Dec.23 / 2018

Dec.23/2018

Talofa family and friends,

Elder Cameron and I have been busy with visits to Sisters of our Lady of Nazareth, Little Sisters of the Poor, a couple Diabetes classes and Graduations and a handover. There are Christmas parties and celebrations everywhere and the Spirit of Christmas is all around.

It has been a couple weeks since my last blog, which my wonderful son reminded me of the other day. So there may be some things that Elder Cameron had mentioned in his email the last couple weeks so I hope you don’t mind some repetition.

I hear that it might be a brown Christmas back home, which definitely has some pros and cons but most importantly will be getting together with family and friends and to remember “The Reason for the Season.”

Elder Cameron and I were able to supply some materials for renovations for the living area for some sisters here and had a Handover ceremony a couple weeks ago. The humility and love of these sisters was a great example to me of Christ like Service. It was a wonderful experience. We are so fortunate to meet so many great people. We also visited with another group of sisters that we have come to love, Little Sisters of the Poor, we took out some supplies to them and it is always a treat to visit with Sister Christina. She is amazing!

We have travelled the Island the past week checking on tanks and families and been able to hand out several baby kits and hygiene kits to families in need. They are always so thankful and it's nice to know that we can help in a small way to maybe ease their burdens just a little. 

The Eat Healthy and Be Active program is coming to a close, most classes have graduated with one left until January. We flew over to Pago last week to attend a grad, it was really good and a lot of fun to hear many of the success stories and testimonies of those that went through the program and how it has changed their lives.

While in Pago we were able to make some final arrangements for 6 water tanks to be installed at 3 different schools that are used for emergency stations in cause of a disaster and with the tanks they will be able to handle more people for a longer period of time.

We were blessed to be able to attend a temple wedding on Saturday of a young man Posenai and his bride Lagimalofie. Elder Cameron and I work with Posenai who is the manager of wheelchairs and prosthetics here in Samoa.

I have a few family photos to share, the kids had an ugly sweater party, and it looked like fun! Nate is a star, great form and he is growing like crazy! The Neilson’s are really in the Christmas spirit and as always another adorable picture! Mandy and Andrew will be celebrating their anniversary this week, I’m sure it will be fun whatever they decide to do.

Christmas is a busy time of year and sometimes a little overwhelming. Take time to nurture and feed your spirit this season. I read a quote the other day and thought how true it is.

“When our spirits are elevated, we are actually closer to the Savior, our perspective is broader, our hearts are warmer, our minds are clearer, we are more relaxed and we experience greater joy, hope and peace.”

We feel very fortunate to be here at this time in our lives and to be able to help move this wonderful work forward and to be instrumental in helping and serving others has been a great blessing in our lives. To serve as the Savior did and to set an example of love and compassion that we hope will one day bring others unto Christ has helped to strengthen our testimony and hopefully those we come in contact with. May you all be blessed this Christmas season with Health, happiness and a stronger testimony of the great love our Savior has for each one of us. 

Love you all,

Sister Cameron

Here are a few extra photos that I just had to add!

Christmas Angels

Light the world in Samoa

Dec.1/2018

December1/2018

School is now officially over for about 2 months here in Samoa and while they are all winding down we find ourselves busier than ever with handovers and trying to get many things cleared up before year end.

I’m going to start with Happy Birthdays, oldest to youngest. Happy Birthday Millie, always looking great, Jordan another year older and another year wiser and to our wonderful youngest grandchild, Rae Anna, Sweet and Sassy!

2 Years Old

He's the Man!

Looking Good

Congrats to Nate on receiving his Eagle Scout award, well done on your project and it was great to be there and to help in a small way with the restoring of part of the bike trail. It was a great project and what a great job you did!

So proud of you!

We have had several handovers this past week. Elder Cameron is like a whirl wind right now, he was able to organize our last handover of wheelchairs in around 18 hours (but who’s counting), that’s including getting the MOH (Minister Of Health) to attend.

We also had a handover of 21 water tanks to the Kingdomized church. I think I have talked about Sia before, she was our champion with this project and a special young woman. There was an article in the paper of one of the families that received one of the tanks and I’ve included below.

Sia, Our Champion

Water Tank Handover

We were in Pago recently, I don’t think I will ever get used to flying in those little planes. We attended a couple projects over there, A farm demonstration of keyhole gardens and 2 Eat Healthy and Be active classes. We will be heading back over mid-December to wrap up the Eat Healthy program and give out certificates.

We had a fun evening the other night with Pastor Lenny from 1 Touch Ministries and the boot camp crew that Scott is involved in. He goes to a 10 week workout from Monday to Friday, loves it and has made some great friends. They had a get together to celebrate the successes of participants and a wind-up of prizes and of course food. The next session for boot camp is the end of Jan., so sign me up, Scott and I will be doing it together.  1-Touch believes in taking care of yourselves Spiritually, Physically and Mentally. LDS Charities helps out with donations for this worthwhile program.

One of the donations

Pastor Lenny and Wife Tai

I can’t believe December is here, when you don’t have seasons and no snow it’s hard to think about Christmas or getting into the Christmas Spirit. Maybe that is a good thing! I’ll let you know the closer we get to the 25^th how that’s working for me.

We love you all and are grateful for each one of you and what you bring to our family. We could not be doing this without all of your love and support and of course the unconditional blessings of our Savior. I’m truly thankful for how we have been blessed with good health and safety while serving in Samoa. I was having some feet and leg problems just before I came out, it was difficult at times to walk and quite painful and I wondered how I was going to be able to do here in Samoa. Since being here I’ve had no problems as a matter of fact I’ve been able to take up running on a regular basis. Miracles do happen and our Father in Heaven does take care of us.

This Christmas Season let’s all try to minister as the Savior would!

Love to all and Remember Be Kind and Be Happy!

Nov. 11/2018

Nov.11/2018

It has been awhile!

Scott and I have been busy delivering school furniture, water tanks, we had a handover for a community fale and lots of planning for the busy week to come.

We had a few great experiences this past week and times when we followed the promptings and were able to help some people in need.

 One of those times was when Scott had been trying for about 3 months to reach a Sister who was left alone with 5 children from ages 18-7, we couldn’t reach her so we kind of gave up hope. Scott had this feeling to try her again a couple weeks ago and was able to finally talk to her. She had moved back to her parents and was living in this very small fale with no water or power. She came in and spoke with us, we decided to take her home and see where she was living and if possible to provide her with a tank. It just about broke our hearts to see what she was living in. We had a tank delivered the beginning of the week. The ward she is in is hopefully going to do a service project there, LDS Charities will provide the materials for some help with her roof and her church family will provide the manual labor. I mentioned to Scott that we do some large projects that effect hundreds of people and some large villages but what touches my heart the most has been the small individual families that we help. To me that is what ministering is all about. Searching out that one person or family that is need.

Imele and daughter

We had the opportunity to finally take some school desks, chairs and a couple teacher desks over to Sili Primary School and another school at Saleaula PS. WE have been waiting since we first came on our mission  and saw the great need for desks at these schools. It is very expensive to try and get school furniture over to the Island of Savai’i so they don’t have the opportunity to receive as much as Upolu. The teachers, students and parents were so excited to see the big container arrive and threw quite a party. After celebrating at Sili we loaded up a truck and headed for the other school and made a drop off there where they served us fresh pineapple, the kids sang, Scott spoke again ( he is getting so good at speaking at all these events). We then took off to catch the ferry home. All in a day’s work!

Old desks at Sili

We also had a handover ceremony at Tafatafa this week. A community Fale, once again LDS Charities supplied the materials and the village supplied the labor. They were great to work with and the handover was so much fun. I cut the ribbon, their Pastor and the LDS Bishop in that area all spoke and Scott gave his words of wisdom which were great. We then ate, danced, laughed and danced some more. It was really enjoyable. I think some of the women took a shine to Scott, a custom is to come over and bow which means they want to dance, it was only a couple women at first then the dancing really started and a couple younger ones with some great moves started dancing with or to him. It was so funny.

Elder Cameron showing his moves!

 We picked up a couple from Utah this week that will be doing some training with the Wheelchair project that the church has here. A container of over 300 chairs arrived last week, which is great because there is a large waiting list here with many amputees on it caused by diabetes; the need is great for chairs, we work with the hospital and chairs are given to anyone in need but the list is longer than we have chairs for.

There is a great video on the Church Website, Scott put it on his email. As we watched it the other day, it helped reinforce the importance of ministering, not just within the church but everywhere. To some this comes easy, I think of many I know and admire like Uncle Don Leavitt that love unconditionally and would do anything for someone in need. I think that is a wonderful gift and one I am continually trying to improve on. I do think that when we leave this life we may be accountable for what we did and who we ministered to and how we treated others. I think if we can slow down just a little and take the time to look around we will see many ways to offer help to others. Whether it’s a smile, a hug or something bigger it doesn’t matter, what matters is that you care.

I was excited and envious that Esther’s parents Wes and Dian are now home from their mission in Toronto enjoying the grandkids and a couple from our ward in Olds, Rosanne and Lavar Adams are heading to Toronto on a 6 month mission. They will love it and will be amazing. I think it is pretty remarkable that senior missionary couples can now serve for 6, 9, 12, 18 or even 23 months if they choose. It is an incredible experience to feel a part of moving this great work forward.

My sister Sande and Mark has finally sold their house in Florida and bought one in St. George Utah, so now a bit closer to home and to mom and dad. I sure loved all the Halloween pictures but Nate’s was the funniest. Scott and I were in American Samoa last week and turned the TV on and there was Dwight from the Office, too funny, Nate you were the perfect Dwight right down to the brief case and glasses.

The fruit and vegetables are plentiful right now and so colourful.  Mangos, pineapple. Bananas, vegetables are yummy and are on every corner. We need to enjoy them as the season is short and we will not be here for the next mango and pineapple season. And there is nothing like a fresh mango just off the tree.

I can’t believe how quickly time is flying by and how much there is to do. It was a busy but wonderful week and the next few weeks will be just as busy and then things will start to slow down as kids finish school and families go away for Christmas and often till the end of Jan. We have many projects we will be able to wrap up here in the next few months and some more we will open. It is a great feeling to see a project through from start to finish and see how it can bless so many lives.  While things do slowdown that is a good thing for us to get caught up and finish some of the paper work and other things that get pushed aside till we have time.

Life is great and we have so much to be thankful for and I’m thankful for each one of you. Have a good week and remember to look around and see who you can help today!

Remember, Be Kind and Be Happy!

Love,

Pam