Talofa Lava!
CHOGM finally happened this past week! They've been planning and gearing up for it for so long, I wondered if it would ever happen. But it finally did this week and turns out it made the traffic lighter than usual because many of the locals stayed home and off the streets. They closed all of the schools for three weeks in October and this was the second week of school break. The meetings were held mostly downtown but the streets and stores downtown were not even that busy. The people from other countries were bussed from their hotels to their meetings in big tour buses. They brought in a cruise ship to the downtown wharf to house people because there weren't enough hotel accommodations in downtown Apia.There were policemen everywhere directing traffic and escorting government dignitaries. That was kind of annoying because they'd have their sirens on and would honk to make cars pull over for them. King Charles was even here for one day!
Our week started out with Doctor's appointments and follow-up from our crazy weekend last week. We had a zone from Savaii come over for a temple trip Monday evening to go to a Tuesday morning session. I gave them their flu shots when they got here Monday evening and then we housed 2 of the Savaii Elders overnight. Guess who we were assigned to have stay with us? Our Cache Valley missionaries, Elder Clark from Wellsville and Elder Christensen from Nibley! We fed them pizza for dinner and then had fun talking to them about all of their interesting mission stories!
We said good-bye to 12 awesome missionaries at Outtake dinner and zoom testimony meeting on Tuesday night. Most of them flew out of Samoa on Wednesday afternoon and evening, a few others on Thursday and Friday.
On Thursday evening, we also welcomed 24 new missionaries from Provo and New Zealand MTC's and 4 more local missionaries from Samoa. It was the biggest intake group since we've been here! We helped fix their breakfast Friday morning and then we did little mini workshops to talk to them about healthy habits and taking good care of their MQ's. We'll see if any of it sinks in! Haha. Friday night we went to dinner with them at Rose's place, Saturday, I helped fix breakfast again and Elder Godderige had to go to the wharf twice to pick up missionaries from Savaii and bring them in to meet up with their new companions and then take those missionaries who were transfering to Savaii to catch the ferry. That took up most of the day. When he got back, we had to go to a couple of MQ's and finish getting them ready for missionaries to live in them. We only have two more of these 6-week transfers to deal with before we come home. I'm counting down--cause it's a LOT of work!
This morning we drove to our zone for church--Tiavea ward. Tonight in an MLC zoom meeting , they announced that the mission is going on a 'vehicle fast" for one week. The mission vehicles and vans are to stay parked-- the vehicles that the young missionaries drive at least. So it's going to be an interesting week.
Elder Godderidge is in charge of the spiritual message for you all this week. He wanted to share a couple of quotes from Sister Kristin M. Yee's conference talk:
"Like my painting, the Lord is not done with us when we make a mistake, nor does he flee when we falter. Our need for healing and help is not a burden to Him but the very reason He came." "Repenting allows us to feel God's love and to know and love Him in ways we would never otherwise know."
SO don't feel too bad when you make a mistake. It just allows the Savior to lift us back up, this is what he came here to do! He's just waiting for us to ask for his help and healing power.
Manuia le Po! ( have a good night! LOVE YOU!
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