Why didn’t you use that Picture……

As I work hard on the blog each week I get asked a lot by Gramma Hammond, “Why didn’t you use that picture?” I have to respond that there are only so many pictures you can use out of the many we take (when she has the camera there are “very many”). So this week was a little slow so I decided to use the few we have taken this week and look at a few I skipped. This first one is a picture of one of the beach fales with an unusual roof. Gramma was puzzled. They are sheets of foam rubbler that they stamp out the bottoms of flip flops and they use the left over material to help hold on the thatched roof. There a hundreds of those sheets on roofs here. 

The next picture is the gas (petrol) station where I by gas. The price of gas is controlled by the government so it doesn’t matter where you buy it, it is the same price (3 tala 12 sente, 3.12 per liter, that is about $5.60 a gallon). Our van gets about 15 miles to the gallon (not too good), so I visit this place a lot. It has the newest most accurate pumps and the best receipts. 

This is the machine of life. If it works you eat another day or so. They don’t always work and I have to visit it two of three times a month.   

Gramma was at the market today (Saturday) haggling with the vendors. She says she is getting better, she finds it is easier to deal if you don’t look them in the eyes so they can’t see the “fear” that you're going to get ripped off. 

The next pictures are of the children on the side of the hall at the cultural celebration last week. They set there and rock with the music. The second picture is the little guy in front of us. He was in the Mexico dance, but he would rise to his feet and dance every time the music got rocking’. All Samoan's love to preform.

The couple in this picture (sorry it is not very good, I am going to take another of them sometime), is the mission secretary and his wife, Elder and Sister Tonumaipea. They work real hard to keep mail, money, and records in the mission straight.   

Gramma wanted this picture of an old fale that show’s the “old” way they blocked the water in a driving rain. Most of the time they have blue tarps now. 

The last picture was taken on Monono last week and I didn’t realize I hadn’t included it until the blog had been posted a few days. It is where a man is buried that had 99 wives. The space in the middle of the monument is for the 100^th wife that didn’t happen. Apparently he wanted a round number of 100 wives. 

We cannot believe it is August. All of you Grandchildren will be starting school soon and the children in Samoa are in the last few weeks of their third of four terms. We are planning our classes for next term and the ones we will do in the spring, we have searched the records and found the classes that are needed by the most teachers. We made it to the beautiful Samoan Temple last night and thought of our family, we miss you, pray for you, and want you to know we love you. Tofa Soifua, Elder and Sister Hammond