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

November 7, 2012

We have been on our mission for 4 months on November 9th. 

This past week we have been busy teaching, doing professional development and doing firesides.  The firesides are to talk to the parents about the changes coming toThe LDS Church College at Pesega which is where we are 90% of our time.  In 2013 they will have a Form 7 which is their Universtiy Preparation Year which is a level between high school and university to make sure they are up to university level.  They have been taking this at the National University of Samoa or the University of the South Pacific but they feel like it will be more beneficial for the students to teach it here.  It will cost less money and they will  be able to receive more individual help which they hope will help the studetns be more successful when they do go to University. They are working on some additional Technical Vocational programs to help the students get certified so they can get into the working world.  They will also have a middle school beginning 2013 so a lot of changes.  We have traveled all over Samoa to present these informative firesides.  We still have 7 more firesides to present.  It makes for busy weekends.

 The fun thing last week was on Halloween night.  Most of the people in Samoa do not celebrate Halloween but there were two Wards (both have quite a few Americans in them) that emailed us and asked if they could bring their children trick or treating to the Seniors.  Of course we said YES!  Most of the Senior Missionaries met at the PBO Conference room and we had a potluck dinner.  About 7:00 p.m. vans full of children began arriving.  The last group came around 9:00 p.m.  It was fun to see them.  Some were dressed up and most of them had to be taught to say Trick or Treat.  Thank goodness Reed's Mom had sent us so much candy.  We are giving most of it to the children at Sauniatu but we were able to share it with these young children on Halloween.

 You can see that some of them had elaborate costumes and some wore maskes and others just came.  It was fun to see them all.

 Elder and Sister Hanson.  Elder Hanson is singing waiting for the children to get to his car.

 Elder and Sister Spencer.  Elder Spencer started the music and Elder Hanson wanted to get in on the action.  The first group we did trunk or treat and then as it got later we had them come into the conference center.  We all sat around the edges and had the cute ghouls parade around to each of us for their treats.

 Let the candy giving begin.

 Nada loved talking to the children.  She has always loved seeing the costumes and kids on Halloween.  They were so cute!  It helped the lonley feeling of not being able to see our own grandchildren except on skype.  Yeah for skype!

 The Primary leaders insisted on a group picture with the missionaries.

 Some of othe leaders even dressed up and were into it.  They wanted candy as well.

It was a fun evening.  When we got home at 9:15 p.m. the Gounder family, that lives behind us, brought their children over so they could get their treats. 

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of our Samoan friends and members of the church here.  Isn't it great to share the gospel in so many different ways.  Till next time. 

Love Elder and Sister Spencer.

Thursday Nov. 1, 2012

We hope you all had a safe and Happy Halloween.  We were able to have a dinner with the other Senior Missionaries and two wards brought over 100 kids trick or treating.  They were very cute.  Some were dressed up and others just held out their hands and said trick or treat!  It was a fun night.

Last weekend October 26th and 27th we were able to go over to the Island of Savai'i to do three firesides.  We were divided into two teams.  We drove our van and took one of the Vice-Principal's Sister Schmidt and both of the counselors Lei and Queenah.  We arrived at the ferry at 7:15 a.m. because you have to get in a que and then the passengers have to buy their tickets separately.  We were lucky and got the Lada Samoa III the newest and biggest ferry.  Nada was a little nervous about getting sea sick but no problem.  The weather was great and the ocean was calm.

 This is the ferry coming into the Mulifanua Wharf on the North West side of Upolu.   When President Packer was giving his talk, this last conference, this is the wharf they were suppose to come into but couldn't get into it because of the storm and the missionaries fell asleep and weren't shining the lights.  So they  had to go over to Apia Harbor which was in our post about the fautasi race.  This is where the ferries going to and coming from Savai'i load and unload.  They are almost always full.  Savai'i is the biggest Island but has a lot fewer people and resources than Upolu.

We are waiting in the que to drive onto the ferry.  It cost 100 Tala each way to take your vehicle and includes the driver.  Each additional person has to pay 12 Tala.








The ferry left right at 8:00 a.m.  After we parked our van on the ferry we walked up to the top open deck and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  We went past the Island of Manono which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago and Apilima which we want to go to sometime.    We arrived in Savai'i at 9:05 and they unloaded very quickly.  We met Elder Budgett as we got off to pass on some packages, loaded our other passengers and then headed to the North side of the island for our fireside at 3:00 p.m.

 Looking back at Upolu.

 We passed the barge ferry on the way.  It is much smaller and Nada was very glad we were not on that one.  It looked like it was moving up and down in the water a lot more than the big ferry.

 This is the top deck of the ferry we were on.  This was a fresh air deck.  The deck below was all enclosed and air conditioned and had a big TV screen in it.  People just lay down and sleep on the floor wherever they can find a space.  If you want to walk around you just step around them or over them.

 This is the deck of the Hotel Vaisala where they served our meals.  It is on the North West side of Savai'i and took us over 2 hours to drive here.  The hotel is called the Vaisala Hotel and is in the Village of Vaisala.  Our room is the first small house after the big long deck.  The beach here was one of the best we've been on.

 
 Reed could not wait to get into the water.  We had lunch and the other three ladies wanted a nap but Reed only wanted to get into the water.  He had about an hour and was in heaven.

 Reed snorkeling and enjoying the beautiful water and life under the ocean.

Some of the beautiful corral Reed saw while snorkeling.

 The view from the large deck, where we ate, of the beach and ocean.

 This is the view from the deck of our little beach cottage.  It was beautiful.

This is Nada standing on the deck of our beach cottage.  It was very small but you couldn't beat the scenery.  The weather was perfect here on the beach with the ocean breeze.  It was a nice break.

 

 

We drove to the West side of the Island to the Village of Neifu-uta (the uta refers to inland) for our 3:00 p.m. fireside.   After the fireside they fed us refreshments.  It was a full blown meal.  These people are very generous with their food and usually always offer some kind of refreshment after each fireside especially if they know you have traveled a little distance.  Sister Schmidt was from the village of Neifu right by the ocean so we had her be our tour guide.  She showed us where she had lived and all the places they still own property.  Then she had us drive on the old road which took us to some remote places along the beach.  Beautiful.  We drove down a couple of different places like this picture with coconut trees lining the road like a canopy.  We were on the farthest most western tip of the island here in Falealupo Village.  Reed stopped to take a picture of the ocean and a lady walked up to the van and wanted us to pay 5 Tala to take a picture.  Reed just got back into the van and left.  Usually everyone wants us to take their pictures, this was a little unusual. 

The Island of Savai'i is very green and has a lot of jungle or undeveloped land.  The beaches are great but you have to pay someone to get in the water as well.  It was a great place to visit.  We are looking forward to going over during Summer break, December and January to do a little more exploring.  This was a fast, working trip.

 

 

We went to bed early beacause the next morning we had to get up, eat and be to another fireside an hour away by 8:30 a.m. to set up.

 
 Elder and Sister Spencer with the beach and ocean behind us.  We set the camera up on our deck and took this picture before we left aT 7:00 a.m.






This is Nada, Sister Schmidt, Queenah, Lei and her baby Janettssar,  eating breakfast on the deck.

Nada and Reed on grounds of the Fagamalo chapel in the Village of Fagamalo on the Northern most tip of Savai'i It would be hard to concentrate on the meetings if this was the view you looked at all during church.

 This is the view walking to get into the cultural hall.  They served us refreshments on the patio under the roof you see there in the middle.  The refreshments here were ice cream with fruit and cookies which was very good and refreshing.

Another view.  We love these pine trees.  The needles are like rope and very soft.  What a view.










After they served us refreshments we hurried back to the ferry which was an hour away hoping to catch the 2:00 p.m. ferrry which was the big one.  We got in the que but missedit by 2 cars because our confirmed time was for 4:00 p.m.  We sat in the van from 1 until 4:20 p.m with pouring rain outside.  We ended up being on the smallest ferry, the barge,  that left Savai'i at 4:20 p.m. and didn't get to Upolu until 6:00 p.m.  What a long afternoon.  We had to sit in the van on the barge because all the benches were filled with walk ons.  We rode backwards the whole way.  Nada was very nervous this time but the ocean was pretty calm.  She actually fell asleep for a while and didn't get sick at all.

 We were one of the firsr cars on the barge so we pulled in front.  Looking through our windshield you can see all the people sitting on the benches.  They are facing the direction the barge is going.  It was raining when we first started out.

 Our van and then 3 more rows of cars and 4 wide was all this barge held.  All the other cars backed on so they were going forward.  Our row is the only one that pulled in frontward and rode backwards all the way to Upolu.  In the backgrounmd is the wharf at Salelologa in Savai'i.

Nada looking around to see where we are at.  Hoping to soon be home so she can get out of this vehicle!

 

 

This is in our back yard.  These are some of the little neighbor kids.  They love to come and play on this piece of cement and hide in thsee bushes and climb the tree in our backyard.  Just thought you might like to see some of them,            Well we hope you enjoyed our little excursion to another island in Samoa.  The biggest Island, Savai'i.  We love every new adventure we get to participate in.  It is great to see the gospel in action in so many different places.  Until next time.  Manuia Le Aso, Elder and Sister Spencer.