"As a Hen gathers her chickens under her wings"

Having been raised in the suburbs, I had never seen this before although I have read about it 3rd Nephi many times. Our lesson in Sunday School this morning was on 3 Nephi 8-11. 

5 And again, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, who have fallen; yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, ye that dwell at Jerusalem, as ye that have fallen; yea, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.

6 O ye house of Israel whom I have spared, how oft will I gather you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if ye will repent and return unto me with full purpose of heart.

--3 Nephi 10:5-6

 

Over the last couple of months we have seen hens, in the compound, gather their young chickens under her wings.  We have also seen the figurative gathering of the children of our Heavenly Father to the safety of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

On our session Tuesday night we witnessed another couple from our ward go through the temple for their own endowments and then be sealed for time and all eternity.  This is the 4th couple from our ward this year to be sealed.  I noticed that the couple that were sealed 3 weeks ago were on the session and one of the couples that was sealed a couple of months ago were on the session.  It is a testimony to me to see the growth and the strength of the Church here in Samoa. 

 

This week we will welcome 23 new missionaries to the mission. 19 of them are from Samoa. 

 

Thursday we attended the Saleilua zone meeting on the south side of the island.  Despite getting a late start we did make it to the meeting on time. It is wonderful to see missionaries teaching each other the concepts that will help them to be successful in taking the gospel message to the people they serve. The chapel is right by the water so we got a very scenic setting for our traditional picture of the zone after the meeting.

 

The Upolu Saleilua Zone

 

It is spring time in Samoa.  We have seen some very beautiful flowers around the island.  Here is a picture Sister Partridge took near on the zone meetings we visited.

 

Spring flowers

 

Wednesday night we took our Family History Class to the computer lab at school to start working on new family search. We had about 50 of the youth from our ward there.  It was a good start but we ran into difficulties getting them signed in.  We found out you need parental permission to sign up for an LDS account. The program wanted the email address for the parents. Most of the parents in Samoa don't have email addresses or Internet access. So the bishop and I decided we would fall back and regroup. We will try it again in 2 weeks after we get the technical difficulties resolved. The youth are excited to start working on their family history. Most of the family history information in Samoa is memorized so it will be good to get this information recorded in new family search so that will be preserved for future generations.