Apia Samoa Stake Celebration

Another great week in Samoa. A nice thing about the weather in Samoa is if you don't like it, wait a couple of hours and it will change. We've had beautiful sunshine in the morning, pouring rain in the afternoon and then pleasant clear skies in the evening, and all different variations.

This week was the 50th anniversary celebration for the Apia stake, the first stake created in Samoa. If Kathy is brave she might post some of the sample videos I took of the dancing. I attached a picture of one of the dance numbers. They probably had 500-600 young people participating. They had programs Tuesday-Thursday night in the gym at the Institute performing some of their native dances and chants. Very rhythmic chants along with stomping and clamping highlighted by a performance by the young men of Haka, which is the dance made famous in the rugby movie Forever Strong. My Tongan AP friend said it originated with the Maori's but is performed on all of the South Sea islands. We went on Wednesday night and at the end they lured all of the Sr. Missionaries up to dance. No pictures will be published. Last night they had a Ball for the older couples and a dance for the young people. We went out for Pizza and then did our shopping. We walked by the Institute where they were having the dance for the young people. It looked like more older people were dancing there. Sunday night they are having a fireside where Elder Watson of the Seventy will be the speaker. They are going to show a documentary on the history of the Apia stake so we are going to attend.

Tuesday night we went to the Temple for the first time since we've been here. We went with the sisters in the ward we are assigned to. It was very enjoyable. We had headphones since it was a Samoan session but we did just fine.  Kathy went over to the church for refreshments afterwards with the Sisters. Our ward is celebrating the Relief Society birthday all week with activities each night. We aren't in the Apia stake so there wasn't a correlation problem. Saturday Kathy went to a barbeque at the church while I worked on our taxes.



Apia market on Saturday morning




This morning we took our traditional walk to McDonalds (2 weeks in a row). Today they had no orange juice or bottled water so we took breakfast to go. We walked up to one of the markets that had refrigerated juice and purchased juice and then ate our breakfast while sitting on a bench along the street. Then we went to the market, see attached picture, it is dark inside so I didn't take a picture inside. But, when I got home I laid out what we purchased on the kitchen table and took a picture. So we are going to learn about Samoan market economics today in the form of playing the home version of the Price is Right. The prices are 3, 4, 6 & 7 tala. The game is to match the price with the item purchased. For bonus points you can guess how much breakfast was. We had 3 Sausage Muffin with Egg. We will leave out the price of the juice this week.

Pineapple, Lettuce, Bananas and Tomatoes from
the Apia Market

Very often during the week I experience tender mercies that help me do my job here at the mission. It will sometimes be an impression coming into my mind. In a recent case it was a piece of paper stapled to a missionaries file that triggered an idea that solved a major issue I was having. It was in the mission nurses file and I asked her about it. She said she had no idea why that paper would have been stapled inside that Elders file. Some would call it coincidences but I know better.