Two Tickets To Paradise for Peela & Papa

Well, it’s been two weeks since we have posted anything so this may be a long one. Elder Peterson is great at posting when it’s his week, but I seem to take two weeks to get to it. Oh well, here it is. Better late than never right?

We have had an eventful two weeks. Lets start off with the important stuff. Mark was able to watch “live” mind you from Fiji the Super Bowl here at the Institute. He was pretty excited about that. Technology is so amazing. He didn’t watch long however because you all know, the game wasn’t very exciting.

Fridays are our day off so we went on a little snorkeling excursion to another little island. We had a great time. It was good to get out from town and relax for a while. The water was incredible. When the sun is out it is the most beautiful color I have ever seen. The fish were beautiful and just getting in the water was great.

We brought one of our Balzac balls from home for activity night here at the Institute. I knew the YSA’s would love it. We played until the dark and we will defiantly do it again. We have a pretty good crowed watching us and pointing to us and wondering what this big thing was that we were playing with. It is so fun to introduce these kids to new things they have never seen before.

We had to go to the car wash to get this thing blown up. Oh this carwash isn't quite like the "FireHouse"

We sent our 4^th missionary out last week. This in Penne and he is an incredible young man. After he received his endowments, he made a commitment to himself that he would attend the temple everyday until he left on his mission. HE DID IT. What a spirit he has and what an incredible missionary he will be. It is so bitter sweet to have them go. We love them all so much and we know we will probably never see him again. We MUST come back here in a few years for a wonderful missionary reunion.

This is what Elder Peterson does most of the time here at the center. Not really, but he does play a lot with the kids and they love it. Last week he was on a ping pong janga kick. It was fun.

Before my class last week, this cute girl Sanaila gave Mark and I a gift. She was so excited to give it to us. She had made me a bracelet and necklace and gave Mark a nativity figurine. She smiled all night she was so proud. She is a doll and we love her so much.

We had our first Valentines here in Fiji. They don’t celebrate it quite like we do, but we certainly got spoiled from home. Boxes of cards, pictures, letters, pillow, decorations, and candy made our Valentines Day wonderful. Thank you to all for making it a great day.

I made valentines cookies for the YSA’s. I looked all over Suva for a heart cookie cutter. I wish so badly that I had brought my cookie cutters from home. I finally found a senior sister that had one. I missed decorating the cookies with the grandkids though. I may have cried a little that day because I was homesick. Reality is setting in and I am missing them like crazy. I hope I can make it for 15 more months without hugging them.

My good friend Karen sent a package with boxes of candy hearts. We passed them out to the YSA’s on Valentines Day. They had never seen anything like this before and they loved them. Thanks miss Karen. You ROCK

Last Friday, we tagged along with our neighbors and fellow missionaries and their son and his wife on a river boating, cultural, and waterfall excursion. We had a great and memorable experience. The weather changed on us pretty quickly and we found ourselves in a torrential down pour and lightning storm. We were up a canyon on a trail to see the beautiful waterfall. The rain was so heavy, that big rock and debris was coming down along with the water in a fall we had to cross to get back to the boat. I made it across and then the guide stopped Mark and 3 girls from coming across because it wasn’t safe. They ended up swimming across a raging river to the other side, climbing straight up the mountain and back down to the boats on the begging of the canyon. This doesn’t sound like much, but it was pretty scary. I said many, many prayers I know Heavenly Father was watching over us that day. Several things could have happened, but we got home safely. Our guide broke his toe (they never wear shoes around here) and cut his foot pretty good, but those things can be fixed right? We will do this trip again but we will make sure it’s on a good clear day.

Kava Ceremony and we did not partake. The man on the right in the red shirt is the one that saved us all and broke his toe in the process.

A thorn amongst 4 roses

This was our lunch. It's called Lovo. Yummmm

This waterfall is incredible. Can't wait to go back and see it on a nice sunny day and swim in the pool underneath it.

The weekend was crazy busy. We had a special conference where we had Elder Anderson of the 12 Apostles with us. He was amazing. We had a missionary meeting with all 144 missionaries in the Suva Fiji mission. There were 3 senior couples that came over from other islands to attend the conference. We have a van, so we picked them up from the airport and shuttled them around all weekend. It was so fun to be with them. We were happy for that job. On Friday, we helped Sister Klinger, the Mission Presidents wife, cook lunch and Dinner for them. Went to meeting after meeting being fed spiritually by an Apostle of the Lord was makings for a great weekend. We were grateful for the opportunity of being here with these beautiful and faithful members of the church and see how pleased and proud they are of their FIJI and their membership in this wonderful LDS Church.