This blog will cover about a week of activities on the beautiful island of Samoa. I will do some and turn the controls over to Mir for her contribution. We had never driven to the airport and driving on the left side of the road is still a little weird. (In Samoa we were back driving like Utahan's). Well as we approached Auckland we ended up taking an exit that we did not want. That's a big no-no in New Zealand, because you don't just cross the street and get back on. We were really stressed because we didn't want to miss our plane. It was 5-am and we offered a prayer for help. As we were parked looking at a map a sweet lady out exercising walked right toward us. We asked her if she could help us and she gave us the directions to get back on the motorway. We made it and were grateful for the angel lady that got us back on the motorway.
We had the opportunity to drive around part of the island. It was amazing to drive through small villages, seeing small homes and fale's (places where family's meet together). Then all of a sudden you come across an LDS chapel. Because many of the people don't drive they build chapels in every village so people can get to them. In some places the saints were meeting in a wood and thatch fale and then the church would come in and build a beautiful building for them.
We visited Sauniatu. It is a village up in the mountains that is the crater of a volcano. The saints were sent there in the early 1900's to gather and avoid some persecution they were having. David O. McKay visited the place twice, once as an apostle and once as President of The Church. Many miracles took place here including President McKay raising a child from the dead. There were also many trials. At one point disease came through the whole island, including Sauniatu and every one got sick but two individuals one of which was a 12 year old boy. He ended up having to bury the dead including members of his own family. The Church currently has a school there and they also take 20 boys each year, they live there, work and prepare to serve missions. There is a grave yard there of all the early saints and missionaries also. It is a very cool place.
We went to church on Sunday to the English speaking ward. There were 25 of us in High Priests and 20 of them were wearing dresses (lava lava). I own one now. Yes I wear a dress around the house. Very comfortable.
One of our adventures included going on a tour of the Robert Louis Stevenson home. He lived his last 4 years in Samoa. He thought it was a good place for his disease TB, but it actually was bad for it because of the humidity. But in that 4 years he became loved by the people. He built a huge home and eventually he and most of his staff died of TB because it was infectious. When he died the people of Samoa cut a trail in the forest up to the top of a mountain and passed his coffin from person to person all the way to the top of the mountain where he was buried.
Miriam and I hiked up to the top to see his grave site. It was a tropical forest hike with a lizard every 5 feet (honest). It took about one hour to get up to the top. When we were almost to the top Miriam slipped on a narrow part of the trail and fell off of the trail down the mountain. Luckily she got tangled up in some vines and that is what stopped her from going too far. Scary but funny. She got a little bruised but mostly her pride was hurt.
Its a beautiful island. I conducted training for two days in the Service Center and it seemed to go well. Employees attended from American Samoa and CES. They look forward to any training they can get.
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