Hello From Samoa - July 23, Part 2

Hi, this is Part 2.  Yesterday I had a big blog almost finished and I decided to delete a photo and I accidentally deleted the whole blog, it just disappeared and I couldn't find it.  So this time I did half and sent it out yesterday and I will try and get the next half done so I can send it out too.  We are starting out with Auckland.

Auckland at night

Auckland in the day time.  It is an amazing city.

It is called the City of Sails

Auckland has hundreds maybe even thousands of sailboats in the harbors

But we found out that Auckland does have frost.  Even though it is still nice and hot in Samoa it is still winter time but the frost was still a surprise.

Sister Stonehocker could even see her breath.

This is a picture for Ritchie Whitehead.  He has his own bus in Auckland, I'm just not sure where it goes.

Ritchie, it's really a bus.

Here is us in New Zealand

This is President and Sister Leota at their farewell.  They were released in the end of June and they are going back to Australia.

This is our new mission president, President and Sister Tolman from Mesa, Arizona

This is the food cooked by the Samoan class in an "umu" which is and outside cookhouse.  The food here was all prepared by the students.  They had to kill and dress the pig; kill pluck and clean the chickens; and catch and prepare the fish.  The food here includes a number 2 pig, baked taro, baked fish; several chickens and polusami.

This is the umu, they have just taken the leaves off and are starting to move the hot rocks

Most of the cooked food is open and they are getting ready to move it to the sheet where they will cut up the pig and divide the rest of the food.

They are picking out the food.  This is baked taro beside the pig.

This is the baked pig before they cut it up.  Certain parts of the pig are given are given to people with status in the village.  The head is cut off and opened up and is usually given to the chief or the high authority.  In this case it was given to the principal.  This was one of the many times that I was glad not to be the principal.  They gave us a plateful and it was really quite good.

I wanted to show some of the bridges we crossed when we were on the Vaiaata Road.  I am really glad that these bridges were not too high off the ground

We drove over these bridges

We are hoping that they will fix them before we go over them again but that is only a remote possibility.

This was the last bridge we had to go over. 

This is part of our reading group.  You will see doubles in some because we couldn't get them all at the same time.  From left to right: Fina, Joseph, Junior, and Elizabeth

From Left to right: Anna and Fa'asani and in the picture below: Junior, Ruthie, and Elizabeth

Here we are sitting in our front room with the kids

This is what the audience is for all the elementary classes when they have speech competitions.

The flowers are gorgeous.  Most classes have flowers but these were particularly beautiful especially for a speech competition.  The picture below is of the Grade one class, they really were amazing.

This is how they all enter the hall.  They come up from the elementary wing in single file and quiet.  The picture below is the grade 2 class with some parents mixed in

These are the leis they give us each day when we start judging.  They are real flowers and they have a beautiful fragrance. The picture below is of the Grade 3 class. The next picture is the Grade 4 class and the last picture of elementary students is teh Grade 6 class

These are girls at our trackmeet waiting under a tent for their time to go compete.

This is Ise our head timer at the track meet and one of the teachers in our class.  The picture below is of the girls running the 800 meter race

The picture above is our girls playing net ball.  Notice the pole with a basketball hoop and a net just sitting out in the middle of the field.  It is an interesting game to watch. The pictures to our left and below are of our rugby team.  They went to Nationals this year and should have won it but they didn't.  They had some great games.

This is their volley ball team.  Notice the two refs, they are leaning against the poles and this is what keeps the net tight

 These are scenery shots so you can see what the Samoan country sides look like

 These are sights we see every day driving to town

The big tree reminds us of some of the trees we saw in South Africa.  There is a better picture of the three of them coming up.

 This is the entry to Vaiola,  the prison is up about 150 yards on your left and we are a half mile to your right.  The picture below is a hill we drive by all the time.  It is truly a beautiful sight.

This is a pine tree on which the branches go straight out and they are separated by about 3 feet.

The ivy grow voratiously and will cover almost anything, coconut trees included

These are the trees that remind us of of the big shade trees in South Africa.

This is a coconut plantation and this is the fence to keep the cows in.  Sometimes they go along and stick a stick in the ground in the fence line and the stick will start growing and become a tree.   In the picture below you can see the ivy climbing over everything.  It is really amazing that any of the trees still survive

 Notice the tree with funny colored bark and the branches have leaves at the end so the branchs are very bare.

Sister Stonehocker is standing infront of one of those trees.

The trees are very interesting in shape, size and how and where they grow.

Another tree we call teh umbrella tree because that is what it looks like.

Another big beautiful tree










We hope you enjoyed the pictures and we will be putting more on regularily.  Have a Great Day!