MERRY CHRISTMAS!
I hope you all are having a great week and things are falling into place for a wonderful Christmas with loved ones wherever you are! As I'm sure you all know by now, I love Christmas and the holiday season! It looks a whole lot different to us this year but I still love it. We've been busy this week with figuring out ways we can spread some holiday cheer in Samoa. On Tuesday, we delivered gifts to the missionaries in our zone. We gave them a big bag of laundry powder (they hate spending their own money on that because it's quite expensive) and some microwave popcorn,granola bars, and candy. Then we've been purchasing things to put together some gift bags for our security guards. They work for a security company, not the church, so they don't make much money. Sister Purcell once told us they only make about 10.00 Tala an hour which is about $3.50 in US dollars. So about $28.00 for an 8-hour shift. When you put it into perspective with what it costs at the MacDonalds here for one Big Mac and fries (about 50.00 Tala), you realize that they probably never go out to eat with their families! So we're providing them with some basic non-perishable food items (big bag of rice, a bag of cocoa powder and box of canned tuna), to help ease the burden just to put food on the table. We also added in a few treats; a package of cookies, a bag of candy, and a bag of apples and oranges.We plan on passing them out on Tuesday, Christmas Eve. We. didn't drive out to our zone for church this week, because the Elders came to the office after their church meetings to have their PPI interviews with the President, so we spent a little time with them here at the office. It was nice to have a break from the early Sunday morning and driving. We went to the English speaking ward instead and the youth sang a Christmas song called "Is There Room". While we were walking home from church, we looked up the song on Youtube to listen to the lyrics again. We discovered it was written by a man named Sailiata Fano, Jr. We watched him perform it with a group of singers and we thought he looked like Elder Fano, one of the Elders in our zone, ao we asked him if he was related to him, and he said "yea, that's my dad"! Turns out he's a pretty well-known composer/song-writer and he does these Christmas concerts every year so Elder Fano said "I'm going to invite you guys to his concert next year cause we'll both be home by then!" So you should look it up on Youtube.
We had the biggest rainstorm since we've been here on Thursday! It rained hard for most of the day and night! On Friday, when we drove into town, there was flooding and water covering a couple of blocks on one road and we had to drive through a river! It's still not completely gone from the road.
I've been trying to follow the week's Christmas Study Plan that was on the Church website. I was reading this morning (Monday) about the night without darkness in the Americas as a sign of the coming of the Savior's birth. "Lift up your heart and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.
Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will, both of the Father and of the Son--of the Father because of me, and the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given." 3 Nephi 1:13-14
Just as the first Christmas was a two-hemisphere story--the Eastern hemisphere (Bethlehem) and the Western hemisphere (among the Nephites), our family is celebrating Christmas in two hemisphere's this year--the Northern hemisphere (where most of the family is) and the Southern hemisphere (where we are). I'm grateful that even though we're far apart this year, we can feel as one family because of God's plan and our Savior's love for all of us which makes it so Families can be together forever!
LOVE YOU ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pictures are of the flooded road, our zone with their laundry powder,
the hospital waiting area by the lab and pharmacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment