January 10, 2013.  Happy New Year everyone.  Wow it is hard to believe it is 2013 already.  Here in Samoa we were the first people to welcome in the New Year since we are the first time zone.  That was fun.

Today we will blog a little about the cyclone, Christmas and New Years!

After the cyclone hit we did a lot of cleaning up.  We were without power for 12 days at our house.  Some of the other senior missionaries were never without power because the church has some huge generators that they ran until their power came back on which was one week.  So, they had a couple of empty houses where the generators were running and they let us stay there at night until we finally got power. For the first two nights we slept in our own house and then after that we slept at house 36 and cooked there because they had power and then we would go to our house and shower.  It was a long couple of weeks but an adventure.

Elder Watson who is in the Area Presidency came from New Zealand to assess the needs of the members.  He held a special fireside Saturday evening the 22nd with the Mission President, Sister Leota and all the senior missionaries.  Sister Watson spoke first and then they showed a film of the Nativity Story and then Elder Watson talked.  They were very inspirational and informative as to what the church was doing to help all those displaced members from the cyclone.  This firside helped bring some Christmas Spirit.

Monday, December 24, 2012, Christmas Eve.  The seniors got together and put together some bags of treats to take to the Magiagi Chapel where 300 members are living who lost their homes.  They said there were about 50 children there so we did 68 bags and still did not have enough.  We sang a couple of Christmas carols and then passed out the treats from youngest to oldest.  It was very humbling to be there and see what little these people have left.

 Each senior missionary or couple brought some kind of treat or fruit and we assembled the bags at the conference room at the Mission Office and then we took two vans with senior missionaries to deliver the treats.

 These chairs are marking off areas where families are living.  Each section looks like it is about 10 by 10. There are about 300 people living at this church.

 These are some of the children lined up waiting for us to sing to them and pass out the bags of goodies. We are under a pavilion at the church.  They were very polite and grateful.

 Sister Spencer passing out some treats.

 This is looking down from the church.  This is where the river went through and where most of these people lived.

You can see all the logs and trees that are down and yet most of the coconut trees stayed standing.

That evening we had a fun family night Christmas party.  We sang some carols, had some good food and did a white elephant exchange.  It was a lot of fun for us.  There was not a lot of holiday spirit or decorating here in Samoa.  We think that some of that was due to the cyclone.  People had more important things, like survival, on their minds.  However, some people did go to church at midnight and you could hear the bells ring and hear them singing.  Then they go around caroling to their neighbors.  They told us that is how many Samoans celebrate Christmas.
Reed and I slept in house 36 that night and came home at 6:00 a.m. to open gifts from each other and skype our children to open the gifts they sent us.

 
You can see our Christmas tree on the wall.  Reed created it and we had ornaments and lights on it.  However, we only used the lights a couple of days and then we had no power.  Christy sent us the stockings with the 12 Days of Christmas in them and that was fun to have.

 This is Nada opening her slippers from her sister Kris and talking to Justin, Lana and family while we opened their gifts to us.

We went over to our office at 5:30 a.m. and  skyped with all our children and grandchildren while they opened their gifts from us on Christmas Day in Utah which was December 26th here in Samoa.  

 We had a Christmas brunch at house 36 because it was big enough to do so.  We called it the club house because this is the house they let us five couples use to cook our meals and then eventually three of us slept here for a few nights because they opened up two other units in Temple housing for the other two couples.  Sister Osborne had brought this ham over from American Samoa, when they visited, and saved it for this special occasion.

YUMMY!









That afternoon four of us senior couples went over to the south side of the island to Old Hideaway Beach and snorkeled.  We had not been over there since the cyclone and could not believe the damage there.  Parts of the road were washed away, water had created new pathways that looked like rivers now, houses were blown down, roofs missing, trees down and power lines down everywhere.  They probably won't have power for at least a month.

 Not everyone can say they spent Christmas afternoon playing on the beach and snorkeling.  We can.  We had a great time.  We found a lot of interesting sea shells.  Nada found three whole sea urchins and lots of sand dollars.

 Reed found this star fish? or sea star or whatever while snorkeling.  It was still alive so we put in back in the ocean after we took this picture.

Just relaxing.  Elder and Sister Gertsch and Sister Budgett.

We arrived back home around 5:00 p.m. and to our surprise our power was on.  Merry Christmas to us! It was so nice to sleep in our own bed.




On Saturday, December 29, 2012, Budgett's, Osborne's and us climbed into the van and headed to Fagaloa Bay which is on the north east side of the island.  It is also where most of the wood carving takes place here in Samoa.  There was a lot of wind damage to the trees and their power was still out but it did not look like any homes were flooded or blown down.

 We had to drive to this side of the bay on one road and then we had to drive out and go to the other side of the bay down another road.  If you have a heavy duty four wheel drive you could have driven over the rough track to get to the other side but not in our van.  We parked the van at this LDS Church and hiked up the road for a ways.

 Looking down from where we hiked onto the village of Saletele.  These little villages are quite small and isolated.  They have beautiful ocean and mountains around them.

 This is the inside of the chapel.  They are right above the beach.  We would have a hard time concentrating on the meeting with the beach and ocean only a very few feet away.  Very humble but beautiful church.

 All the brown areas are what the trees look like now after the cyclone.  It looks like something just sucked all the color and life out of them.  Before the cyclone they were all very green.

 The green bird on the branch in the picture above was so beautiful  They are called a Crimson-Crowned Fruit-Dove and this is the first time any of us have seen one.  We were very excited.

 Looking down on Fagaloa Bay.  This is going down the other road now.  This is such a beautiful view of the bay from the top of the ridge.

The picture on the left, Reed just loved the ripples in the water and then the mountains behind.  We are in Lona village here.  The road again turns into a steep track that you can only get to the last two villages if you have a four wheel drive truck.  That is where they do most of the carving so Reed is going to find someone with a truck to take us back there soon.

 You can see the wind damage in the picture on the right.  It just whipped the life right out of these trees.










Monday, December 31, 2012 for New Years Eve we had a special going away family night for the Osborne's.  They are traveling TVET missionaries and will go to Fiji for five months now.  They have been our closest friends and Reed's snorkeling buddy so they will be sorely missed.  We then came to our house and played games until just after midnight.  We are the first country on the time zone to start a new day so we were the first to welcome in 2013!  Yeah!!! We heard some bells ringing and fireworks going off.  The people here get together with their families and just enjoy each others company and eat.  They take the next day off as well.  In Samoa almost every holiday is two days.  The actual holiday and then they take the next day off as well to celebrate.  We think the one is the religious day and the other is the party day?

On New Year's Day 2013 we had a lunch with four other senior couples and then Gertsch, Osborne, Budgett and Spencer's went to Palolo Deep for Elder and Sister Osborne's final snorkeling date.  Reed and Joe made it clear out past the reef and said they saw some new and interesting fish.  It was a great way to bring in the New Year.  We played games later that night because now things are settling down from the Cyclone and getting back to normal and it is time to get  back to serious work.

Well life is settling back to normal for most of the Island.  Some people are still without power but it has rained a lot so the water crisis has been mostly avoided.  The people have really worked hard and rallied around each other and that has been wonderful to watch.  We hope you all had a wonderful holiday and hope that 2013 will be a great year for you.  We are grateful for all our blessings and safety.  We love our family and are so grateful we could skype most all of our extended  family as well during the holidays.  Technology is wonderful.  Until next time.  Love Elder and Sister Spencer.