami. He said that missionary opportunities and efforts should increase. He also spoke about all the signs that are given now and that it’s not a time of fear but a time of faith. It was powerful sermon that was very close to home after all the devastation that has been done on the three islands affected by the tsunami.

Later that night, Sister Pili who works as a volunteer for the Red Cross came over to the home and talked to us about what we were going to be doing in American Samoa. She said that a lot of the people just needed to talk. We had a feeling that this whole need of nurses was about 3 weeks too late but we were asked to come, so we did.
She picked us up at 8:30 in the morning and after we got into her car she asked if we could say a prayer so that we would know where to go and what to do that day. Sister Derrick and I were a little surprised that nothing was set up for us to do. When I said that I felt they needed social workers instead of nurses her reply was “They just need health care workers.”

The church got water tanks and tents to the members.

So we drove over to the village of Leona where a lot of destruction had occurred. She saw someone at a home and pulled in. It was a two story home and the whole first floor was gutted. She told him that we were nurses from the church and was there anything or anyone who needed help. He said that he was from Guam and hadn’t been here for the Tsunami but he came to help his parents whose house this was. He told us about his sister who was in the house when the wave hit and was in the bathroom and couldn’t get out so she jumped on top of the toilet and found a pocket of air so that she could breath. The second wave hit and it knock down the walls and she was flushed out the back of the house. She managed to grab onto a tree and held on until the water receded.
Another cute little lady who was 82 told us that when the wave hit she was running to get to higher ground with her grandson and daughter. She told them to run on and leave her because if it was her turn to go that she was fine with that. They wouldn’t listen to her so the daughter picked her up by the shoulders and her grandson grabbed her feet and off they ran. She kept pleading with them the whole time. “If it’s my turn to die I should, please leave me and go to safety.” All three of them made it.
Another mother was telling us that when earthquake ended, that the primary school told the children to go home. (Big Mistake)This would put them right in the path of a tsunami if one came. She was running to the school to get her six year daughter and just as she grabbed her hand the wave hit them. It took them inland and smashed them into a truck. Her hand was cut open and it caused her to let go of her daughter. The two were pulled apart and she said that as she saw her float away, that she knew that she would never see her alive again.
She also told us that the night before, her daughter had come in the home leaving the door opened and her mother asked her to close it, so she said “Why is there a tsunami coming?” She couldn’t remember ever mentioning the word Tsunami before. The mother told us that she felt that her little girl was prepared to go and that God had needed her for his garden. The mother had been baptized in the church but had gone back to her other religion because it made things easier in her village but was now ready to get active in the LDS church again and wanted to be sealed to her children. She wanted that assurance that they could be an eternal family.
Several people we talked to were ready to join the church because they saw how our church had come right in and taken care of the people in the villages, not just the members but non members as well.
In fact one village that would never let the church build a chapel had a meeting and the Matai or (Chief) who has blocked the church was the one who said that it was time to let the Mormon’s into the village. They took a vote and every chief voted to let the church build a church if they still desired. They felt it was important for their village to have a Mormon chapel. The Church has since set up a tent so that members can meet in the village and we suspect it won’t be long until we build a chapel there.
I just love our church because it’s so organized, it also is so fast to respond, it helps all the people, not just members and helps the members to help themselves.
Paul has written three stories that have appeared on the church website for the Pacific Area.

One of the stories he wrote was about the two missionaries that saved the three children. This is one of the them Elder Lelea from Tonga next to Paul.

He also wrote to the newspaper about an erroneous article that appeared in the newspaper that said
“A friend of the paper reckons not many people know there is something missing from Joseph’s Smith Golden figure above the LDS Temple at Pesaga. Not quite sure when it happened but his horn, trumpet or whatever you call it is no longer there. Word has it the entire statue is real gold; Now imagine the person who has the trumpet? He/she would be fairly rich by now, wouldn’t he/she.” Paul wrote in to the paper and the next day they wrote a new article saying
“MORONI, NOT JOSEPH SMITH. The statue standing on the LDS temple at Pesega is not that of Joseph Smith, Paul Streiff of the Public Affairs Department corrected yesterday. He wrote”The figure on the Temple is actually that of the Angel Moroni. His horn or trumpet fell to the ground during the earthquake. The figure is not made of gold but does have a very thin layer of gold leaf covering it.” “So There you have it folks”!

We thought that was kind of funny.


We are busy, busy, busy this week getting ready for President Uchtdorf’s visit to the pacific area starting on Saturday. We have to make sure that that opinion leaders and media are invited and that articles get written for the news papers in Samoa, Am Samoa and Tonga. Richard Hunter our director is coming to make sure that all goes well so we decided to hold a training session for the new public affairs council in Samoa while he’s here. We will be glad when the week is over and we can concentrate on the visit of Jodi, Trish, and Lee. Yeah! “Can’t wait”.

This is my lastest hobbie. I started it in New Zealand where it was cold but it's a little too hot here to have a blanket on your lap.