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