Wednesday November14, 2012

Hello dear family and friends.  We are still busy with classes.  We did the last professional development for 2012 on Monday.  All the teachers are finished with school on November 23rd which is graduation day.  Only the year 12 and 13 students have been in school this week finishing exams. 

On Friday November 9th Reed's Dad had his 89th birthday.  We were able to skype with him and sing to him.  Yeah for skype.  It really does make life better as Senior Missionaries when you can see and hear your family.

On Frdiay November 9, 2012 we drove up to Sauniatu for Sauniatu days.  They were celebrating 107 years since the village of Sauniatu was settled.  They had the bridge and street decorated welcoming all visitors.  They had a devotional in the chapel.  They had the Stake Presidency, Bishops of the two wards and the Patriach all on the stand and some of them spoke.  A member of the Temple Presidency, and a man who use to be the princiapl at Sauniatu many years ago spoke.  The program lasted for 1 and 1/2 hours.  The children were quite well behaved.

They used shredded paper and teuila flowers to decorate the bridge that leads to the main street of Sauniatu where the chapel and school are.

This is the chapel at Sauniatu.  They had pictures of Samoan birds, flowers and fresh plants on the stand.

 When the devotional finished everyone went out back for the celebrating to begin. They had tents and chairs set up so people could be comfortable. They had people from the Sauniatu 1st and 2nd Wards dance and sing. The year 4 through 8 students performed as well. They all did a great job. Halfway through the fesitivites it started to pour rain. Luckily most people were under some kind of cover. They were able to finish all their performances but not play the games because it was just too wet and muddy.

 These young ladies are from one of the wards doing a traditional Samoan dance.

These are the students from Sauniatu singing and dancing.  The boys here participate as much as the girls do and seem to really get into it.

 Brother Gase is the big guy and the master of ceremony and Steve, the principal is on the right singing.

Another picture of the Sauniatu kids performing.  Even this young the girls are so graceful with their hands.

 This is the tray of food they brought to everyone sitting at the tables.  There is taro, palu sami, beef, shrimp (with their eyes) crab stick, potatoe salad, curry, some kind of stew.  The stuff in the middle is a soup with chinese cabbage and lamb.

 On the left is Sister Pauga she is a hoot and very graceful.  Her husband is in the Temple Presidency.  On the right is Sister Ah hoy (her husband owns the water company where we all get our drinking water)  They paid to get up there and dance.

 The Sauniatu students are doing a song where they sing and do all the movements sitting down.
The little girl in front is Susan Gounder her parents both teach here and she lives right behind us on the Pesega campus.

 Men from one of the wards.

 This is the country flower the Teuila.  You can see the rain coming down.

Sister Peresetene, our year 2 teacher at Sauniatu, doing a dance to raise money.

A lot of times when groups are performing they have someone that dances around them and acts like a clown.  The crowds seem to love this.  This young man belongs to one of the wards and is dancing all around the group that is doing the serious dancing and singing.

 Sister Spencer, Sister and Elder Harker, some gentleman we don't know, President Leung Wo, Sister and Elder Osborne and lots of other people eating and watching the performers.  They gave each of us a niu (young coconut full of milk) to drink along with our tray of food.  We really like this drink.  It is very refreshing when it is cold.

 The hat they put out to collect money during the money dances.

Brother Lolo in the blue shirt is the Vice Principal at The LDS Church College of Pesega along with Brother Gase and Steve.

We walked down to the waterfall after the festivities were completed.  These kids were jumping off the rocks into the pool by the waterfall.  Reed decided to pass on a swim today because it was a little cool and the water was dirty from all the rain.

 

On Saturday November 10, 2012 five of us senior couples decided to go to Vavau beach for the Harkers final beach trip.  They are leaving for home, which is Canada, on Wednesday the 14th.  They have been our Zone leaders since we have been here in Samoa.

 

Harker's final farewell to Samoa.

We arrived at Vavau Beach around 12:30 p.m. and ended up eating our picnic in the van because it was raining so hard.  It let up a little so we got out to do a little swimming.  It started to rain so hard it felt like hail coming down.  After a while we just decided to stay out because we were wet from the rain and the ocean was warmer.  There was lightning and thunder like crazy, but we still had a good time. 

These are the biggest waves we've seen since we've been here.  They were tossing us around even though we stayed close to shore.  Some people got thrown into the rocks.

You can see how hard it was raining.  It rained like this most of the 1 and 1/2 hours we were here.

This was our group.  We are the only ones with a van so we drive whenever there are three or more couples.                                                      Budgett, Gertsch, Harker, Spencer and Osborne.

 

We decided it was time to leave.  We stopped to see the Sopoaga Waterfall which was on the way home. 

It was a great last memory for the Harkers and all of us.  We are grateful to be serving here Samoa. Tofa Suifua.  Love Reed and Nada