On the Road Again!

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Talofa Family and Friends,

Week 3 of our mission and we finally feel like we are up and running. This week we had a young sister missionary with a respiratory infection, so her and her companion spent the week with us. We have a bedroom in our home meant to board sick missionaries. While Sister Martinez slept, I tried to find things for Sister Reid (her companion) to do. We learned last week that one of our responsibilities is to make candy leis for the mission, so I had Sister Reid help me. She is from Australia and she grew up with this tradition. Candy leis are a Polynesian tradition and Sister Ho Ching, the mission president's wife, gives them to arriving and departing missionaries and for birthdays. You buy tube netting which you stuff with candy, tying off each piece with a ribbon. Making them is not too bad if you have someone to talk to while you're working. The girls returned to their own home last night and I had just enough time to wash the sheets and get them remade in time for the Sister Teaching Leaders who arrived from Apia a couple of hours later. They will be here for a couple of days for Zone Conferences on the island. I attended Relief Society this week and had another opportunity to try my hand at arts and crafts - something I don't generally do at home. We were all given a canvas and paint, and there was an instructor who took us step by step to complete our masterpieces. It was a lot of fun, and I was able to meet more sisters in the ward.

The only hospital on the island.  It's about a 30 drive
from our house.  

Sisters Reid and Martinez

We spend a lot of time every week on the road getting supplies, delivering mail, going to the hospital, visiting missionaries, and I 'm starting to feel more comfortable going out on my own and confident I won't get lost.   There is a 25 mph speed limit on the island, with some places marked even slower.  There is one main road that is paved and goes from the West to the East end on the South side of the island, much of it along the coastline.  The ocean waves this week were amazing to watch as they crashed over in splashes of aqua blue.   Once you get off the main road the roads can be very sketchy!  There are very few roads on the North side of the island.  There are a few villages on the Northeast side where the people have to walk over the mountain on trails to get to the road.     The mission home is assigned four vehicles: a Toyota Rav. a Kia Sportage, a Toyota Tacoma truck and a 15 passenger Chevy van.  We generally only drive the Toyota Rav and the Kia, the other vehicles are here to use as needed.  This week the APs and Sister leaders from Apia will be using them.                                                     
                                                         

Elders Faletau and Larsen - Love
these young men!

This week was transfers.  We only lost one elder and gained a sister and two elders.  Two of our new missionaries are straight from the MTC.  We met them while we were there.  Elder Faletau got transferred to a new area but is still on the island.  However, we won't be seeing him every day and he'll be missed.  You can see that the people here love him as he is covered in leis.  Elder Larsen always has a smile.  He lives just a few blocks from us and is the one who checks us every night on his way up the hill to his house. 

Road to one of our missionary
houses.  I call it the "Great Lakes Region"

Brent and I are trying to learn Samoan.  We have a session with an MTC tutor twice a week for an hour and then he gives us homework.  We are pretty good at memorizing words, but when it comes to putting them together in sentences in any useful way - it gets pretty difficult. I actually dream about sentence structures and trying to figure out how this language works.  It makes my head hurt!

 

RS Painting activity - I have zero art talent
but this was fun and I met some new friends.

On a sad note, Annie called and told me a dear friend had passed away.  It was not that un-expected but it's always hard to say good-bye.  A few weeks ago on FB I saw someone asking what happens when we die?  One of the great things about the Restored Gospel is that it has answers to these hard questions.  It is comforting to know that death is like passing through a doorway to another life, where people we love and have gone before will be there to greet us.  It is like going home.  And because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, everyone ever born on this earth will receive a resurrected body at some point in the future. 

 Mosiah 16: 7 - 11:  

 

7 And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no ^asting, there could have been no resurrection.

8 But there is a ^aresurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of ^bdeath is swallowed up in Christ.

9 He is the ^alight and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.

10 Even this mortal shall put on ^aimmortality, and this ^bcorruption shall put on incorruption, and shall be brought to ^cstand before the bar of God, to be judged of him according to their works whether they be good or whether they be evil—

11 If they be good, to the resurrection of ^aendless life and ^bhappiness; and if they be evil, to the resurrection of ^cendlessdamnation, being delivered up to the devil, who hath subjected them, which is damnation.

I hope this note finds you well and at peace.  Brent and I are having a great time but still really miss our family!  Tofa until next week - Alofa atu, Patty