Marriages and Baptisms - In That Order

The missionaries were teaching two good people who wanted to be baptized.  Elders Cook and Meldrum had been teaching Ruben Luna, but he needed to be married to Estrella, his girlfriend and the mother of  Christian,  C.T.R. (his nickname) before he would be worthy for baptism.   Sisters Ika and Tuileto'a were teaching Eileen Joseph who had a beautiful family with her boyfriend, Moso. They  had three little girls; Micky, Lecka and Daedae.  Both Ruben and Eileen were taught by the missionaries with many lessons and Family Home Evenings to prepare them for the great days to follow:  their marriages and then their baptisms.  We hope we've captured some of the beauty of these events in some pictures we took.

These are Ruben's marriage, a tradition here is to pin money on the newly married couple as they dance the first dance at their wedding party.  We have seen no wedding gifts, just the pinned on dollars.   And a picture of us with Elders Meldrum and Cook following the baptism.

Mohokoi Finau Sunia and Eileen Tamon Joseph

      We were blessed to able to meet the Sisters at Eileen's home and teach her and Moso the Gospel a few times.  The home is small  with about three sisters and a couple of husbands/boyfriends and lots of their children living there with Grandma Vecenta.  On a dark night in the jungle, the home is not very well lit by electricity, but it was lit by the Spirit as we shared family home evenings and Priesthood blessings there.  Although we were going there to teach Eileen, many other family members sat and listened.  As we left one night, Elder Jones said to me, "many baptisms could come from that house."  We came to love Eileen so much as she looked to us with trust as we encouraged her to work on an eternal family.  We will never forget her! 

Passover Seder

What Church do you think we visited here for Passover?  Well, it is our Church in the RS/Font Room.  This is Sister Conner, the Seminary teacher with a well planned Passover Festival for the Seminary and Institute students to learn from.  Her husband leads the symbolic drinking of the grape juice.  The whole event was so authentically portrayed from the Old Testament with the exception of the wine; and no lamb's blood was smeared above the door posts at the Church.  We felt transported in time.  You would not believe how reverent a room full of teenagers were!

          Here we are with some of the students, Sister Conner, Sister Robinson and Bishop Esplin before the event began.

Umu

The Sisters presented a Samoan cookout  - an Umu - at the Welch's house on Monday for our District P Day gathering.  They are ward members who live in the Sister's area.  Brother Welch is American and his wife is from an island near Fiji.  They have a son who left our ward a few weeks ago to go to Australia on a mission.  Once we had finished the cooking and eating we took a group picture to send to Elder Welch.

It took hours to heat the rocks and prepare the chicken and pig that was wrapped in foil and put into the underground oven once it was hot enough.  Brothers Welch and Ferejen prepared the meat for the outdoor oven and Sister F prepared and steamed banana tamales for our desert.   The foil packets of meat were covered with piles of crunched banana leaves and then blankets and smoked for a couple of hours.  In the meantime, we wrote letters to our departing  Elder Allred and played Apples to Apples.

The food was worth the wait, especially the meat.  In this oven was ribs and chicken, breadfuit and bananas which were also roasted.  Elder Jones and I are still working on acquiring a taste for these foods.

They also prepared a really great drink that I will try to make when we are home.  It was made from a ripe, juicy watermelon that was shredded with a fork into a large bowl.  Coconut milk and sugar were added.  Yummy!  They called it Otai.