A week of firsts

 

Talofa Lava,

Hope everyone at home has had a great week and is enjoying Memorial Day weekend!  We will miss visiting graves of loved ones and spending family time at the cabin. But time is moving along here so we'll probably be home before we know it!   

This last week has been a week of firsts.  There was a lot of the same as well, but we had some new challenges and new adventures.  One of the sister missionaries got really sick with a migraine headache,fevers, and said she'd had a sore throat for a month that wouldn't go away. We ended up going to get her and her companion late Monday night and brought them to our apartment so she could sleep with AC and be close by in case she got worse.  I had checked her throat earlier in the day and it looked like her tonsils were infected so I'd started her on an antibiotic but it made me wonder if maybe she had mono or somehing. They also stayed with us Tuesday night because she was only feeling a little bit better. I took her to the doctor's office to get her throat swabbed and the doctor said it looked like a strep infection to her.  By Wednesday, she started doing better so they went back to their own place Wednesday night.  So that was our first "overnight stay" experience!  Then on Thursday, a missionary cut his thumb open pretty bad on a glass window louvre and it was deep enough that it needed sutures.  So Elder G. and I turned our office into an "Instacare '' since there's no such thing as that in Samoa, and he stitched it up while I assisted. I had sutures on the bottom shelf of the mediicine closet that have probably been there for a while, but they worked!  Elder G. numbed his thumb with Lidocaine before he sewed him up, and told the Elder his "Rambo Dad" story about putting stitches in his own leg once, and showed him a picture of his smashed finger when he got it cut off in the trailer door, so then the Elder decided he could handle a few stitches in his thumb.  It was 5 stitches, actually. So, our first stitches!  Then on Saturday we went on our first swim in the ocean!  Yes, believe it! I actually got in the ocean and went swimming (well more like dog paddling, I don't swim), but I had to because I wasn't tall enough to touch the bottom.  We went to this giant clam sanctuary and we were supposed to go snorkeling but they ran out of snorkels before they got to us so we didn't get to snorkel.  We went with all of the Senior couples on a "Senior Missionary activity" and I don't think the Clam Sanctuary usually gets that many people needing to rent snorkeling gear! So we'll have to go back when Bayli and Ethan come and try again.  Also, next time we'll NOT going at high tide so we can use the snorkeling gear but walk further out so it's not so far to swim.  After the activity, we drove down to an area where we hadn;t been before and found a secluded beach that was called "Survivor resort".  The gate going down into it was locked, so we decided to just walk down the road to the beach and see what was there.  It turns out the place was closed for remodeling so that's why no one was there but a few construction workers.  We found out it was the location for a couple of "Survivor Samoa" TV shows at one time.  Now they're fixing it up to be a resort.  Hopefully they open up before we go home so we can check it out for a weekend getaway.  The beach was pretty nice compared to what we've seen so far.

The best part of the week was getting our first packages from home, first letter, and Dad got his first shipment of Diet Mountain Dew delivered this week!

I heard a good saying this week: "The SMALLEST ACT is better than the grandest intentions."  Sometimes we think about doing something grand for someone, but then talk ourselves out of it or never get around to doing anything. Getting into the habit of doing small spur of the moment things for others when you see a need is often appreciated just as much and we can actually find the time and energy to go through with those things.  A friendly hello, a listening ear, a hug, a take-out meal for someone. Elder Godderidge is really good at the small acts several times daily and always has been. It's a trait he's passed on to his children, so basically I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's a quote maybe you can use in a lesson or something, haha!

Love you all!  Lots of pictures this week!