The first of the good-bye’s…….

Samoans love sports. Across the street from or apartment they play volleyball when they can stretching a net in-between the two duplexes and using the buildings as the boundaries. On the other side of the duplex on the right there is usually a game of rugby going on.

We had a senior couple family home evening on Monday and they wanted a group picture. They have one of the security guards come in, stand on a chair, and take multiple pictures. I felt sorry for him because everyone had suggestion on how he should be doing it. The second picture is Gramma visiting with one of the new dentists, Elder Orchard from Idaho Falls (he was a dentist in Bountiful).

While waiting down town for Gramma to do some shopping I found these shirts for sale. One shirt is from Taylorview Jr. High wrestling and the other one for Idaho Falls City volleyball.

Gramma was asked to teach a short yoga class in the Pesega Lima English ward relief society enrichment night. She got pictures of the knitting, but not the yoga.

Gramma saw another beautiful sun rise the other morning and then her first student didn’t make it she went back to take a picture of it. It was not as pretty as it was the first time she saw it.

There are two more of Gramma’s early morning piano students, Keith and Josephine.

Here is Sister Jahnke and her daughter Feta. Sister Jahnke is one of the teachers at the high school and takes piano lessons from Gramma. They came up to our office to visit us. 

After school we took a walk along the Apia harbor flood wall. Here is a picture of the Apia protestant church. The boat is one that just arrived from Tonga. It has sailed to many islands and started its journey in New Zealand. The “Paddles” restaurant is one of the first restaurant’s that we went to eat when we got to Samoa. It is supposed to be one of the better ones. It is the first food we got sick from. We have not been back and Gramma wanted a picture to remember. 

We were invited to got to breakfast with the Hellisoe family. The Elder and Sister Jackson went with us. This is one of the first formal good-bye, there are several more scheduled, I hope I can survive them, I would rather just shake hands and leave, but luckily Gramma is more social.

We still have grades to turn in for a counseling practicum and three Sisters to recommend for their counseling certificate. The files are almost up to date, but we have decided that there will not be much free time between now and when we get on a plane a week from Tuesday. Monday is our last delivery of water and mail to the missionaries, we will miss that. Wednesday and Thursday we teach our last professional development classes. Today, (Sunday) we are speaking in our ward. We indeed have been very busy for the past 18 months, but it has been a great experience to serve the Lord and the people of Samoa. May God bless all of you; we love you and miss you.  Tofa Soifua Grampa and Gramma Hammond 

Samoan Independence Day…….

This week was the independence celebration for Samoa. Our Stake choir was asked to sing at a special Sunday evening service at the large Catholic Church down on the wharf. Our choir and one from the Methodist church both sang at the program. The song Gramma had practiced and accompanied with the choir for weeks and four days straight during the week was not performed; I think she has shared that story with you. Here are some pictures of the service, before singing, during singing, and after. The last photo shows Gramma’s surprise (not really) in not singing the other song!

The next pictures are of Nozzy, Gramma, Daisy, and the high councelor over the music, Daisy and Gramma, and Daisy, Gramma, and Brianna. Brianna is Daisy’s daughter, she is waiting for a mission call.

The next picture is of the Gillette’s, the new couple from Gooding, Idaho. We had them over for dinner on Monday night. The next night was Elder Gillette’s birthday so a group of the senior couple went out to eat to celebrate. I got a great picture of the moon (well, great for my camera), before we went into the restaurant.

We finished two more classes this week and on Friday were took Elder and Sister Wilkins on a short tour of the island. We took them to see a couple of areas they needed to see because they are doing some legal work for the Church involving those areas. There serve in the Pacific Area Office and are both retired judges. The first chapel we stopped to show them had a surprise inside. The first chapel we have seen in Samoa with a real piano. Gramma played it and it was very apparent why there is no real pianos in Samoa. It was terribly out of tune (the heat and humidity makes it hard to keep them in tune).   

They also needed to go to see the ranch at Sauniatu, so up the bumpy road we went for the second day in a row. Of course we had to show them the water falls there. We drove farther up the road than we have ever been before and saw this tree that Gramma wanted a picture of. 

The Wilkins had never been to Samoa so they had us stop quite often and take some pictures. This boy on a horse was so interesting I took a picture, even the horse posed for the picture.

We stopped at beautiful Lalomanu beach on the far east end of the island and had lunch.

We got back to Apia in time for Gramma to take Sister Wilkin’s to two of her favorite shopping places, Pacific Jewel and the Plantation House. Sister Wilkins bought several things and seemed to enjoy shopping. Elder Wilkins and I watched. Later that night they wanted to take us out to dinner again, so we went to one of the nicer places in Apia. It was a nice day; they were very easy to visit with and had very interesting backgrounds. Thus, another week has passed, time really is moving quickly. We have to speak in church next Sunday, it is our last day attending the Motootua Ward, because the next Sunday is stake conference. We love and miss you and are looking forward to being home in a little more than a couple of weeks. Be good, be kind to others, and have a good safe start to summer. May God bless you, Tofa Souifua, Grampa and Gramma Hammond.

Another week flies by and shakes at the end……..

Gramma had a birthday Tuesday and we were so busy wrapping up tests, assignments, and finals that it was late before we went out for a birthday dinner. She was craving a salad so off to one of the senior couple’s popular restaurants. 

The Final for EDU 300 was on Tuesday at Pesega and Thursday for Sauniatu. We had one student absent at each school so it has delayed turning in grades for those classes. 

The rope came off the flag pole at Sauniatu so I caught this little guy climbing to the top to reconnect the rope. It must be about 30 feet in the air. I guess about the same as climbing a large palm tree to get coconuts.

We use to have a seven passenger van, now we have a seven passenger Tucson. We take many of the teachers at Sauniatu home after class. We had one in the trunk (Pati, he is a teacher and the Bishop of the Falefa ward). Three in the back seat, and they are rather large ladies, and three in the front. Gramma set on a small pillow on the gear shift. The first lady out was next to Gramma and it is a good thing, sitting like that is not good for a senior sister’s body. 

There were three long stake choir practices this week getting ready to sing Sunday night at the big Catholic Church in Apia. Gramma and Daisy are accompanying the choir and went down to the church to check out the piano (keyboard) situation.

They had the national spelling bee finals at Pesega. TV Three was there and it was pretty exciting. We never did hear who won, but Pesega was doing very good when we left.

We met the Gillette’s (the new TVET couple from Gooding) this week and took them to get their drivers licenses. We then showed them the school and introduced them to the principal. We know a lot of the same people back in Idaho that they do, it is a small world. They are enthused and ready to go to work. The only problem is this is Samoa and they have a holiday Monday and Tuesday so you can’t get to excited yet. We have a lot of paper work to do, so we will have some things to do during the holiday, but we hope to get some time off and get caught up on our rest. We have been a little under the weather and the rest will do us good. We were jolted this morning with an earthquake. It shook the bed and woke us up. They have had several while we have been here, but it seemed to be the strongest. We love you and miss you. It is hard to believe that after today we only have three more Sundays in Samoa. Be good and do as you know you should. God bless you, Gramma and Grampa Hammond