A Life of Streiff

Journal 2010
January
We had a New Years Eve party at our home for the senior couples and it was fun. We played the animal game and surprisingly no one got hurt. Of course we put the names on a table in the middle of the room so no one had to stoop down. Sister Bell had a fun game of giving each of us a new name of someone in the room. We had to remember who people were and then try and move them into the designated four chairs to win. It was men against women so after a while the men just let us win so that we would be done with the game. Men are not into party games unless they include some form of violence.
At 10:30 everyone was yawning and complained about being tried so I gave them the horns, told them to blow them and go home. They all laughed but did it and were gone by 11:00 PM. The church behind us was having a huge New Years dance and the music was so loud that our couch was vibrating with the base drums. Paul went over to see what was going on and said it was whole families all dancing together. It must have been quite a site. We wished we had gone over there to dance, that would have been so fun.
On New Years day, the Tolman’s invited us to go with them to pass out candy and balloons to little kids on the tsunami side of the island. Every time we could see children we would stop and hand out treats.

At first they were too shy and wouldn’t come over but when they saw that we had treats they came running. It was so fun to do that. We got to go back into some of their villages and see up close their living conditions. These people are so humble and have so little but their fale’s are clean and well organized. Most of them invited us to have something to eat with them but we graciously declined. We ran out of candy after an hour and came home. What a fun thing to do.

On the weekend five couples went to stay at a resort on the north shore. It was called Le Uaina. We had brand new fale’s right on the ocean. They were air-conditioned with showers and were really nice. They also had a nice little restaurant with pretty good food. It was Sister Bell’s birthday so we had cake and ice cream for the celebration. It was a great place to just relax and play games.
Just down the beach we found a cave that had fresh water flowing out of it. We discovered that it had a small underwater tunnel connecting it to another cave that opened up into a bigger swimming area. The guys all had to swim through it but you wouldn’t catch me going underwater to find an opening in the dark and then hope you could make it through.

There are so many amazing things to see here.

Paul and I were called to be Sunday School Teachers. We teach the 14, 15, 16, and 17 year olds. We have 31 in our class. Boy, is it a challenge not only to have so many but to try to teach on a level for all of them. The worst thing is trying to memorize their names. Most of them have such difficult names to pronounce and we are trying hard to say them right. We took pictures of each of them and have made flash cards with their names on the back. Just when we thought we had them all down, a whole bunch of new ones showed up that had been off island for the holidays. The kids are really fun and there is a bonus to this calling because we have the only air-conditioned room in the whole church.
January 11th
Our director called us and asked us if we would mind accepting more assignments as part of jobs. He asked Paul if he would be the Area representative on Media Updates. This means he has to read everything in the whole Area and type updates for the Area President. He has to get on line find newspapers stories that have anything to do with the church.

This is Dave Hightower the IT guy. He spends a lot of time in our office. We love him.

Rich asked me if I would do all the records reporting for the Area. I have to log all newspaper articles or media coverage, all visits with opinion leaders or any activities that the church does. Then do a quarterly report for the Area Presidency.
I think we both have our work cut out for us now. I’m just grateful that Rich feels that we are so capable. It’s great to be busy and anxiously engaged in the work.

Saturday 16
We went to the “Survivor Beach” (a private beach owned by our mission president) with a group of senior missionaries. It’s the location where the TV show Survivor, both seasons was filmed. It‘s a beautiful setting with no amenities. We were the only ones on the beach and it was gorgeous. There was only a partial reef on this beach so the waves came all the way to shore. It is so sad to see the coral so damaged from the tsunami but the guys had fun snorkeling none the less.

Paul came in so excited because he had seen a big shark and wanted someone with a camera to go with him to find it and take its picture. Now, any normal person would get out of the water and warn others they had seen a shark but not Paul, he had all the men back in the water for a photo opportunity. I couldn’t believe that they would all want to be in the water with a big SHARK!
Our daughter Jodi is in Haiti with Operation smile for two weeks. We have been so worried but grateful that she is so willing to serve when asked to do so. We didn’t hear from her the whole time she was gone but I got onto the operation smiles web page and fallowed her activities. I downloaded any pictures that had her in them. She is now safely home but still has a desire to go back and help out those poor people. She said that it was the hardest thing she has every done but that it was the most spiritual experience she has gone through. What a great person she is. She is the one in the red hat.

Saturday 23rd
The men from our ward went over to the south side of the island to build a new fale for a member whose home was destroyed in the Tsunami. They left at 4:30 in the morning and didn’t get home until 5:30 PM. They were all totally exhausted and filthy. Luckily they went to a beach on the way home and took a swim in their cloths so I didn’t get to see how dirty Paul really was. Paul said it was the hardest physical work he has done in years. I guess they mixed about 60 loads of cement. Each load takes 10, 5 gallon buckets of sand/gravel mix. So he and one other senior missionary lifted 300 of those buckets, 80lbs. each, up into the mixer. He was so exhausted that he went to bed early. The next morning he found cuts and bruises on his arms and knees from carrying those buckets of sand and gravel to the mixer. What was amazing was that the senior missionaries worked as hard, or harder, than the younger local ward members.

Elder Kelly, Paul, Brother Meridith, Elder Bell, Elder Tolman, Brother Paramore, Elder Squire.

Jan 30.

Elder Quentin Cook and Bishop Burton came to Samoa. They had a cultural show for them on Friday night which was so fun to watch. All of the dancing and singing was amazing.
We were able to attend a special meeting with just the missionaries and his message to us was to “Save the one”. Elder Cook is such a sweet man and gave a powerful message. Elder Burton also spoke and I could listen to them all day long. We had a member meeting that evening but I got the flu and couldn’t attend.