God Bless Amerika…….

One thing we have learned being in Samoa is America is indeed the “Land of Promise”.  Visiting American Samoa with its U.S. influence was a bit of a delight for us. They drive on the right side of the road, they use the right money, and most people speak English. It is more progressive there they have fresh produce and American groceries. Everything is not from New Zealand. We had a lot of waiting in a small hot airport waiting area getting ready to fly out.

 Gramma was fascinated with the Santa Clause at the airport with a flower in his hat.
 

The plane ride was an experience. They weigh you with your luggage (we must have scored well there they put us in the back of the plane) and off you go. 

We took this picture for Kevin and Melissa. This is the anchor for the believe it or not the Carl Jr. Mall, it has about 6 small stores. 

 American Samoa is rugged; it is straight up and down. It is small (only 2 miles wide and a total of 71 square miles). This is called the Flower Pot Island. Gramma is posing in front of a little island next to it, notice the new hat.

 

This first picture is the Star Kist tuna cannery in Pago Pago Bay. The bay is long and narrow and has a lot of ships.  Here are some of the tuna fishing fleet.  The last pictures are of the bay from the top of the pass.

 There is a National Park in Samoa, and this is their headquarters and information center. This National Park was rugged and beautiful.

 

Here is the information plaque telling about the big fruit backs. We took this picture on top of the pass in the Park and later that day on the other side of the island just guess what we saw.

 The buses in American Samoa are like the ones in Samoa, but they are made out of small pickup frames not trucks. The last picture with the little bus going down the road has the container pier. As you see all the containers you can see why they have more products here. 

 

We visited  a small  Museum in Pago Pago. The first picture is what Gramma called the “Samoan Arc of the Covenant”.

 The other museum was by the NOAA. It was a nice presentation on the environment of the islands and the ocean (about 80% of it was propaganda on global warming). We enjoy it and there was only us and a mother with two kids.

 

Our motel was much better than the one in Savaii, it was more like a Marriot. 

 Gramma found the first “real” Christmas tree we have seen here. We also found a house with a large Christmas display.

 

We went to the end of the road on both sides of the island, both east and west. On the east side we saw Anu’u island. I sent a story back in February of Orlando Barrus, a relative who has mission president here in 1896, this is the island where he had an “other side of heaven” experience. Their canoe capsized and he almost drowned trying to swim to the shore.

 On the west side there was some beautiful places. Gramma made me take a picture of her store, well, her store if you add an “e”. Notice the food stamp sign. The food stamp program is probably why there are so many more things in stores. Because they have food stamps they can afford them. There is no food stamp program in Samoa.

 

We finally got the pictures from the neighbors nof the baby “rails” that were by the house. By the time I got the camera they were gone so I had the Jacksons seen me their copies.

On Friday we went to the airport two hours early as they had directed us, ready to head home, they ask us if we wanted to go right now. They had space on the outgoing flight, so we hurried through all the checks and were on the plane home to Apia. We saw whales from the low flying plane over the ocean; Gramma will tell you more about that. We got home in time for me to go to work that afternoon, but when I went to our temporary office, everyone had moved. They were back at the school office. It was not completely finished yet and they said we wouldn’t be able to get in our office until Tuesday or Wednesday so I have our computers and files in the car and we hope to move it the next few days. I will have to go to the vocational building to have internet until we can move in. We liked American Samoa, we are glad we were able to visit it and now we have experienced the full Samoan culture. We will have few, if any, more opportunities for travel. Things are getting ready to start here at school and we know how busy it will be in just one more week. We love you all; we finally got to Skype Ben and his family. We hope with school and activities starting again for all of you, that you have the best year in 2015. We pray for all of you each day, do what is right, and remember we love each one of you. Tofa Soifa, Elder and Sister Hammond