Two Tickets To Paradise for Peela & Papa: March 2015

March 4, 2015

Again, I have neglected our blog for the past few months so now I have a lot of catching up to do.

We are back in the swing of things again and the semester is almost half over already. I know I say this a lot, but where in the world is the time going?

One of our favorites things about the mission has been the wonderful people we have met. Our YSA’s have great families, and we have gotten to know some of them. The Prasad Family is one of our favorites.

On Feb. 7^th,Brother Prasad celebrated his 49^th birthday and invited us to join them for dinner. We happily accepted because we love him, and also because he is a great cook. He makes wonderful curry and roti. The fun tradition here in Fiji with the Hindi’s is that they eat the cake first and then have the dinner. LOVE THAT TRADITION.

Sister Prasad brought out cake, cookies, chips, crackers, and more. We ate way too much as usual. He kept saying, “Save room for the dinner”. Ok, so we did. We had curry, rice, chutney, dahl soup, roti, and other things that I can’t remember. What was fun about this meal is that we ate it with our fingers. Here in Fiji, the locals don’t eat with utensils so I ate like the locals. Pretty messy, but fun. Think however that I will stick with the utensils.

Deserets before dinner. Love it

They put on quite the spread for us. We love the Prasad's

Sister Peterson eating like our Indian friends

February 9^th, the Sisters planned a Sister’s P-day excursion. We hiked up to Cole Suva to the waterfalls. Several of the Sisters were sick that day so only about half of them made it. We had a great day however. President and Sister Layton came along with us and spoke to us. They are wonderful in everyway and our Elders and Sisters love them, as do we. We had lunch, testimony meeting and then some quiet time to reflect on our day, and the beauty of Heavenly Father’s creations. We read our scriptures and wrote in our journals. It was a lovely day.

Sister Wells, Sister Layton, President Layton, Me, Sister Knight.

February 14^th, Valentines Day, the senior couples decided to head to Pacific Harbor for a fun day in the Sun. It is so nice to get away from the city for a day, and just enjoy the beautiful beach and the sun. We all brought our own lunches and goodies to share and had a fabulous day. We so love these great friends we have made here in Fiji.

Newest senior couple Elder and Sister Knight

Elder and Sister Collins

On the way home we had a flat tire AGAIN!!!!!! This is the 4^th flat tire we have had since we have been here. This time is was much easier for Elder Peterson and Elder Knight to change because we have this cute little car instead of the huge van. All worked out and we made it home safe and sound.

That night, we had a karaoke night here at the Institute. These Fijian YSA’s love to sing and to perform. We had great fun and couldn’t get them out of here AGAIN…..

Elder and Sister Tanner from Florida came over to visit us. They are CES missionaries serving in Nadi. They are a wonderful couple and have so much enthusiasm. They will be a great addition to the Senior Couples and a great blessing to the YSA’s in Nadi.

Mela doing her thing!

Mr. Gabby singing his heart out

Suka and Siniloli did a great duet.

Oh they love to perform

This is Elder and Sister Tanner. They are CES missionaries over in Nadi. They will be so amazing. We love them already.

American food items are hard to find here in Fiji so if you see something that you want or need, always buy it NOW. We couldn’t find Best Foods Mayo so Elder Peterson had Heather bring some over with here in August. We were shopping at Cost-U-Less and guess what we found… Tons of Mayo. We stocked up and now have enough to last us till we go home. Notice the price. That is per bottle. And they call this place Cost-U-Less. The locals call it Cost-U-More….

Alavina our friend from Nakavika is back here in Lami staying with her family while she is trying to get stronger. We went back up to the village to pick up. She was very weak and had lost so much weight. She could barley get into the car. Anyway, she was in the hospital for several days where they gave her fluids and blood. She was doing better, so I took her to Lami to be with Mosese’s family.

After a week or so, she got very sick again, so back to the hospital we went. She is now resting in Lami. On Feb. 22, we got a call from Mosese saying that she was in a very bad mental state. She was ready to die. She was tired of the pain and the laying around. He asked us if we could come see her. While we were there, I asked her if she wanted us to take her up to the village to see her kids. I was thinking that this might be the last time that she would see them. She cried and said that she didn’t want her kids to see her like that. She is bone thin and still so weak.

We told her to think about it and we could take her up on Sunday after church. She said she would let us know on Sunday. Well, the weather was to bad to take her up on Sunday. It was raining to hard up in the highlands and it is very dangerous to drive in those conditions. BUT, she wanted us to take her to a Healer-Pastor guy in Navua. We looked at each other and said, “What the heck and got in our car and headed to pick her up.

Moses and Blou went with us to the Healer’s. We drove to a beautiful plantation in Navua. As we pulled up, the Pastor and his family were just leaving their little church, which was on their property. It was a cute little church with a purple satin chair in it. We are guessing it is for the Pastor.

They all wanted us to come in, but we thought it would be best if we just stayed out in the car and waited. They instituted after a while, so we went in. The Healer was rubbing some oils on her back and feeding her some kind of herbs. She was obviously very happy to be here but very week and tired. The drive had truly worn her out. After they were done we headed home. As we were driving, a song came on the radio, “have I done any good in the world today, Have I helped anyone in need? Have the sick and the weary, been helped on their way, if they needed my help was I there?” We both looked at each other and it felt good to know that we had made the right decision to help her today. We must follow the spirit everyday. We never know how it will help someone who is in need.

Our trip to Navua. Alavina, Mosese, Blou and Sister Peterson with the bad hair cut.

Cute church of the Healer-Pastor

Think we wore Alavina out. Her first long trip in a very long time.

Our institute classes have been really well attended this semester. I have had between 25-29 in class every week. What surprises me however, is that the majority of them are boys, and it is an Eternal Marriage Class. I guess the reason is, it’s called “Lunch and Learn” which means there is lunch after the class. That explains why so many of them are boys. Oh well, hopefully they will be spiritually fed as well as physically fed.

We had a fun lesson on Staying Sexually Pure and Putting on the Whole Armor of God. I had them create a Warrior and dress him in the armor. Each group studies their armor and explained it to the class as they placed it on our warrior. It was great fun and I think made the point

James modeling his large stature for our Warrior

Chelsey and Penia working on our Warrior

Eperama, Epeli, Mark and Mat working on the Helmet for our Warrior

Vili and his group working on the sword of Truth

Peter and Bradly teaching about their Armor.

Driving to the institute the other day, I say these two cute girls playing on the sidewalk. They were so cute so I had to stop and take a picture. The little kids here in Fiji are so adorable and so happy. Life is good in Fiji. I gave them a lollie for letting me take their picture. Makes me miss all our little ones at home.

It's time to send another Senior missionary couple home. When one of the couples leave, we always have a nice dinner together to say goodbye. We love the Collins so much and we will miss them terribly. They will be heading to Idaho to house sit for their daughter for the next 6 months. This is their 3rd mission and they are planning on going out again if their health holds up. Amazing couple. Now that they are gone, Elder Peterson are the senior, senior couple. We have been out the longest. This is hard for me to believe. Where has the time gone?

Elder and Sister Collins

There are 2 birthdays that are celebrated in a big way here in Fiji. The 1st and the 21st and boy do they celebrate. Last Saturday night was Namani's 21st birthday and it was no exception. The family put on quite the party. It was held at the church where there was tons of food, dancing, singing, honoring, and lots of fun going on. This is one amazing young man and he will be leaving on a mission to Australia the end of May. Great fun we all had.

Every Fast Sunday, we have a FHE for the YSA's in the 3 stakes that feed into our institute. Over the past 15 months, we have had pretty good attendance at these FHEs. The YSA's love to come together on Sunday evenings to be with their friends and be spiritually fed. Last Sunday was no exception. We arranged to have the FHE at our Mission President's home where he and Sister Layton spoke to us. They did a great job. They introduced themselves, told how they met (YSA's always love to hear those stories), how they were called to be Mission President, and then talked about Eternal Marriage. After their presentation, we had a closing song. The Spirit was very strong there and I asked them if they wanted to sit around a just sing some hymns for a little while. They were so excited to do this. They have the most amazing voices and love to harmonize. I think they could have stayed all night there. We had a record 125 YSA's come to this FHE evening. Oh the strength of these young faithful YSA's. We love them more than can be expressed. Look at their beautiful, happy faces.