Guests and very special guests……….

On Monday I went on our delivery with the Edwards and Gramma stayed home so she could see and hear two guests at the school. First Sonny Bill Williams, he is some kind of rugby superstar (he is also Samoan though he is from New Zealand), and he was on the island to promote youth rugby. Of course this is a big deal for a politician to attend so the Samoan Prime Minister was there. They both spoke and the pictures below are of the two of them, the welcome ceremony, the exchange of gifts, rugby training for some students, and overall PR for the TV station. 

You might be able to tell from Gramma’s pictures that it was raining very hard it rained until after lunch. This next picture is a young man from the school that sang as part of the welcome. He is one of the six finalists for “Samoan Idol Talent Contest”. They love that stuff here in the islands. 

These next pictures are of a special family from Utah the Winegars. The family is here on a service mission to promote special education in Samoa, something almost non-existent until now. This is their third mission (one 6 months and 2 for 3 months). They have been in Samoa a lot. He is the president of the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum Foundation. He served a mission here in the 1950’s and speaks Samoan. They have 6 children, after 5 children and 8 years later Becka a down syndrome girl was born. They tell their story of how much progress she has made because of early intervention and inclusion in the general education classroom. A message they are trying to spread in Samoa. The class we are teaching in Sauniatu and Pesega is “Teaching Students with Special Needs in the Regular Classroom”. So I invited them to present their story to our teacher in these classes. They were a hit and brought many of the teachers to tears with their story. Becka has about 52 credits in theatre at the Utah Valley University (she can’t complete the math and science so she can’t graduate, but has a letter of accomplishment from the university president). She has graduated from Institute 5 times and has like 150 credits at institute. They told she can’t graduate any more so she “retired”. She sings and dances and has an amazing vocabulary. Here are her pictures from our classes. She had a bad cold that first day, but came to the class anyway. 

Her dad and her gave a cheer they call the Woof (they love cheers in Samoa).

The Sauniatu staff gave her a gift for being there. 

Gramma and I made it Friday to Institute for the choir. It was to perform at devotional. They sounded good.

Guess who the speakers were for institute devotional? The Winegars. 

TV 3 showed up to do a story on Becka and her down syndrome friend, a Samoan, and they performed for the group, singing and dancing a song from South Pacific. 

At the end they got a lot of the students to dance with them.   

Speaking of dancing they had a high school dance on Friday, the students wear their nice cloths and they dance. No wall flowers in this group.   

They are having the United Nations Small Island Development conference here in Samoa. So many people will be here the next week that they are bringing in cruise ships for hotels. The villages are decorating their villages and here they are putting flags on the main road of one village we passed on the way to Sauniatu.   

Friday morning they had a talent show at the middle school. They had 58 sign up to perform. We had to leave for the institute before 10:00 and they were on #12. 

I will end this blog with pictures of our “very special” guest, Elder Gifford Nielson. I should say, President Nielson since he is in the Pacific Area Presidency as a counselor. All the missionaries and couples on the island of Upolu were there for the 2:00 meeting. The Tolman’s (the mission president & wife) and the Neilson’s spoke to us and it was a great meeting. It was almost all in English so we got a lot out of it. So neat to be with all these missionaries especially all the Elders and Sisters we have come to know and love from our Monday route.

That was another week in the lives of two old missionaries. The Lords helps us keep up our strength, and that’s good because with all we had to do during the week we had 5, count them 5, two and a half hour stake choir practices in the late afternoons and evenings. We perform next Saturday so we hope the rehearsals come occasionally after this until Christmas. Our phone worked better this week, we got to visit with Jessica and Joys families. We will try to call the rest of you in the coming weeks. We love you and miss you, but we have been promised you will all be blessed because we are here serving. So live as you should and don't do anything that would deny you the blessings of our Father in Heaven. Tofa Soifua, Grampa and Gramma Hammond.