40th Anniversary

It seems like just yesterday we agreed to take this incredible journey called life together.  There, on the balcony of the Harris Fine Arts Center, we decided that we could join together and start what we think is a pretty good life's work (even if we say so ourselves)! We have 6 tremendous children that bless our lives every day, 10 wonderful grandchildren that make us laugh and smile, and of course we have each other.  We are finding that true love means forgiving one another even when we are with each other every minute of every day.  This is a good start for us in this season (retirement) of our lives because it is a structured environment to practice.  Joe composed the following poem for our 40th Anniversary:

Janice & Joe

Forty years ago today
You took a chance to say,
"I want you forever."
So since then, we've just stayed together.

The years melt away
When we think of that great day -

Bouquet at 40th Anniversary Dinner

Our little kingdom since then grew
Into more than twenty-two.

So let's face forward with our eyes
On heaven's gate on each sunrise.
Our goal now close, is heaven's view
Each day, each step, each smile anew!

We stayed at a beautiful resort on our Anniversary night on the south side of the Island.  Imagine our surprise to find out that our sons had called ahead and paid for our dinner there.  They had a bouquet of tropical flowers and sang the next morning to us as we ate our breakfast.  We will always remember how special everyone made it for us.

Our Very Own Pineapple!

We have started our next BYU Hawaii class - Classroom Management.  It feels good to be making a difference in the classrooms here at Pesega.  It is a lot of work but we love to teach.  Joe is starting up a counseling class this coming week also.  We hope to have our first student teacher start soon also.  We harvested our first pineapple that we grew.  We rescued the plants when they were redoing the landscaping.  One bloomed in October and yesterday, we were able to pick it.

Have a wonderful week!  Manuia vaiaso!

Tofa Mai Faleni!

We had to say goodbye this Friday to our friends the Wights.  We had a whirlwind experience to take them everyplace we could before they left including American Samoa and Savai'i.  It was so good to have someone from home to share our "paradise" with. 

We enjoyed our little trip to Pago Pago even though it was on a little plane. 
The 20 minute trip was pretty however.  We even got to fly over our beloved Sauniatu and see beautiful Namua Island.

Namua Island (center-left)

Everyone in American Samoa was excited about the announcement of a new temple there - members and non-members alike.  It will be a great blessing to the people there.  We stayed at Sadie's by the Sea resort on Pago Pago harbor.  It was beautiful there.  The next morning, Ron Wight and I decided we would try our luck snorkeling just off the beach there.  It was beautiful!  There were fish everywhere.  Unfortunately, as I was admiring the beauty, a 5-foot shark swam by me.  I did not linger but decided it was time to come back to the shore.

Ron & Ann Wight in American Samoa

We ended our time with Ron and Ann Wight by taking the ferry over to Savai'i and staying overnight in a beach fale.  It was beautiful as we ate on a deck over the ocean that night.  We left them at the airport on the west end of our island (Upolu) so they could catch their flight.  We were a little sad so we spent the next day at the beach and that seemed to cheer us up a bit.

This coming week, we are rolling up our sleeves and prepping for our classroom management class.  We also are putting on a information session for the young men in our stake (at the invitation of our stake president) on manners for missionaries.

It was great to see conference and the great talks that we heard.  We are looking forward to studying them a little deeper in the coming weeks.

Hammock Time on the beach!

Hi-di-ho Good Neighbor!

Our good neighbors, Ron & Ann Wight came all the way from Benton City to stay with us for a few days!  We have had so much fun with them.  We picked them up at the airport on Wednesday and have about worn them out.  We have been to the cultural center and let them experience umu cooking, making tapa cloth, and wood carving.  We have been to the market and bought coconuts, cracked them and made coconut milk from the scrapings for wonderful boiled bananas and tuna steaks.  We have snorkeled at Vavau Beach and relaxed in the shade.  We have been to a small Fiafia complete with fire dancers.  They even stayed an entire day in a hot gym and helped us judge events for "English Day" at Pesega College!  They were real troopers.

At Togitogiga National Park

Ron Squeezing Milk from Coconut Shavings

It is so good to have them here.  They have been a connection to home for us that makes us grateful for those who have stayed behind and carried on while we have been concentrating on our work here.  We are grateful for their sacrifice to spend some time with us.  We are looking forward to the next few days with them.

Before the Wights came, Elder Lloyd spent time working on a family bathroom that the humanitarian missionaries are helping with.  It will be supplied with rainwater from water harvested from the roof  If it weren't for the two young Elders who carried the lumber up the hill, it might have done us old duffers in.  

Hello April!

We finished our Pedagogy class with 10 students obtaining credit.  To obtain credit, a students must pass with at least a 70%.  We are making preparations for starting Classroom Management on April

The Girls!

Little Birdy in my tree

22nd after the break.  We are keeping busy during the break by doing some service (building a bathroom/shower facility for a family on the other side of the island), working on the Samoan Quality Assurance submission for ITEP, and getting our house ready for our neighbor's visit.  We are anxious to show them around the islands a little bit and to have fun with them. 
We had a delightful time with other senior couples this week.  Saturday, we went to the institute building and played ping pong, pool, games, sang and danced.  We have included a picture of the Sisters at that gathering.
A few weeks ago, we planted a small papaya tree in the backyard.  We came home today from Church and found a little cardinal on the tree.  It reminded us of the little song we taught our grandkids before we came out - Little Birdy on the tree, on the tree, on the tree.  Singing a song for you and me!

Eggplant Flower Arrangement

Beauty All Around US

We taught some of our final lessons for our Pedagogy course this week.  Next week we have one more lesson then class presentations and the final exam.  We will take a three-week break while our neighbors (Ron and Ann Wight) come to visit and school is out for the April break.  We will start up again in April with a Classroom Management course.  We have been visiting the classrooms of the teachers we have in our class and can see them adopt some of the techniques we are using.  It is fun to watch them grow.

We continue to be asked to help in other areas.  For example this coming Friday, we are going to present at the Pesega High School teacher training for the whole staff.  Similarly, we were just asked by the Stake President who lives in the ward we attend, if we would present to his stake Aaronic Priesthood young men about manners they should have when they serve as missionaries in Western Cultures such as America, Europe and Australia.  That should be fun.  We will have to emphasize how it is polite to take small portions at first.  Samoans love to feast and exhibit an enthusiasm for it that is both memorable and admirable.

Janice on the beach March 23, 2019

Beach at low tide - see the waves breaking on the reef in the distance

New planter at our front door

We went with some senior couples to the beach this weekend called Mata o Ma'a (eye is a stone).  It was pretty.  The water was warm but a little cloudy.  That was a shame because there were some pretty cool-looking fish there but they were a little hard to see.

Janice really likes the tree trunk planters that have a plant sticking out of them.  We found one for sale at the market so we now have one by our front door. 

From what we can tell, North America is thawing out from winter.  We feel blessed to have been shielded from the cold this winter and are enjoying this beautiful land and the beautiful people.  We know God must love us to send us here because it is evident that he loves and blesses these people.

St. Patrick's Day Already?

While winter keeps lingering back home, it is a balmy 86 degrees here and sunny.  We are getting excited to have our neighbors, the Wights, come and visit us in a couple of weeks and help them thaw out!  The climate here is perfect.  It does get a little warm but if there is a breeze you don't notice it so much.  Of course the ocean is always a good way to cool off.

Sunset view on the north side of our apartment.

Sunset view to the west in front of our
apartment

We are on the downhill side of our Pedagogy class and only have a couple more lessons to prepare to have it finished up.  We give the final exam in a couple of weeks.  Our week consisted of preparing and teaching our lessons, working on the Samoan Quality Assurance application, meeting with and training the teachers, and doing observations.  We were able to slip in a nice session in the Temple on Friday and attended the Relief Society Birthday brunch for our ward.  That was particularly fun because someone brought out an ukulele and everyone started singing Samoan songs spontaneously.

We included a picture of a rhinoceros beetle that got trapped in our laundry sink. I helped him out but he was so cool looking, we had to get a picture of him before we let him go.  We also have been having wonderful sunsets and sunrises.  Thursday morning, we were playing pickleball with our neighbors and the sky was brilliantly frosted with pink and purple clouds.  What added more to the spectacle was the lightening storm and associated rainbow on the western horizon at the same time.  It seems that the sunsets light up the sky in a 360 degree panorama of color.  We don't think that the pictures do it justice.

We love all of you and miss you bunches.  We pray for you every day and hope that God watches over you just a little extra while we are gone!  Tofa Soifua!

The Work "Marches" On!

We cannot believe how fast time is passing for us.  It seems like a new week is starting every time we turn around.  We are convinced that it is because we are keeping so busy.  We have been getting

things prepared for applying for accreditation of the ITEP certificate program by the government of Samoa.  That has required a little more of our time above preparing and teaching our university courses.  We also participated in a traditional Samoan meal and its preparation this week.  We got to prepare the Umu (oven) and peel the taro (talo) and breadfruit (ulu).  Most of the work was scraping out the coconut meat and preparing the milk for palusami. 

# 2 Size Pig (pua'a) on the umu

We put all of that on the hot rocks along with a #2 size pig (Pua'a) and covered it in leaves for an hour while it cooked.  Our reward was a delicious meal with wonderfully-flavored coconut cream (palusami) to dip our breadfruit and taro into. 

Palusami wrapped in breadfruit leaves cooking on an umu

So far our health is holding.  We have not been seriously sick other than eating a few things that did not agree with us.  We feel like we are being blessed as we work to serve the teachers and children of Samoa.  It is so rewarding for us to give a lesson to the teachers here and then visit their classrooms and see them using some of the things they have learned.  We truly feel like we are making a difference when we see things like that.