The Passing of the Torch and Fitness Testing

Here in Fiji they have a country wide high school track meet called the "Cokes".  Can you guess who sponsors the event?  Before the event they do something similar to the olympic torch relay, although obviously on a smaller scale.  The torches go to all the schools competing in the meet.  This is the students from LDS Church College at the torch relay ceremony.  Everyone was excited.  The students holding the torches are 2 student leaders at the college.

Our friend Apenisa that was baptised a month ago is going to Fiji National University to be a PE teacher.  His class came to the college and did some fitness testing for the rugby team.  Here are some of the boys during the test.

Elder Tait and Apenisa deep in conversation.  Apenisa, "Do you think you can do better than the rugby players?"  Elder Tait,  " I am in great shape! I go to the gym every morning at 5 am., unless I am too tired.  Ummm maybe I'm not as in good of shape as I thought."

Some of the students watching the fitness testing. 

Saioko Branch and Wananavu Resort

We had an amazing weekend with our friends the Stanfords.  Stanfords, Mike and I were asked to speak in a small branch "out in the bush" and so we decided to make a weekend of it and see a part of Fiji we had not seen before.  Our first night we stayed in a rustic place called Takalana.  It has a beautiful view of the ocean, but it was cloudy and so the pictures don't show the beautiful view very well.

 

Mike, Susan, and Frank enjoying breakfast Fijian style!

 These are rafts made out of bamboo tied together, called billibillis.  The Fijians go up and down the rivers on them carrying their goods.

A family traveling on a billibilli.  If they are going upstream they use a pole and push the billibilli.

 We had a beautiful drive through a rainforest.  The road was sometimes unpaved and rough, but so worth it to see this part of Fiji.

This family was selling bananas on the side of the road.  $1 a bunch.  There are little stands like this all over with the people doing their best to support themselves by selling fruit and vegetables.

Dinner at Wananavu.

Wananavu Resort.

Sunday Morning we left Wananavu resort and traveled into the bush to the little village of Saioko.  We picked up the branch president and he guided us there.  It is a good thing we had him with us because I don't know if we would have found Saioko without him.  It was a rough, muddy road and took about 2 hours to travel 28 kilometers.

A bure in a village we drove by on our way to Saioko.

This little village was nestled in a valley next to a beautiful bay. 



We parked in front of this sign.  (some of the letters are missing.)  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints  All Welcome.

 

We parked and the Branch President said he would meet us up the hill and he hurried off to get changed for church.

 

Here we are starting up the hill following a very slippery, often muddy trail.  (Can you imagine doing this every Sunday for church?)  What a sacrifice for these sweet people!

About halfway up the hill some sweet young women met us.  They took Brother Stanford's backpack and my purse and guided me through the less muddy places.  I asked the girls if they had ever fallen down on the path.  One of them laughed and said,  "Yes.  Yesterday I fell down right there in the mud." 

After about a 30 minute climb, we were greeted by the sweet members of the branch.  They helped us wash our feet and legs and were so kind to us.

The inside of the chapel.  They explained to us how they carried all the materials up that hill and then constructed the building.
After Sacrament Meeting, they folded up all the chairs, and then laid long pieces of cloth on the ground.  The Branch President invited us to have some lunch. 

The Sisters had prepared a feast!  They people have so little, yet they prepared a big meal for us.  There was lentil soup with pumpkin and eggplant, chicken and noodles, fried fish in coconut milk, dalo, kasava, and another kind of vegetable which I don't know the name of (and which I almost gagged when I tasted it).  But most of the food was good.  I especially liked the lentil soup.

                                      Fried Fish in coconut milk.  It was actually surprisingly tasty.


 

The members waving good by as we headed down the hill.  It was a really special day.  The people are so humble and loving you can't help but just love them back.  The girls helped me back down the hill.  Each of them had me hand and they carefully kept me out of the slippery mud.  Leili kept telling her cousin to slow down and asking me if I needed to rest.  She was really sweet the way she took care of me.

The ride home was filled with many interesting sights.  These boys are tending this pair of oxen as they are pulling their load up the hill.

All the men and boys have a cane knife here.  One of the men in our ward said, "A man isn't a man without a cane knife."

 

Baptism and This is Fiji

The Baptism of Apenisa

Sunday, April 3, 2011 was a very happy day for us, as our friend Apenisa was baptized.  Mike first met Apenisa at the school where he was student teaching.  We went by his house that afternoon and we invited him to come to church.  We then introduced him to the full-time missionaries in our ward, Elder Aleman and Elder Duncan.  We sat in on one of Apenisa's lessons with the missionaries and heard Apenisa bear his testimony for the first time.  He said that he knew that it was not a coincidence that he was assigned to practice teach at the LDS Church College.  He also shared with us that he knew the church was true and wanted to be baptized.  We are very happy for him, and as you can see from the picture, he is also very happy.  We feel very blessed to have Apenisa as a friend and fellow saint in the church.  He is a very special person and we have grown to love him.

Apenisa and Elder Aleman before the baptism.

We were getting ready to teach our class one afternoon and noticed a large group of students lined up beside the primary school 9 passenger van.  Then Mike noticed them all loading into the van, and he ran and got the camera.  He thought it was hilarous as they loaded all the kids into the van. Mike said he thought there were 28 kids in the van. 

Happy Passeners from the side of the van.

The view from the back.

 This is Harry from a Math class we are assisting with at the school.  We had given the class members some triangle flash cards and asked them to cut them out at home.  Harry had been absent, so we gave him the cards and we notice he has a straight edge razor that he is sawing away with on the cards.  This is just so amazing to us, because of course in the US, at least in California, he would have been expelled for having a dangerous weapon.  But not problem here in Fiji!

Dinner, Track Meet, and Family Home Evening at the Hilton House

Dinner on The Deck with Talei and her Family

This is Talei, her mother, Josie, and her cousin.  Talei is getting ready to leave for New Zealand on her mission at the end of March.  The rest of her family are not members of the church. 

We go to their house once in a while for their family devotional (Family Home Evening) where we sing sometimes in Fijian and share scriptures. We invited them over for dinner last Sunday.  Talei's parents and brother came, and also her aunt and cousins.

(Left to right)  Cousin, Josie, Talei

The Inter-House Track and Field Meet

 The Church school took a day off and had a track and field meet.  The school rented the National Vodaphone Arena.   They divide the school up into 4 houses: Nephites, Mulekites, Lehites, and Jaredites  It was a competition for the whole school, and the winners of the events would go on to a 32 school event, and then a country-wide event.

It was a fun day, and the kids all enjoyed the competition.  The best part for me was the running.  80% of the students ran barefooted!  It was just amazing to me to see everyone running barefooted!

 Some ran in flip flops!

Most ran barefooted.

The stadium.   Thelma the Deputy Principal announcing, "Let the games begin!"

Girls waiting for the long jump.



Here is a picture of the Zone Meet.  Some of the schools are huge.  LDSCC won the premiere event, the 100 m, and took a few other medals.
A picture of the crowd.  Where's Waldo (Mike or Papa)??  People tell us we look more Fijian than we did 5 months ago what do you think?

Family Home Evening at the Hilton House

The ward members take turns hosting a FHE for the new members and investigators.  We decided to take the group over to the Hilton House for disabled children.  We stopped by on the Saturday before and asked Jacqueline, the caretaker, if we could come on Monday evening and have some activities.  The kids were so excited to have us come.  We sang some songs and played some games with the kids.  The kids also sang to us.  

This is some of the kids from the Hilton House and Apensia (in the Hawaiian shirt), our friend who is taking the missionary lessons. 

 The FHE group, the workers from the Hilton House, and the kids. The Pelagi (white) girl in the front is from England and is here on an internship for 6mo. 
The couple on the right are the Strawdermans, our new neighbors. She is the mission nurse, and are from Colorado. 
Grandkids:  Where is Papa?

 This is Annie, she is so sweet.  She can not talk, but she was very interested in my camera and loved looking at the pictures.  She especially loved looking at her own picture.  The very disabled children were in bed and were not present at our meeting.  However, we went in their room before we left and sang to them and had a prayer.
 

Some of the Hilton House children.

Lastly, I took some videos of the students at the Primary school having culture.  The boys from a 5th grade class are doing a Haka (war dance).  And then I took a video of the entire 5th grade class singing a children's song.  They are teaching me the song so I can sing it to my grandkids when I get home.  Below are the links to the videos.


The children's song link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPmQ8Uy5EhQ



The Haka War Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4AR05V-LW4

Taits in Tonga

Malo e lelei (Hello in Tongan)

We had a chance to fly to Tonga on March 1st, for a Principal's Conference. 

We learned so much from the conference.  Elder Hamula from the Area Presidency spoke to us on 3 different occasions.  He shared with us the goals of the Area Presidency for the church schools in the Pacific.  Their goal is for every student to complete high school and tertiary school.  This is a very lofty goal, but we caught the vision and are ready to do everything in our power to help the schools achieve this goal.  He shared with us how education is important for these young people, to make them better parents, community members, and leaders. 

We had a wonderful time in Tonga and had a chance to meet some of the other ITEP missionaries serving there.  We were surprised to learn that Tonga has a 46% LDS population, so they have many large church schools there.  Liahona High School, where the conference was held, has around 1,000 students attending. 

This picture was taken from the plane as we left Fiji.    

The reefs look so pretty and colorful from overhead.

The first day we arrived, all the missionaries drove down to the craft market.  The Tongan people were so kind and generous to us as missionaries.  We were just walking around the market "looking".  I walked in to the stall where this younger woman was selling her items and I spoke to her for a few minutes and started to walk away.  She calls me back and says you can have this.  (If you can see what I have in my hand, it's a handmade flower that you can stick in your hair as a decoration.)  I said,  "Oh no, this is for you to sell."  She gave me a big smile and said, "It's a gift!"  It just melted my heart.  She was so sweet and caring to me.  Then when she saw there were other missionaries she gave a flower to each of the other sisters.  We decided we would go back and buy something from her the next time we came.  But she wasn't there when we went back on Saturday.  Then on Saturday when we went back, as soon as we walked into the market, a woman stopped Mike and said, "You are from Fiji!"  We didn't recognize her, but she said she was related to a woman that is in our ward at church and had visited her.  Then she said, "You pick of gift because you are from Fiji!"  So we picked a pretty shell that I liked and then she also wanted to give me a necklace and bracelet.  I told her I would buy the necklace, so we gave her $5.00.  The people just have so little, it's hard to take their livlihood away from them.  But they just love the missionaries and would give them anything

Monday night all the senior missionaries get together for Family Home Evening.  We were very surprised to see someone we knew from Corona!  Those of you who are old timers from Corona will recognize Sara Fager now Sara Kenyon.  She is remarried and she and her husband just arrived in Tonga about a month ago for a mission.  We had a great time visiting with her that night, and then we also went to dinner with them another evening.  This is their second mission.  They served a mission in Africa a few years ago.

The Tonga Temple.

Some of the sights of Tonga.  This is the Tongan version of Stonehenge.  They are not sure what it is was for, but some think it was for astrolgical use. 

This was a really beautiful sight they call the blow holes.  It is a shelf of volcanic rock that has been eroded away by the ocean.  The places that have been totally eroded away shoot up when the waves hit under them.  The thing that is so amazing about this is the whole coast as far as you can see in both directions has these blow holes. 

More blow holes

 

These ladies were keeping cool while preparing their dinner of fish and clams.

A monument to Captain Cook.  This is where he first landed when he arrived in Tonga.

                                    

                                      

Pig, Pigs, everywhere.  Pigs just roam the streets all over Tonga.  There are more pigs than dogs.



                                         

                                                               BEFORE

                                    

                                      

                                                                        AFTER

The students at the church middle school performed for us the last evening of the conference.  They were really good.

They had made leis for everyone and they were all very unique and different.

All the missionaries went over to a resort and had dinner and saw a Polynesian dancing show.    This was the view out on the deck.