Spaghetti Dinner and trip to Village of Navala

                      August 3, 2014

Another great week we have had.  Can’t believe they go by so fast.

Our car was an incredible mess so after Mission Prep, 5 of the YSA’s washed our van to get us ready for our trip to Nadi.  Are they not the best?

Cleanest car in Fiji

Thursday night, we had a endowed YSA temple session.  This is one of our favorite things to do.  We had around 24 attend and after the session we went back to the Institute where Elder Peterson had prepared his famous spaghetti dinner.  We made a huge salad and garlic bread and cookies and guess what.  There were no leftovers.  Surprise, surprise!!!!!

 

Elder Peterson's spaghetti dinner was a huge success

When you forget the hot pads, you use the next best thing,

Ever since we have been here our wonderful friends and co-missionaries the Jackson's, have talked about going to a village called Navala.  Sista Jackson came across a postcard, which had a picture of this beautiful village that is high up in the mountains, and most of the houses are the old bure style houses.  She has wanted to visit there ever since she saw the post card.

This was the weekend and they invited us to go with them.  We left on Friday afternoon and headed for Nadi.  That evening we had dinner at The Hard Rock Café, and it was so nice to have good American food again. 

We were supposed to meet our guide there for dinner and he was going to tell us all that would happen on

Saturday.  Unfortunately he came down with a serious case of “Fiji Time”, and never came.  And the next morning we were stood up as well. So when things like that happen you just take things into your own hands and go yourself.  And that is exactly what we did.  We had an amazing ride up through all the sugar cane fields and even stopped to visit with some men cutting cane.  They chopped us each a long stick of it so that we could taste it for ourselves.  We enjoyed that along with the pineapple we watch an old man cut at the market in Ba that was amazing.

They cut every bit of the sugar cane down with their cane knives.  No sugar cane harvesters here. Very hard work indeed.

Very yummy sugar cane fresh from the field.

As we came to the top of a hill and there it was –the Navala Village that Sister Jackson has wanted to see for 15 months.  She was so excited and it was so cool! 

 We drove down after taking pictures and as we hit the bridge over the river just before the entrance to the village the kids came running to greet us. They are conditioned and know that when palagis (white people) come to visit, they always bring lollies.  We did not disappoint them. We paid our entrance fees, hired a nice woman to be our guide and emptied our candy bags and off we went for a tour.

Our guide for the day

Our guide told us it takes 3 months to gather the materials to build a bure, and that they are trying to keep their village all bures if possible.  The kids trailed along after us like we were the Pied Pipers until our bags of candy were empty then lost interest in us.

As we walked around the village there was one bure that had just been finished and they invited us in to see the inside.  There was a large group of men all sitting round the Kava bowl.  We asked them if they cut cane and were told a very emphatic “no”.

We visited their school, and then the village church, which is a Catholic church.  It was all very nice, very clean and very neat.  The children sang to us when we arrived at the gate, and at the church there were just two girls who had came with us.  They sang to us again, and then we sang, “I am a Child of God” to them.

Elder Jackson getting his "teacher" on

sitting at the girls desks

outside the church

the girls singing to us

 Elder Peterson and these two girls really hit it off. They followed him around the whole time we were there.  Even after the candy was gone.

 Elder Peterson getting in a little weight lifting  

Weaving a new mat for her home (bure)

On the way out of the village, we noticed a woman near the bridge we were crossing sitting near the water.   We thought she was doing her laundry as many were along the banks of the river.   But – as we drove by, I could help but stop to take notice of what she was doing.   She was washing something, but it wasn’t laundry.  It was a big pile of wild pig entrails – and I do mean the whole thing.   She was preparing it for the nights dinner.    Yummy! 

 

 This cute man cut these pineapple popsicle and boy were they delicious 

Then back into the van and back over those steep, rutty roads, back to Ba.  It was great fun.  We just lazed the afternoon away, and had dinner at the Hard Rock again.  They had live music both nights and we caught a bit of the dancing show they have on Saturday nights as well.

Sunday we headed home.  On the way we stopped to check out the Intercontinental Resort.  Wow, just the opposite end of the world from the village.  It is gorgeous, and is located on a beautiful beach called Natadola.  Right next to it is the Natadola Bay Championship golf course.  Beginning on August 14th they are having the Fiji International golf tournament there.  Like I said, another world.  Beautiful course and they were getting all seating and scoreboards, etc. set up.  It’s right on the ocean and looks to be a tough course.

We had a great YSA Family Home Evening held at the temple grounds.  It was a chilly night but the wind died down and it ended up being perfect.  We had Brother Watling who is the 1^st counselor to the temple President speak to the YSA’s.  He was amazing and had their 100% attention.  He talked about “Defining Moments” and I know it made a huge impression on them.  Amazing man.  The YSA’s sat around and sang church hymns for a while after the talk and then Sister Watling brought out some English scones that she had made.  What a treat.  It was a wonderful evening.

After the meeting, they just stayed around to sing songs.  Singing brings such a sweet spirit.

There you go, another week in the life of Elder and Sister Peterson.  We can't believe we are in August already. Where has the time gone?  We love the gospel of Jesus Christ and we love the YSA's of Fiji.  

Moce for another weak-ish.