Interns and Pioneer Day

On Tuesday, we finished up teaching our class and came out of our office about 6:00 PM and ran into the primary Pioneer Day Parade!  We were delighted to fall in step with them and follow the covered wagon with about 40 primary children singing.  The police were at the street and stopped traffic for them as they crossed in front of the mission home on the way to the church building across the street.  They had a delightful program with real Samoan Pioneers who had to go to Sauniatu to escape persecution.  The best was the nursery class dancing to Cotton-eyed Joe!

This Friday, we made our way up the mountain to Sauniatu and taught our English lesson and SIOP lesson.  We bundled up the 6 interns from BYU-H and met at our house.  We got a couple more senior missionary couples in on the deal and shuttled them to eat out with us that night at a restaurant at the warf and then cheesecake afterwards.  Three of them stayed in our apartment and the other three stayed with Elder & Sister Williams across the street.  While they were at the temple the next morning, Janice cooked about 30 Norwegian waffles for them after they returned.

We spent the rest of the day at Vavau beach and had a delightful time with them.  They really cheered us up and put a sparkle in our life.  They are so young and energetic.  We feel lucky to get to show them around a bit.

Time is flying by and we are working very hard teaching and observing.  We feel good that we are making a difference here but are coming to realize that it is hard work!  This is not an assignment for wimps!  We are dead tired every night and work hard just to keep up.  The pay is good however and we have been blessed with health miracles, with financial blessings, and the love and support of our wonderful family.

Lavalavas and Sauniatu

School is back in session and we are back in the swing of things.  We are teaching three nights a week again.  We have started teaching an Introduction to Special Education course.  Janice and I are not real "deep" in this area so we are sticking to the book so we don't stray very far.  The Church schools do not currently have a special education program so it is mainly to help teachers become aware of how they might help students who might have diagnosed learning problems in their classes.  We are also teaching the teachers in Sauniatu on Fridays.  Janice woke up in the middle of the night with a strong feeling that we needed to be up there on a regular basis helping them.  There is one teacher who needs a class.  While we typically wouldn't teach a class for just one teacher, we are combining our teacher professional development there with the class.

Pineapple Field near Sauniatu

Road to Sauniatu

Kids on the street in Sauniatu

I took a picture of the road up to Sauniatu.  It takes 30 minutes to go 4.3 miles.  You have to go pretty slow.  At one time, it was paved but it has been washed out and now it is mainly rocks and potholes.  The drive is worth it however as you reach the remote center of an old volcano and find the beautiful campus of Sauniatu.  It was a sanctuary for early members of the Church in Samoa who were being persecuted here.

Saturday, we helped the Senior missionaries make lavalavas with paint and stencils.  It is a fun process that is similar to screen printing but only uses stencils cut from xray film and paint on a roller.  You can see that Elder Semu (from New Zealand) and Elder Swanger (from Vancouver, Washington) are quite proud of their work!

Lavalavas that we made this weekend

Lavalava Men!

My little papaya tree is going to bear some fruit.  I am pretty excited to harvest some.  Who would have thought we could grow such things?

We just passed the point of our mission where we have a year left to go.  Time has gone so fast so one year should be here before we know it.  We do miss everyone so much and can't wait to be with you again.  We love you and pray God will bless you!

Pacific Games 2019 and Family Reunion

We spent the rest of this week (after Levi's family left) regrouping and watching events at the Pacific Games.  We watched sports we don't normally get to see including weightlifting, va'a racing (outrigger races), sailing, swimming, and rugby. 

Women's weightlifting (Samoa lifting 142 kg!)

 We are getting all sorts of pictures of our family having a good time together in San Francisco while they hold the Family Reunion without us.  We are quite jealous that they are there without us but understand that each of them took a turn missing a reunion while they were on their missions so it is our turn.  We are delighted that they value that enough to do it on their own however. 

Lloyd Family Reunion 2019 (San Francisco)

Levi's Family Came to Visit!

We had a most fantastic time with our Son Levi, our daughter-in-love Rebecca, and their children, Isaac, Eliza, Noah, and Henry.  They came July 2nd and with tears in our eyes dropped them off at the airport on July 9th.  We were in the ocean every day they were here except on Sunday.  They got to share some of our beautiful places here in Samoa with us.  We visited Palolo Deep, Namua Island, Vavau Beach, Togitogia Waterfall, and the giant clam sanctuary.  We saw fire-dancers, ate Samoan food, and cooked on an umu.  They saw giant flying foxes, geckos, and tropical fish! They made their own lava lavas.  They got to sing hymns in Samoan and share some time in the temple with us.  We loved having them here and enjoyed every second.  It was all summed up with Henry's exclamation, "I want to be a white Samoan!"

Eliza and Grandpa at Vavau Beach

Henry, The White Samoan!

Isaac making his lava lava

Levi at Togitogia Waterfall

Noah at the cultural village

Rebecca shopping at the Market.

Grandma and Eliza on the way to Namua Island

We sent them off to return to California with a few souvenirs and all of our love to give to our family back home as they have the Joe & Janice Lloyd family reunion without us.  It thrills us to know they want to still get together without us.  We look forward to a family picture all in their matching shirts this weekend!  We love them so!

Sunset After The Rain

We had to add these shots today of the sunset after the rain.  We even got a rainbow at the sunset!

Sunset at the cathedral at the end of our street (under construction)

Catching Up

The last three weeks have been very busy.  We have been teaching 4 different classes and have just finished up 2 of them this past week (Technology & School Counseling).  That leaves us with two more to continue on after the break and one more to start at that time.  Keeping busy has its perks however, the time sure goes faster.  We are still happy and healthy and very excited preparing for Levi, Rebecca, Isaac, Eliza, Noah, & Henry to come.  We will spend a very fun week with them. It will be good to hold some of our dear ones close at least for a week. We are a little worried however because we have been getting a lot of rain the last 24 hours and really hope it clears up when they come.

Raining (from our front step)

Last Friday, the school had a track competition and picked their team of champions to train for the national college track meet in August.  The day was hot and we held up until lunchtime watching.  The competitors and teachers "toughed it out" however and ran on into the afternoon.

Most competitors were barefoot.

We are so excited that our little transplanted papaya tree is starting to bear fruit.  We may just consider ourselves "island people" not that we have successfully grown a pineapple and a papaya in our yard.  If we could only get the tomatoes to set fruit, we would feel really successful.

Our little papaya tree!

It is hard to believe that we have been gone for 9 months already.  In many ways it seems like just yesterday when we received our call and assignment to Samoa but it has been over a year.  In just a couple of weeks, we will only have one year of service left.  We are starting to think about our plans after we are finished and considering a move to live closer to some of our family.  We shall see when we get to that point however.

God bless each of you and please know that we believe that we are doing some good here.  God planted us on this little island for a purpose and we can see that we have had something to offer.

Manuia le aso (have a blessed day)!

Fa'aSamoa (Culture Day) at the Middle School

One of the teacher's in our class is a beginning Samoan teacher. After listening to one of the ideas we suggested in our class, he decided to make his lessons a little more hand's-on.  He organized a formal Samoan feast complete with constructing 6 Umu pits, #2 pigs, coconut cream, fish, chickens, etc.  The students did all the work and did a marvelous job.  The teacher was pleased that now, everything was making sense to the student and they could apply what they had been learning.  Of course, we were invited and treated so well.  They really enjoyed the activity and we enjoyed rubbing shoulders with them!

Samoan Chicken for the umu!

Stocking the umu (bananas, #2, taro, & breadfruit)

Weaving a basket for the food.

Scraping the breadfruit (uli)

Preparing the fish

Sister Lloyd's Palagi friend at Pesega (her name is Kiona)

Our neighbor boy Jayden.  He is our favorite visitor!