A Life of Streiff

Feb 2
We were asked by the Area to help a Professor of Religion from Victoria College in Wellington New Zealand, Professor Paul Morris. He is doing research for a new book on the dynamics of change in religions in the Pacific area. He himself is Jewish but is very friendly to the church. He came here to interview the top leadership of several churches. When he finished his interviews, he told us that when talking to the other church leaders; they would give him anti-Mormon literature and told him that we were a cult and not real Christians. When we asked why they would do that he responded that they are scared. They are losing lots of their members to the LDS Church. We are the top baptizing mission in the Pacific area.
His topic has been why people change religions. He mentioned that he only interviewed actual members of the Mormon Church and not the other churches. Of the three people he interviewed they all said their reason for changing religions was because they finally felt the spirit when they were being taught by the Mormon Missionaries. He asked them, surely you have felt that in your church at some time and they all said they had not.
The first person to be interviewed is from the island of Savaii. Brother Masoe was studying to become a Methodist minister. He attended a religious college here in Upolu for three years but then went home to help on the family plantation. He comes from a family of 10 generations of Methodist ministers. He was found by the missionaries and taught the lessons. There has been a lot of religions unrest in his village due to the disagreements of the religions. He noticed that the Mormon’s just quietly went about their business and did not get into the disagreements. He and his wife fasted for a whole week before they made the commitment. His family has come to him one at a time and asked him why he has joined the Mormon Church. He says that he knows that it is the true church. He just has a good feeling and the spirit has whispered to him that it is true. He says that he has had a very calm feeling. He will be receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood this week and will be talking in church next week. He is not concerned that he may lose his title as a Matei (Chief) in the village because he knows that he has made the right choice.

The second person interviewed was a young pregnant mom named Stephanie. Her husband has been a member for years. She had never felt right about joining the church. But then just before the tsunami, she started to get feelings that she should join. After the tsunami, she asked for the lessons and was baptized. She said that she could see that she needed to have the church in her life so that her children would be with her forever. Both her and husband are now very active in the church. Since her joining she has been instrumental in helping her mother and grandmother become active in the church again.

The third person interviewed was Brother Sau who was found by the sister missionaries and then they asked the Elders to follow up with him. They live far up in the mountains. He said that in his church he was asked to give $100 tala ($45. US) each month. The church would not accept anything less. If you didn’t pay your dues for the month then the minister in the church would get up and read all the names of those that had and had not paid their donation for the previous month. He said that he could not find any place in the Bible that said you had to pay $100 tala a month. He could only find the law of tithing. Something rang true about our church” it just felt good” he said. His wife’s father passed away the night before the interview and he had been trying to get in touch with his daughter to ask her to have him baptized and to do his temple work for him.
Prof. Morris was a delightful person and we enjoyed spending some time with him on his visit to Samoa. It was a privilege to help by arranging these interviews for him and so wonderful to hear the sweet testimonies of the three new converts that met with him. We get so many blessing in this calling

February 4th
My poor mother fell down and broke her femur in several places. She was in so much pain and had to have surgery. They put a rod and several screws in her leg. Brandon and Jodi both showed up at the airport at the exact same time. All the kids went to visit her at the hospital on Saturday after her surgery. The grandkids asked her if she was Wii bowling when she fell down. She said “no, I was Toilet Bowling”. She fell while she was in the bathroom. It really worries me because she is ninety years old and probably won’t heal very quickly.

This is my mom, my sister Carole and my niece

February 8th
In the earthquake/tsunami in September our angel Moroni on the temple lost his Trumpet. There have been a few things in the newspaper about it but he has been without a horn since September. It was decided that since several of his fingers had broken off, that a new statue would be needed.
Our new angel arrived from SLC and we have had fun watching the whole process of putting up scaffolding for the replacement. Samoa doesn’t have a big enough crane to replace that angel so they had to do it with scaffolding that winds its way up and around the temple spire. We prepared several articles for the newspaper and sent notices to the TV and radio stations in the hope that we could get some good media coverage for the event. The temple is such a landmark here and people give direction according to where they are from the temple. Poor Moroni has looked like he’s angry with just one arm up in the air so we are glad we have a new one. Monday was the scheduled day for the replacement but it was poring rain. Tuesday In the paper an article came out with a big headline “Angel Moroni Statue erection delayed” That cracked us up.
But Tuesday we had a break in the weather and they were able to get the job done. We had some TV news reporters come and we hooked them up with Temple President Fonoimoana. He is a councilor in the Temple presidency who was originally born in Hawaii but then moved to American Samoa. He served his mission in Samoa where his ancestors were from. He spoke with the news and told them the significance of Moroni to the restoration of the gospel to the earth and why we have him on our Temples. He did a marvelous job and it was on both the evening and morning news. Articles that Paul wrote appeared in all of the local news papers.

Here’s just a quick side note about the news story. As a woman was watching the program she recognized President Fonoimoana and remembered that she had been baptized a member of the church many years ago but had forgotten about it until she saw him again. She then found the missionaries and told them that she wanted to find her records and get active again. Isn’t it amazing how even public affairs work can end up helping people in finding the Gospel.



President Fonoimoano and his wife


Feb. 14th Valentines Day
I woke up Sunday morning to beautiful flowers and a special Valentine card made by Paul. The flowers here amazing, they arranged them so artistically. We have been making homemade birthday cards for all the grandkids and so he made me a special valentine’s one, it was filled with cute photos of all the kids when they visited here with a few cute ones of him thrown in for good measure.

I made him a cherry pie with little hearts cut out of the crust. He just loves cherry pie but it’s hard to find the kind of cherries we like. Tricia did bring us some cans of cherries but they are long gone so we use the second best that come from New Zealand.

I made cookies for our Sunday school class and they were gone in a matter of seconds.


Feb. 18th
We took off for American Samoa on Thursday to do some training and planning with our Public Affairs committee. Getting ready for these meetings is really a lot of work. We had to create and print manuals and all kinds of other materials. The church has a new PA training website and so I used this to make the new printed training manuals. We had a great meeting and were happy that they finally have every position filled on the committee.
It’s been a long time in coming but we are excited about the new members on the committee.
This is our Director in American Samoa. Su'a Carl Schuster
It’s always fun to go to American Samoa because we can shop at a store like Costco. We are limited to 44lbs/person on the airline, so as we picked up an item, we looked at the weight and then kept a running total. Just with the cheese orders for ourselves and the other couples we were up to 25 lbs in just a few minutes. You just can’t get good American type cheese in Samoa. So cheese is a must for us. We also found some plain tostada chips and got really excited about that. You can take 10 lbs of carry on so our carry on bags were loaded with chips and cereal. What fun for us!!!