July 15

Attended church in Nadi one hour late.  We were told the meetings started at 10, but it seems that last week they changed the meeting time to 9.  Missed RS and Priesthood, but made the young adult sunday school class.  We always have instant friends at church--the young elders and sisters.  We told the YSAs that we were opening the institute and would love to have them come see us anytime there were in Suva.

Slept through Sacrament Meeting.  I don't generally do that and can not tell why I am so tired all the time.  The pieces I heard were good.

Spent the day driving.  First we went to Lautoka, just so we could say we had.  On the way there we passed this cute train and took pictures.  In fact, this train followed us to Lautoka which has a huge sugar factory.

Sugar Cane Train

There were 30 to 40 cars of these
bundles of sugar cane on the train

OK I need a haircut!!!
I am showing how small the train and bundles were.

Lautoka is beyond Nadi and was very depressing.  I just didn't like the feel of it.  Sometime cities do that to me.  For some reason, I never am quite sure why, I feel depressed in them.  Lautoka was that way for me.  On the way there we saw a young man selling fish along the road.  He had his catch of the day hanging from the  branches of a huge tree.  We watched for him on the way back to Nadi so I could take a picture, but he was gone.  Rats.

We got on a back road looking for an Orchid Farm and picked up an Elderly lady that was walking along the dirt road.  She just hopped right in.  When we asked her if she knew about the Church she said she did, but because her English was not good or our ears weren't hearing passed her accent,  we could not understand why she knew about us.  We drove her to a church and let her off.  Nice to be of service.

We visited a Hindu temple that is on the main road into Nadi.  One can not wear shoes inside the temple grounds, and we could not take pictures inside the temple which is what we really wanted to do, because there are so many murals.  In fact, there isn't a flat surface that isn't covers by murals telling what I assume is stories from the Hindu religion.  Lots of statues of elephants, elephants heads with human bodies, etc. inside little worship kiosks.  We watched as a family went through the worship service.  Outside the largest kiosk were two monks reading.  When the family approached with trays of food, one monk stood up and walked into the kiosk with the family.  Only those who are Hindu worshippers are allowed inside the kiosks.  The monk began to chant, rang bells, and did something with the incense that were burning then he left.  The family left part of the food, and came out with ashes on their foreheads.  They continues to worship by facing the opening of the kiosk bowing and then laying prostrate on the ground.  All did it in turn.  We left when they moved onto other kiosks.  Interesting.  I wish I had read the chapter on Hinduism in the Religions of the Worlds book the Church puts out.

Main Entrance to the Nadi Hindu Temple

Details on the Main Entrance

Outside Worship Kiosk

I know this is a long blog.  Sorry.  But we decided at about 4 to leave Nadi and go home to Suva.  We were originally planning to stay until Monday afternoon.  We really wanted to see the Orchid gardens, but felt we needed to return home.  It meant driving on dark road after the sun went down, because their are absolutely no lights on the roads outside of the bigger cities.  It was a wonderful, dangerous drive: lots of loose cows and horses, people walking home along the sides of the roads, big pit holes, and wonderful hilly scenery, and of course, the ocean on our right.  We arrived home about 7:30pm having driven since just before 6 in the dark.

These horses were walking across a bay.
I wasn't fast enough to capture them swimming which they
were doing just before this.

A double rainbow on the way home
from Nadi.
(the other rainbow is on the right of the bright one)