Godderidge’s Mission Life: BEDBUGS

Talofa lava!

Elder Godderidge has had an interesttng week! A few highlights; He unclogged several sink and shower drains! Gross! He hung a lot of curtains! He bought a rat trap to catch the rat that chewed up one of the MQ drains, He installed a new sink faucet, and tightened several loose sink faucets. He got ink from his pen all over his white shirt so I had him take it off while I tried to rinse it out in the sink and the sister missionaries came home while he was shirtless so we had to tell them not to come in their MQ until he got his shirt back on, haha! He worked on organizing a storage room full of missionary teaching materials that had been in total disarray (it's almost done now!) He purchased over $1000.00 worth of mosquito repellent with his own credit card because when he got to the checkout counter, his mission credit card was denied (maxed out for the month) and we needed the repellent to pass out to the missionaries because there is a Dengue fever breakout in Samoa right now (Sure hope he can get reimbursed!) But the most disgusting clean-up project was the bed bug infestation in one of the sister missionary's MQ's! He had to take all of the mattresses outside and spray them with bed bug spray, vacumn out the MQ and the mattresses to get rid of all the bugs and their eggs, and then go back and put all the mattresses back in the MQ after they sat out in the sun all day to hopefuly kill the bugs. Never a dull moment in the life of the Samoa mission housing coordinator!

We had a new Senior couple arrive this last week--The Blankenships. We have 3 more couples coming in May and June. That's lots of new couples to train! I feel sorry for the mission leaders, AP's, and office Elders. They're going to be taking over the office responsibilities so I don't think the young missionary office Elders who are here right now are too excited to train them and take their office jobs away!

We took an afternoon this week to deliver housing supplies and a few medicines to sick Elders in the Southeast zone and drove by some pretty coastal areas. There was a cool resort we stopped to check out and took some pictures. We're going to have to try to take a day or two off and go stay there one of these days!

Some interesting things to know about Samoa--Many of the homes have burial sites in their front yards with tombstones or vaults where they lay their ancestors to rest. There's no laws restricting where you can bury a body here I guess. When someone dies, the funeral gathering is usually at the home of the deceased and people come to visit for a couple of days while the body stays there at the home. They serve food and it's kind of like a big reunion. I think the whole village comes out to pay their respects and mourn with the family. Also, on Saturdays, most of the stores and shops close at noon. So after 12:00 on Saturday, The only thing open after that are convenience stores and a few of the grocery stores. Even a lot of the restaurants close early on Saturday. So we can't really go out to dinner on Saturday night like we used to do.

Elder Natress of the General Seventy was here for a few days. He has been visiting the South Pacific and speaking with government leaders about family history and the Church's Family Search website. That is his assignment now, Family History. He did a devotional for the missionaries on Saturday afternoon. He challenged all of the missionaries to get familiar with and know how to use the "ordiinance ready"

tool and to use Family Search to teach investigators about eternal families and temple work. I know that could be a powerful teaching tool for the missionaries here in Samoa because family is very important here. We've only been to the Temple once since getting here. It's been hard to find a good time to go. And you have to schedule an appointment a week in advance if you want to go because they fill up. They don't have sessions on Saturdays after 10:00 AM. The temple closes at noon on Saturday too! We're going to try to go more often because we know it's important and we miss it! We miss all of you too!

Alofa atu! (Love you)

Sister Godderidge