Where Does The Time Go?

A few weeks ago Alicia and I flew in a little 14-passenger plane east over to American Samoa, a distance of about 80 miles.

Not a bad little plane

We departed Upolu Island, Samoa, on a Wednesday at 12:00 noon; we arrived at the Pago Pago International Airport on Tutuila Island, American Samoa, on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m.  Go figure.

Some passengers were a little leery of the adventure.

No, seriously, go figure. We flew east across the International Date Line and arrived a half an hour – I mean 24 and ½ hours – before we left. Look, if you fly east from, say, Kansas City to Washington, D.C., you lose an hour. But if you fly east from Apia, Samoa, to Pago Pago, American Samoa, you gain an hour. Or rather, you gain 25 hours. Go figure.

Passengers are each weighed and then seated so as to balance the weight.

Coming back to Upolu Island, of course, we lost a day.  We left Pago Pago, American Samoa, on Thursday for the half-hour flight back to Apia, Upolu Island, Samoa, and arrived on Friday.  It reminded me of the Kingston Trio song, “To Morrow.”

It was great to be back in American Samoa.

I had served there for about a year more than 50 years ago.  It has changed a lot – more cars, more houses, more large shipping vessels in one of the most perfect and beautiful, natural harbors in the world. But the people are still pretty much the same, the mountains and palm trees and crashing waves are the same.

One funny thing we saw on Tutuila was this tree full of bats.  Those dark images in the tree are bats.  They open their wings and flap them to cool off.

Bats!

While in American Samoa, we took a small boat over to the Island of Aunu’u.

The history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Samoa begins on Aunu’u. Very few people live there now, but we do have a thriving branch of the Church on Aunu'u,

and a set of excellent missionaries.

Few missionaries ever get to serve on Aunu'u, or to even visit it.

We never get tired of riding out over the water.  This video can be viewed by going to the blog page itself.

This past week we took another trip to Pago Pago, only this time we went by boat, the Lady Naomi.

The Lady Naomi carries cargo and passengers.

We had some bulky materials we wanted to personally handle, and we wanted to see how well we could both handle a long trip across water.  There is more background to this story, but we will include it in a future post.

This trip to Tutuila Island was a 9-hour trip over moderate to rough seas. Alicia took a good dose of Meclazine before embarking, but it wore off after about 6 hours.  Yes, she was seasick, and had she had the strength to do so, she would no doubt have given me a black eye for talking her into the trip.  But then she took another dose, and soon all was good.

It helped that we stayed that night in The Tradewinds hotel, the nicest on the island.  We were pleased to find a few good books to read in the room.

Needless to say, we took the plane back to Upolu.

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED

We live in the most beautiful place in the world. We love the sunrises, we love the sunsets, we love the gorgeous jungle mountain views, we love the gorgeous ocean views, we love the rainbows (seen almost every day), we love swimming in the ocean.

We have not seen roses in Samoa, but we do have beautiful floral arrangements that Church members make up out of their own yards and bring to the chapel each Sunday.

 We love being around our young missionaries. Wearing white shirts and black name tags just like they do makes us feel (almost) young again.

 We love being able to serve the beautiful people of Samoa.  It is a great feeling when they complement me (Elder McBride) on my language ability; I know they are not being entirely truthful, but it feels good to hear them say it.

It is a thrill to be able to attend the temple here and worship with the Samoan Saints, some of whom I knew and even baptized 50 years ago.

 Sister McBride loves it here, and even loves the Samoan food.

We have a wonderful Mission President and his wife.  Recently we got them to pause between proselyting visits and took this picture of them.

 We have a great team of other senior missionary couples that we socialize with on weekends.  Some of the seniors are here as teachers, some as auditors, some as welfare specialists – only the McBrides and one other couple are actually assigned to the missionaries. Recently Elder Gifford Nielsen, a member of the First Quorum of Seventy and a counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, and a former BYU football star, was here, and he had a few hours to relax.  We took him and his wife swimming at our favorite place.

Samoa was blessed recently by a visit from Elder D. Todd Christofferson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Alicia and I were privileged to help with a dinner put on here at the Mission Home, and to help arrange for a press conference the next day with the local press and Elder Christofferson.  Pictured from left, Elder & Sister Fata, Area Seventy; Elder & Sister Nielsen; Elder & Sister Christofferson; Samoa Temple President & Sister Jessop; Sister McBride. Front:  Samoa Mission President Arthur Hannemann & Sister Hannemann, Assistant Chief Bottle Washer Elder McBride. This picture is a little misleading because Alicia and I were not part of the group, but we happened to be in the kitchen when someone said, “Elder and Sister McBride, come out here and get your picture taken with the Apostle.”

It is no doubt because of these glowing reports that we recently received the following words in an email from a dear friend:  “After digesting the intriguing contents of your blog and messages, I'm not entirely convinced you will receive credit [in heaven] for a mission. Where is the adversity, hardship, challenge and antagonism?”

Good point, Charles.  So here goes with a little of the challenges we experience.  Not great hardships, to be sure, but certainly some challenges.

Sorry I can’t report on much adversity, however; about one-fourth of the people here are LDS, and the rest are almost always polite and smiling wherever we go.  Those whose livelihoods depend on contributions from their congregations are not quite as accepting of us, but you can’t really blame them, can you?

At 1:00 in the morning this past Tuesday, we got a call from some sister missionaries. Someone was trying to break in to their little wooden house. They had tried calling their missionary Zone Leaders, but no one answered. We quickly dressed and rushed out to their place. Of course, it was the middle of the night, and they live in a house some ways off the main road, so it took us a while to find it in the dark.  We got them situated in the mission conference room on the floor, found them some bedding, and tried to get things resolved the next day.

 We were glad to get to bed a little early that Tuesday night (10:00 pm), when we got a call from an Assistant to the Mission President saying one of our elders was covered with an angry red rash and he was throwing up.  Zika? Chikungunya? Dengue fever?  Who knows?  All are transmitted by mosquitoes, and the symptoms for each are pretty much the same. (These pictures may not show clearly the red rash, but rest assured it is obvious to the naked eye.)

We rushed him to the emergency room in [what is called] a hospital here.  At 12:30 a.m. he was settling down, and the nurses in triage said to take him home and come back in the morning for a blood test.  “It might be Zika,” they said. “Can you test for Zika here?” I asked.  “No.  But we can test for Dengue fever. Bring him back at 8:00 tomorrow morning.”  After less than four hours of sleep, I had him back into the hospital at 7:30 a.m.  The doctor did not arrive until 9:30, and he sent the elder to the emergency room where he stayed for the next 24 hours. Unfortunately, the blood results are not yet back.  We still don’t know for sure what he had – I mean, has.

We do live in the tropics, and we do have a few zillion  Aedes aegypti here.

One of our senior missionaries has one of the three diseases now.  Will we get it?  Good chance.

Before leaving the hospital, we made it a point to wash our hands thoroughly.  Lying on the sink next to the wash basin we saw a syringe. Don’t know who had left it there, nor whether it had already been used or was ready for use.

We will probably never know what the elder had – I mean has.  He is staying now in the Missionary Recovery Center in the Mission Home.  Fortunately for the younger missionaries, the symptoms for all three diseases generally run their course in about a week or two at the most.

Another day:  The phone rings.  “My companion has a boil.”  (Big deal.  We get a lot of boils here. ) “I’m sorry to hear that, elder.  How is he feeling?”  “Well, he can’t see out of one eye, the boil is so big.”  So off we went and brought him to the Church compound here where there is a dentist, a volunteer who is retired and goes around the world serving the Church in far-off places.  This is what it looked like.  The dentist is a life-saver.

 Another day:  We delivered supplies to some missionary houses, when one of them asked us to look at his foot.  Yuck!  We took him to get the sores dressed. He is on crutches now, but his foot should heal in a matter of a week or more or more than that.

Did I say we have boils here?  Some big, some small. This one was not small; we brought him in to the Church compound to see the dentist.  Again the dentists lanced this one and today he is just fine.  (Yeah, I know – the dentist working on a foot!)

 Note:  The Samoa Apia Mission is between nurses.  That is, we have been without a nurse for a few months, but we are expecting a new sister missionary who is a nurse, to arrive next month. We can hardly wait!

 We also get to help change out the water filters on our missionaries’ water filtration units.  One filter gets changed every 2 months.  That’s the one on the right; it was white when installed – yucky, huh?  One gets changed every 4 months (the middle one). The one on the left gets changed yearly.

So, Charles, I am afraid you are right. We are not really building up much credit in heaven on this mission, but we are thoroughly enjoying our time here in this life.

Christmas Dinner

This description of our Christmas Dinner is a little late in coming, but we have been especially busy the past several weeks.

Our good friends the Kennerleys invited us to join them for a real Samoan meal on Christmas Day prepared by Sister Kennerley’s relatives. We were delighted to be a part of it, and to observe the step-by-step preparations.

One of the first steps was to procure the pig and persuade him (or her?) to be our main course.  (To be honest, it was a little jarring for us city folk to see how it actually happens -- the pig was plunged head first into a bucket of water and held there until it stopped moving.)

It took a little work, but soon it was nestled comfortably on the banana leaves prior to its being roasted on the hot coals being prepared.

 In the meantime, the fire in the cook house behind the family’s living quarters was being tended.  Dry coconut husks were lit and soon a raging fire was going to heat the lava rocks to a high temperature.

In the meantime (and there are a lot of “in the meantimes” here, as everything had to come together at just the right time),  a teenager in the family was first husking coconuts, cracking open the nuts, and then grating the coconut from which the coconut cream would be made. Behind him Sister McBride watches as a cousin peels the taro (kind of like a potato).

His nephew carefully monitored the proceedings on his electronic device.

  

In the meantime, the mother and father were weaving the baskets in which to hold the food as it was being prepared and in which the food items would be cooked. 

It was fascinating to see how quickly they could weave a basket -- about 10 minutes.  The finished product would look like this:

Elder McBride, Sister Kennerley, and Elder Kennerley visited while the process unfolded.

  

Another son is now shaving off the outside of the breadfruit which will also be cooked in the hot coals.  Breadfruit, by the way, is neither bread nor fruit. It is a starchy vegetable that grows on breadfruit trees.

With the coconut cream ready to go, the father poured the cream into cups fashioned from leaves; these will also be placed on the hot coals. The dish he is making is called palusami, and it is a real Samoan delicacy, and Elder and Sister McBride both love it.

Soon all the elements of the meal – the taro, the breadfruit, the palusami, and of course the pig are buried atop the coals under layers of banana leaves and coconut fronds.

 A great family! We loved being with them.

And the food was delicious!

Merry Christmas!

December 25^th is almost upon us, and the Spirit of Christmas is in abundance even in these hot and humid islands of the South Pacific. The Prime Minister’s Office of the Government of Samoa and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have teamed up to produce a week-long series of Christmas pageantry.  Each night various church denominations are invited to present songs and dances on the lawn in front of the Government Building.

Samoa Government Building

Elder and Sister McBride have helped in the production of the live nativity scene starring young full-time missionaries (and a couple of fairly well-behaved lambs).  The young men and women have to stand for about two and a half hours every evening for a week.  Despite the heat and humidity, they have made no complaints at all. And the audience loves them! Each night parents bring their children up after the performances to have their pictures taken with our nativity scene. (As we write this, we are watching the recorded telecast of the program on Samoan television.)

Our Live Nativity Scene

Sister McBride and Sister Afulua (she is the cook in the Mission Home) have played major parts in making the costumes.  They have collected bits and pieces of material from different places around the island; cut up old dresses (including one prom dress); altered existing robes (including even an abaya and a thobe from the Middle East, making us homesick for our dear friends in Saudi Arabia); and sewed and sewed and sewed. Their final products are nothing short of magnificent. Each night we take the sweat-soaked costumes home and wash and dry them.

Sister McBride and Sister Afulua in the middle, our seamstresses

For Sunday night’s program, Elder McBride was surprised when he was asked to give the invocation.  He did so, in Samoan.  His prayer included a request of the Lord that He would hold back the rain.  It had rained a lot that day, and there was concern that more heavy winds and rain could cancel the program. There was no rain that night, but there was a nice cool breeze that kept things from being too hot. Afterwards, one of the security guards (not a member of the Church), commented to one of our members that the Lord had answered the prayer of the Mormon palagi.

In the meantime, our day jobs continue.  We greatly enjoy visiting the homes of the missionaries; inspecting them for cleanliness; and checking on the general health of the elders and sisters.  We are becoming experts on the treatments for boils, bed bugs, mosquito bites, and dengue fever.

We love our missionaries!

Sometimes we meet up with unwelcome guests at some of these missionary houses:

Sister McBride did not like this visitor

 As we drove around the island of Upolu recently, we happened upon a celebration underway marking the 20^th anniversary of the creation of the Sara’emila Stake (sah-rah-ay-mee-lah). We got to watch several wards performing traditional Samoan dances.  This is only a snapshot of one of them:(You probably can’t see this short video clip from the email on your hand-held device; you will have to click on the webpage and scroll down to it.)

 A special treat for us recently was welcoming Elder Robert Kennerley and his wife, Sister Taimi Kennerley, back to Samoa.  Elder Kennerley and Elder McBride were missionaries at the same time in Samoa some 50 years ago.  The Kennerleys are from New Zealand; Sister Kennerley is originally from Samoa. He and Elder McBride are enjoying talking about the good old days.

Every other week or so we do get to take a few minutes for fun.  We stopped one day on our travels to see the magnificent Fuipisia Waterfall.  (You probably can’t see this short video clip from the email on your hand-held device; you will have to click on the webpage and scroll down to it.)  If you can hear Elder McBride on the video, you will hear him say that some 35 years ago, when his father and mother visited Samoa to teach some speed reading classes, his mother stood right about where Sister McBride is standing:

We also visited what must be one of the most beautiful lagoons in the world, and we went swimming and snorkeling there.  This is Vavau Beach, and Elder McBride and his companion occasionally found it necessary to take their weekly baths here long ago.  (Not a bad picture, considering it was taken with an iPhone 6):

 

We have dubbed this, "Mermaid Lagoon"

We thank Our Heavenly Father for this great opportunity of serving as missionaries in Samoa. We love to see the temple here, a place of love and beauty. We add our testimonies that it is the House of the Lord.

The Samoa Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 And we thank Him especially for the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas to all!

Picture from LDS Media Library