September 21,  2014

The past two weeks have been very busy and very rewarding.

This young student is from China.  He is in out blog because he would not let me into the PCC without by badge which you see hanging on me.  I had to go back to the car and find it in order to enter.  He was apologizing for not letting me in with my missionary tags and said he was just following orders.  It was OK we were just a little late for a luncheon.  These students try to the best they can in working, most of them have never had jobs before so this is a new experience for them.

This week was busy making repairs and new costumes for the Lagoon Show.  Fatue and I worked on these beaded belts for the boys.  The nuts had to be cleaned and cut in half then a hole drilled in them.  I helped her put the four nuts together but she took the string of four and braided it together on the waist band.  When the boys dance and move the beads make a clicking noise.

Fatie's Birthday was Monday September 22,  but we celebrated her birthday Friday morning.  We surprised her with a breakfast.  I had made a cake for her but had to be at the temple with our Ward for the Baptism.  It was a confusing morning, Ron had to be at the temple at 7:00 am and I needed to get cake to sewing by 8:00 am. Elder Pierce was home and took me to PCC and then to the temple for the Ward breakfast.  I took this picture of her after the party was over.  She was sweet and thanked everyone.  We got her a new T-shirt (Kahuku High School Shirt) and ball cap and lots of other little things. She was so excited, acted like a little kid.









We had a big three day social for our ward, it included a Baptism for the Dead on Friday, a service project on Saturday morning with a barbecue after, and then finished up with a musical fireside on Sunday.  The social was sponsored by our Elders Quorum and it included the Relief Society, missionaries and the Bishopric.

On Friday we had about five Elders and twenty Sisters do baptisms for the dead.  The elders performed the priesthood duties and the sisters did the proxies for about a 100 people.  Jason who is our First Councilor performed the baptisms and he was very sore afterwards.  I did the recording and witness duties.  This is the first time I have done baptisms for the dead and it was a wonderful experience.  After we finished we had a breakfast of rice, eggs, donuts and juice.  The sisters provided the food and we provided the drinks.

Cleaning the Chapel

On Saturday morning at 9:00 am we cleaned the Chapel and cleaned the taro patch.  The picture shows the members doing the chapel cleaning. It took us about an hour and we were done.   We did not get any pictures of the taro patch cleaning.  The Polynesian people regard the taro plant as sacred because of the significance it played keeping them alive when they first arrived in Hawaii.  You get to stand in water and trim the weeds and clean out the debris.

Jason and Frank

After the service projects we had a barbecue. In the picture you see Jason our Elders Quorum 1st Councilor and Brother Frank Buttell our Bishopric 1st Councilor.  He is a master barbecue chef.  He is lighting the briquettes. He cut up 160 chickens for the barbecue and boned all of them.  He said it took him about 2 hours.  It would have taken me 10 hours.  After cutting up the chickens he marinated them in large garbage bags in large coolers.  His wife made the sauce, it really tasted good.

Waiting for the fire

The fire is going, took about an hour for all of the briquettes to get hot enough to start cooking.

Bishop Liva and Sister Tremea

The chicken is cooking.  Frank would cook on one side for around 15 minutes and then turn them. They use another empty grill and put on top and then flip.  Pretty slick.  The chicken was a golden brown and in some cases a little burnt, but they like it that way.  They cooked around 10-12 grills of chicken, we had plenty to eat and a lot left over.  It is the Polynesian way to cook much more than needed and send home the rest with the guests.  You certainly do not go hungry.

After eating the members played games.  The purpose of the 3 day social is to get the students acquainted with each other, and who knows maybe a relationship will follow.

More games, playing with water balloons.  At least it kept them cool. The temperature was around 90 degrees so getting wet was welcomed.

After playing and sweating it seems the ocean was a perfect place to go.  The water is warm and the sun was hot, so a great combination for a good time.  The beach was only 100 feet from our tables and chairs so it was very convenient.  I don't think we will see this kind of picture in St George.

After food and games it was clean up time.  We finished around 3:00 pm.  I started at 7 am helping to set up the grills, tent, chairs, and tables.  Several of our Elders helped.  At 4:30 we had to go to the PCC to take tickets at the Luau.  We finished around 7 pm, so it made for a very long, tiring but very good day.

On Sunday finished our three day Social with a musical fireside at 6:00 pm.  This was in addition to all of our church meetings, another long day.  The musical fireside was a wonderful spiritual event. The theme of the fireside was "why I believe.  Several groups performs musical selections and several ward members gave their testimonies.  While the testimonies were being given the piano was softly playing in the back ground.  Most of the music came from the Church hymn books with a twist on the arrangements.  Some the songs were sung in Tongan and the Polynesian guys did a great job harmonizing.  The testimonies were from the heart and brought a few tears to our eyes.  We had over 350 people in attendance, our ward has about 125 members, so we had a lot of visitors.  Several non-members were there to enjoy the program as well as the young missionaries serving in Laie.

After the Fireside we served refreshments to the people attending.  Every thing in Polynesia requires food after an event.  The Relief Society sisters provided desserts, the Bishopric brought the ice cream and we brought cookies baked by Foodland.  The students lined up and kept coming until everything was gone.  The students are always hungry so it is a joy to feed them.

This 3 day event was the highlight of our Mission over the past two weeks.  It is a spiritual high to be with so many young people who are strong in the Gospel.  They give us hope for the future that every thing will be OK.

Have a great week,
Love and miss you.
Nona and Papa