August 29

Taught Preparing for Eternal Marriage class tonight.  Two of the classes stalwart members are leaving on Friday for BYU-Hawaii.  We will miss them.  Fiji will miss them.  Neither Joni (chony =johnny) Isaki nor Asanathe Vuikadavu (voo ee kan da voo) will ever come back to live in Fiji.  It is such a tragic loss for the church and for Fiji as a whole.

August 28

Tonight was to be our pre meeting for the music classes.  We actually sent texts to all 30 young adults who said they either wanted to learn to lead music or play the piano.  Of course, most wanted the piano lessons, but it is best if they start with the conducting lessons with they have never had them.  I had made treats for 35 people.  We opened the institute at 5 p.m. in case anyone came early.  At 5:30 no one had come.  At 5:36 (who says I was watching the clock!) one young woman showed up.  I ask if she would mind if we waited for 15 minutes to start; she didn't.  At 5:51 she was still the only one there.   I explained about the conducting class; she had already taken it.  I had her sign up for the piano class and got a time on Tuesdays that would be best for her.  Scott and I were just about finished putting the room back to classroom mode when one other young man showed up.  As I was talking to him another young man showed up and then a young woman showed up.  All over 1/2 hour late.  All of them wanted piano, so I gave them the little test I had devised to see if they really knew how to conduct music.  They did.  I will start piano with four students next week at 6 p.m.

Shortly after we got home Sister Maiwiriwiri, the YSA adviser in one of the Tamavua wards called to see how many of her YSAs showed up.  None.  She was ticked.  "I will call each of them and see what happened and get back to you."  By nine o'clock she was back.  "You will have 13 at your conducting class on Tuesday afternoon."  Wow!  I was impressed.  Is it here that I tell you that she is the vice principal at the LDS College?  No wonder she is so forceful.

August 27

We had our monthly senior couples' FHE tonight at the home of President and Sister Davis.  They are the temple president and matron.  There home is lovely.  When the church builds it is always lovely.  We look forward to these monthly get-togethers as it gives us a chance to learn what the other seniors are doing.  Our speaker was a Bro. McGoon who spoke about the church here in Fiji.  He looks like he is about 45, but after listening to him it is obvious that he is way older.  His experience in the church represents, I would guess, the experience of many of the first members here.  The church is much newer here that it is in Samoa or Tonga.  Most of the people we meet are first generation, although many of our young adults are second generation.  I have met no one who is third.

The first Fijians who were members (a family I believe) were converted in Tonga in the early 1920s.   Fiji was officially made part of the New Zealand mission in 1953 although no missionaries were ever sent here.  In 1954 Fiji was reassigned to the Samoan mission and several months later two missionaries were sent to Fiji from the Samoan mission.  At that time the church was only allowed two visas at a time for Fiji. It must have been tough then because people in Fiji spoke Fijian, Hindi, and village dialects.  In 1958 Fiji was again reassigned to the Tongan mission and more missionaries were able to serve here.  It was not until 1971 that the Fiji Suva Mission was created.  President and Sister Davis served as mission president's here in the 70s.  I believe that President Davis was the second Fiji Suva Mission President.  It wasn't until 1980 that the Book of Mormon was translated into Fijian.  Just under 2% of the population here is LDS.

Speaking of translation.  Our office in the Service Center is just two doors away from the translation department.  I ask Pres. Seru who works there what he was working on the other day and he said, "General Conference Talks."  Wow.  It is August and he is translating some General Authorities talk already.  I was unaware that they were written so far in advance.  I will ask him how early they are sent to be translated.

August 26

We are again visiting YSA Sunday School classes hoping to get students for the chorister classes and the piano classes.  Just like at home, some wards have very active YSA advisers and some do not even have any advisers.  Either way we always enjoy meeting the young adults.  There is real strength here is Fiji.

August 25

For our lunch today with those of us who use Saturday as our P-day, we went to eat at a restaurant out of the city past Tamavua.  It is actually on the road to Nausori where the airport for Suva is.  The restaurant was chosen because it is close to a Fiji forest area that has a lovely hike to two waterfalls.  We started late as we were waiting for the temple couples who do not finish at the temple until 1 p.m.

It took forever for our food to come, so by the time we got to the forest service office, the forest service had closed the trail.  It was just about 3 p.m.  "Come early" next week was the reply to when does the trail close.  What had really happened is that the two forest service workers, who are "guards" at the waterfalls, had decided sometime earlier that they were done for the day, so they just arbitrarily walk up to the trail head and closed the gate.  The sign of the office clearly stated that the trail stayed open until 5 p.m.  Some of us were glad, and some were sad.  I needed the walk and the calming influence of nature.  

August 21

Our care package came from Utah on Thursday of last week.  We had to wait till Friday to pick it up as one can only pick up overseas packages from 11 to 2.  It was a different experience.  After we showed our ID we waited for the packages to be brought up front.  When they came, I had to open them up.  I started to take what was inside out, but I must not have been doing it fast enough as the postal employee began to help me.  We took out the clothes, uno cards, more clothes, metamucil before he got bored.  I then opened the other package which was filled with the same stuff all of which was listed on the manifest.  After two skirts came out, he just waved me away and began to close up the last box while I stuffed our stuff back into the other box.  We were charged $3F per box for the inspection.  Not bad, and the packages got here in exactly two week.  They were hammered, but intact.

The postal employee might have thought it was boring, but I was so excited I could hardly stand myself.  I rushed home and hung up each item of apparel the girls had sent me.  Admiring as I went.  I didn't try any on; I just wanted to look at the new possibilities.  I am not sure why I am so uptight about not having enough clothes.  At home, I wear the same three or four outfits over and over and yet here it is really bugging me that I do not have more choices.  Buying here is tough.  So many of the senior sisters have had clothes they bought here fall apart, shrink, bleed, etc.  So I just admired my new clothes hanging all over the room for a day or two.  One blouse in particular amazed me.  I have a cute skirt that only has two blouses that match it.  I love wearing it, so I had asked the girls to buy me a blouse to match.  "Could they find me a maroony/red blouse?"  As soon as I found the blouse, I ran to get the skirt.  It was an exact match. One would think I had purchased them together.  Looking at it, I realized that it was raspberry colored; however, maroony/red worked beautifully.  I have wonderful daughters.

On Monday I tried everything on.  Everything fit although none of the skirts are the same size.  I wore the first outfit today, and got lots of compliments.   It was a great day.

August 20

This week is Fiji Youth Conference week.  The schools in Fiji are on a two week break, so all the LDS youth (14-18) are coming to Suva.  It starts Wednesday afternoon, but the kids from Taveuni are already here (Monday), because the boat comes only once a week and goes back once a week.  They are staying in the LDS Primary School classrooms.  Scott met the District President and after telling him about our calling the President asked if we could show a movie to his kids in the institute to keep them busy.  He actually wondered if we could just show movies continually today.  It is not a good idea to open the Institute and not be there, so we declined.  We did, however, offer to show a movie at 6 pm.  So tonight we showed over 40 kids and the leaders that came a movie.  To get everyone in our classroom, we had to move the long tables back to our desks and put them on top of each other.  We still had kids sitting on top of the upside down table.  It was a good experience as it showed us that the room is not big enough to show movies in with our desks there.  We are going to ask the Facilities Management team to take them back.  We will have to wait until the stake moves out of our space to move our office there.  Sad, but worth it.

Not sure the kids got the movie, but they were respectful and appreciative.

Because the universities are also out, we have YSAs coming everyday to the institute to play volleyball.
I am amazed that they played practically all day today.