Monday September 24, 2012

This blog is about our trip to American Samoa during the week of September 9 through September 15, 2012. We left Upolu on Sunday the 9th at 11:30 a.m. and arrived in Pago Pago, American Samoa on Saturday the 8th at 12:05 pm. Yes we got to have two Sundays. The two islands are on different sides of the International Date Line. It is kind of weird. Our good friends from the MTC Elder and Sister Jordan met us and we will be staying with them. The Budgett's, Jordan's and us all entered the MTC on July 9th and bonded immediately. We have become close and fast friends.

 This is the waiting area and check in for Polynesian Air at the Fangalii airport.  The whole front of the building is open.  The orange desk on the right is where you check your luggage and show your passport and receive you boarding pass.

 This is our airplane.  A little small for Nada.  It holds 19 passengers.  They weigh you with your carry on to decide how to distribute the weight on the plane.

We are on row 6. This is the cockpit that you can see the pilot and copilot both moving the lever to take off. It must be protocal because when we came home they both hand theirs hand on it, too. 

We have arrived in Pago Pago, American Samoa.  The flight was quite smooth.  They fly low so the cabin is not pressurized.  We were able to see beautiful views out the wndow and to see all the different islands was really interesting.

It is a little different to climb on and off the plane right on the tarmac. This is the Tafuna airport on the island of Tutuila which is American Samoa.  

 

 

Above is a fale outside of the church in the village of Vatia.  We went to a baptism there with the Jordan's and the elders on the North and East side of the Island.  This was Saturday evening.  They served ice cream and cookies after the baptism.  They treated all three of us Senior Couples like special guests.  We sat with the Bishopric and no one else could eat until we were all seated and served.  They had 3 brothers get baptized.  This is the baptismal font on the right.  Most all of the baptismal fonts are located outside.  It was so nice to be part of this joyous event.  Below is a picture of the primary president in this ward and all the Elders sitting on the wall outside of the chapel.  Great bunch of young men.

This is where the Jordan's live.  They live in a village called Mesepa.  We drove all over the island of Tutuila in this little white van.  This is called the mission home in American Samoa.  The Jordan's do all the mail for the whole mission, teach institute classes and help the mission president by taking care of the Elders on this Island since the Mission Home is on the Island of Upolu where we are located. The Mission President needs someone to help keep track of the cars, housing and various other things with these young elders and sisters. 

 We went to church on Sunday morning and visited with a lot of the members.  They go to the Mesepa International ward.  It was kind of nice to hear all the meetings in English.  Everyone was very friendly.  We decided after church to go for a drive and look around.  We drove towards the west side of the Island.

 This side of the island was hit hard by the Tsunami in 2009 and they are still rebuilding.  The tent on the left is what they gave people to live in until they could rebuild.  As you can see, some of the people took the tent and the money and spent the money on other things besides a house.  Hence, they are still living in the tents.

 This memorial was built in the village of Leone.  They had quite a few people get washed out to sea during the Tsunami.  They have a picture and a name of person on this monument.  They were young children, teenagers and older women.  There were 11 of them if we remember correctlly.  This is Elder and Sister Jordan and Elder and Sister Spencer.  The village will not let anyone swim in the ocean here out of respect and fear that someone else might get swept away.

 We started referring to this as one tree island.  There is a small island behind it with 5 trees.  We thought it was beautiful.

 This building is called the Sunday School.  They do not have enough priesthood bearers to be a branch or a ward so they only hold Sunday School here. 

 As we drove up the hill from the village of Leone we looked back and saw this view which we thought was fantastic.  We loved the coastline here.  They don't have a lot of reefs so the ocean comes crashing in and it is so beautiful

 Look out the window and you can see an old World War 2 Bunker.  They have these all around the coastline. 

 If you look behind Reed you can see the mist coming out of a blow hole.  We saw 5 blow holes while we were watching the ocean here.  It was so nice to stand there and feel the wind and watch and listen to the tide come in.  This is an area called Turtle and Shark.  They have a legend about if you sing a certain song you will see a Turtle and Shark swimming which are a Grandmother and Granddaughter who sacraficed themselves for this village.  This is close to Vaitogi Village.

This is all the area that they call Turtle and Shark. We could have stayed here for hours. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Great company and beautiful scenery.  Below is a picture of a long boat.  You can see how big they are.

 On Tuesday September 11, 2012 we had two of the Elders take us out to Aunu'u Island.  First we had to get to the village where we were going to take the boat from Tutuila over to Aunu'u.  This was the restroom you could use before you got on the boat.

This is the boat we are going to take over to Aunu'u.  When Nada first saw it she said, "Are you kidding, that's not the boat we are taking is it?"  Well yes it was.  It cost 2 Tala per person if you are not a local.  It took us 20 minutes on some pretty rough water to get to the island.  The driver obviously has done it lots of times.  We felt pretty safe.  No life jackets.  We saw them under the front but they did not make you put them on or even offer them to you.  We saw this poor man's legs.  They looked very sore and some of the sores were raw.

 Above Elder Budgett and Reed and Nada on the back bench of the boat.  Some of the people had to stand or just sit on the deck. 

On the left is the LMS (London MIssionary Society) Church.  They were the first church on this island.

 The elders asked these girls to be our tour guides while they kept appointments they had made.  From left to right, Tala, Justine, and Tia.  They are all cousins.  Tala is the daughter of the Branch President and 1 of 15 children.  Justine and Tia are new members in the last few months.
They were so friendly and very watchful over us.  They take their responsibilities very seriously.  Below is Sister Jordan, Sister Budgett, Tala, Justine, Tia and Sister Spencer in front of their branch building.  They are very proud of it.  They said they are very close to becoming a ward.

This is their elementary school on the island.  It is named after the first man that became Governor of American Samoa who was from their island of Aunu'u.  His name is A P Lutali.

Below on the right is a Tsunami fale.  It is up the mountain quite a ways.  On the left is the West side of the Island.  There was some pretty rough water there.  Our guides kept asking us to stay back.  They were very protective.

 We have come back down off the mountain.  We hiked for about an hour each way.  Now this sidewalk goes right through the middle of a taro field.  It was wide and about 12 inches thick.  Interesting!

 This is Nada and Elder Jordan walking through the village.  They do not own clothes dryers.  You always see clothes hanging up.

 This is Tala's father the Branch President.  I did not get his name.  They invited us to sit on their porch and have some cold water and cookies.  He and his family were very friendly.  The water was very welcome and the cookies were good.  He said he just felt that he needed to be done working in his fields and that was when we showed up.  They are very faithful people.

Reed just had to get in the water.  The tide was coming in pretty fast.

 This gentleman is the High Chief of the Island of Aunu'u his last name is Moana.  He is descended from the Moana family that was sent to Samoa by the apostate Walter Gibson in Hawaii.   He visited with Sister Jordan and Sister Budgett.  We all waited for him to get off the boat first.  The girls made sure we knew this was a show of respect for their High Chief.

This is a statue of Christ in a Catholic Cathedral in Tafuna.  The carver made the comment that he had made a statue of the Mormon Jesus in a Catholic Cathedral and they didn't know it.  He liked the way the LDS recognized the Living Christ instead of the suffering Christ.  He is the same carver who carved the David O McKay bust and all the other carvings in the fale up at Sauniatu.

This painting was also in this Cathedral.  The artist was Duffy Sheridan and the setting was in the village of Amanave in Tutuila. The custodian knew all the people who were used for the models in the painting.  There is a lot of interesting symbolism.  Some say the young boy represents a young Jesus and the woman on his left is Mary.  The man is his earthly father Joseph working on the boat and the fisherman in the background is Simon Peter.  Interesting!

This is Wednesday September 12, 2012.  We took the Osborne's out to Turtle and Shark Cove because we loved it so much.  This is the whole group.  Left to right, Elder & Sister Jordan, Elder and Sister Budgettt, Sister and Elder Spencer and Sister and Elder Osborne.  These are all our very dear friends and we work with them all closely on our mission. 

 We decided to get a little artsy.  We are on a deck above Turtle and Shark Lodge overlooking the cove.  It was a little bit of heaven.

 This is Nada standing next to a leaf of a philodendron plant.  These plants grow huge here.  Makes our plants in the business office look like miniatures!

This was a very cool blow hole right below the Turtle and Shark Lodge.  It sounded like thunder, and combined with a nice rainbow each time it exploded out of the rocks.

 This is the Turtle and Shark Lodge. It was on a dirt road that looked like it lead to nowhere.  We were very surprised when we came upon it.  It had very nice landscaping and places to sit and watch the blow hole and ocean.

We wanted to explore as far as we could go to the West side of the island and show Osborne's what we had already seen.

 The picture on the left is our 5 tree island.  The picture on the right is a man who posed and wanted us to take his picture.

 We have driven as far as the road will take us to the West end of rhe island of Tutuila  It ends in a little village named Fagamalo.  We decided to stay there and watch the sun go down.  This little boat was just sitting there and we all thought it was very picturesque.

 Reed was the only one who wanted to snorkel.  This is his foot on some corral that he saw.  The current was pretty strong and he didn't stay out very long.

Reed is climbing out of the ocean after snorkeling.  The young man on his right went out to check on him and make sure he was okay.  He is the one who gave us permission to be there so that makes him responsible to make sure everything is alright.  You always have to ask someone for permission because the villages own the beaches.  They did not make us pay which was nice.

 

This is our little group that started together in the MTC on July 9th.  What great people and friends.

 Kaden, Sam and Steve are the three boys in this picture.  Kaden went out with Reed the first time to snorkel and Steve (whose Father is the Chief of this Village) went out to check on him the second time he went out.  There are only 42 people who live in this village.

 The boys were out playing in the waves.   It looks like he is surfing but he is standing on a rock getting ready to jump into the wave coming in.  We watched them as the sun went down.

 It was beautiful to watch the sun go down on the ocean.  We felt like we were at the end of the world.  It was so peaceful.  What a wonderful day.

 This is the end of the road.  You can not go any further.  Fagamalo is the last village on the road and it just ends right where you can see.  It took us a little over an hour to drive back to Mesepa where the Jordan's live.

We left American Samoa with all our goods that we had shopped for.  We did a lot of shopping for things that we just cannot find on Upolu where we live.  We took a cooler over and brought back some lunchmeat, bacon and cheese that we bought at Cost U Less which is like Costco.  We left Tutuila on Thursday September 14th at 12:30 p.m. and arrived in Upolu on Friday September 15th at 1:15 p.m.  We lost the day we gained when we went over.  It is very hard to wrap your head around it all.  The picture on the left was taken from the airplane.  The church at the top of the picture is where we go to Church it is the Motootua Ward.  The orange building in the middle of the page is the hospital here on Upolu.  We had a wonderful break and now it is time to get busy with our classes and mission again.  We hope you have all enjoyed reading a little bit about the Island of Tutuila (American Samoa).  We are learning so much history and enjoying the culture more and more.   We love meeting the missionaories and the members wherever we go.  The Gospel is True!  Love Reed and Nada