"Make the commitment to give two years of your life to the Lord. It will change everything. You will be happy... You will come to love the culture and the people you are called to serve. The work will be difficult, but there will also be great satisfaction and joy as you serve." -David F. Evans
Cool bird. I think it is a Kingfisher. But I am sure it is a blue and white bird.
Well, I have been in this area only a short time but I just got the call
yesterday that I will be getting transferred to...... SAVAI'I! :D I have
wanted to go to Savai'i my whole mission and now I finally get to go.
My
new companion will be Elder Ekuasi from here in Samoa. He actually came
into the mission the same time I did so we are both new guys. I am super
excited to go to Savai'i.
I will be going to Fagamalo Savai. I'll still be a Zone Leader. I will go
over sometime this week, still trying to find a flight. Haha I should
have a real house... I hope. ;)
This last week has been busy and I haven't spent
a ton of time proselyting in my area because I have been doing
exchanges with other Elders in their area. I have done a 4 day exchange
with Elder Lealaiauloto in his area. Its been nice to speak Samoan again because my area is an English speaking ward. Elder
Lealaiauloto's area is called Mapusaga and it is one of the strongest
wards in Samoa. They get heaps of help from the ward in missionary work
and last transfer they had about 15 baptisms. It was awesome to see how
when the members are involved the work goes so much faster.
From Tasha: We just learned about a blog from a senior couple serving in American Samoa. Their blog is great, and there were several pictures and notes about where Elder Lamoreaux is serving. (All the following letters and notes are from the Schaefermeyers blog: http://samoaldsmission.blogspot.com/)
In our front yard we had a banana tree that had a large bunch of bananas
that was ready to harvest. We cut them down a couple of weeks ago and
then let them hang to ripen. Bad idea in all sorts of ways, all the
bananas ripened at the same time so here we are with 30 or more ripe
bananas. When a full bunch of hanging bananas ripen, you make banana
bread. I invited the zone leaders, Elder Faletoi on the left and Elder
Lamoreaux on the right, over to help and we made six batches. We could
not find small aluminum baking pans so we made our own from aluminum
foil. When resources are lacking, you have to figure out a way to make
it work. We baked 35 or so loaves, I lost count.
December 23 was set aside on our island for all the missionaries to
gather together and celebrate. The zone leaders organized a service
project of cleaning a large yard and arranging for the missionaries to
play rugby, table tennis, and water balloon volleyball on the cleaned
yard.
We then had some "silly" stuff like
moving an oreo cookie from your forehead to your mouth without hands.
The 10 second rule for cookies that hit the ground was applied by most
of them. Elder Faletoi and Lamoreaux, the zone leaders for the West Zone, designed the green shirts.
In the interim, Theron and I set up the cultural hall to serve the
missionaries lasagna (I made 4 largeeeee ones), garlic bread, green
salad with grapes in it, and cocoa Samoa brownies with cocoa Samoa hot
fudge sauce. We set up a gift table in the center of the tables and
after eats we gave them each their gift bag. Then, after they had
eaten, they started giving back - best Christmas presents ever (well
except for our son Marc).
The West Zone Elders performed a haka dance for us which i believe is
the Maori way of saying We are the most fearsome and aggressive warriors
on the island, however, for us it meant 'we love you' and 'thank you'.
(click to watch the video)
Saturday, December 5, was our ward Christmas party, now this isn't your
typical ward Christmas party because it's held at the beach and the
temperature outside is a balmy 85 degrees with sunshine. The Relief
Society sisters were asked to bring salads and desserts...
On the table was a LARGE white cooler full of barbecued chicken and as
we settled in eating our salads and chicken, the pick-up with the umu
cooked pig arrived. Three men with woven baskets carried it to the
table and began pulling it apart - there was a rush for the skin! You don't use knives but hands to pull a pig apart.
The mothers are sitting on the rocks talking and the men are sitting
making the big decisions and serving others. I really enjoy watching
these large men take care of the food, pick up the garbage and do all
the cooking. This is so great! The more they can do the better the
party.
After the talk and food and swimming, someone notices the kayak
approaching the shore - it's Santa. Yep, in Samoa Santa arrives in a
kayak. Somehow it's really no more strange than when he arrives on a
fire truck. Please note the boots he is wearing. They're quite
appropriate for a Samoan, kayaking, Santa. Because the kids are all wet
from swimming, no one sits on Santa's lap - Santa's worst fear - a wet
lap from a three year old. All the kids get a sack of some treats and a
small toy. How great to see the children so happy; the more the kids
enjoy themselves the better the party.
I hope all of you had a great year last year and a good new years celebration. I don't have very much to write this week, it has been a pretty normal week.
This last week we didn't get a p-day because we had a meeting on the other island so our p-day was spent flying over there and getting ready for the meeting. The meeting was a good one. I got to see friends that I hadn't seen for a while and I also learned that my favorite investigator in my first area just got baptized. Yay!
When we were leaving to come back to our island we got to the airport at 3:30 because our flight was supposed to leave at 4:30. The airport is SOOOO ghetto. They don't have x-ray things for your bags so no one gets checked and anyone can walk behind security. But anyways... we sat in the airport till 7 when our plane finally left. The plane seats about 20ish people and they make all the fat people sit at the back so the plane will be balanced. When we were leaving the pilot turned around in his seat and said to us "well the flight was a bit rough coming over, there is a life jacket under your seat just in case but please don't touch it unless we tell you to. will you all pray that Heavenly Father will get us there safely?" It was really comforting.
Other then that its just been normal stuff every day. Sorry not a very long email. Alofa atu ia outou! Love all of you, -Elder Lamoreaux
I just wanted to write about a few blessings that I have seen while on my mission.
When
I was set apart as a missionary I was blessed that I would be kept safe
from injury and illness. A while back I did get sick, I caught the
Dengue Fever which is a sickness from mosquitoes. Basically what happens
is that it attacks your joints and makes them very painful every time
you move and every time you don't. It also thins your blood to the point
where you have internal bleeding which can get very serious. It usually
takes a month or two to recover from it. When I had it I was worried
because the bleeding was getting pretty bad pretty fast. However, I
recovered within a week and was able to get back to proselyting. I know
this was because of the blessing of protection I received before my
mission.
Another miracle was told to me by a
man that I met a while ago. He told me a story about his mother. She and
her family lived in a village called Seetaga here in Tutuila. There was
a hurricane while they lived there, a very bad one. Everybody started
getting out of the village because the village of Seetaga was going to
be the main impact point of the hurricane. This old lady did not leave
though. She told her family that if they had enough faith then they
would be alright. The family tried to get her to leave but she wouldn't.
They finally left and she stayed. She prayed and then sat to wait out
the hurricane. When her family came back they said that there was not a
house or tree or anything standing because of how bad the storm
was, except for the house that the old lady was staying in. He said that
this experience is what keeps him strong in the church.
Another
miracle I have seen was back while I was in Upolu. I was with my
companion Elder Laulu. We were going to pick up and investigator for
church (pick up means walk to his house and then walk to church with
him) and he told us that he would not be able to come to church because
his son was very sick and he was going to have to take him to the
hospital. We offered to give the little boy a blessing and they said
yes. I was very humbled by how my companion went about giving the
blessing, I was kind of thinking that we should hurry up to try to get
the blessing done so that we could get him to church, but my companion
took his time getting ready. He first said a prayer and then he washed
his hands. After he had washed his hands we reverently gave the child a
blessing. As we started the blessing the child was crying and had a bad
fever. As we gave the blessing the child stopped crying and fell asleep
after the blessing he woke up and smiled at his dad. They later told us
that he was no longer sick after we left. This was a big
testimony builder to me.
Those are just a few cool experiences that I have seen on my mission.
Sorry
this email is a bit late, my companion and I had to go over to Upolu
for a meeting so we had to change our p-day this week.
Love you all and have a happy new year!! Manuia le tausaga fou!!
I did remember you birthday, I even wrote it in my planner yesterday. :)
Thanks for the update on the family. I enjoy reading it every week.
Haha
I am trying to gain weight but its kind of hard because I am in a white
person ward and they don't really feed us very much. And a lot of times
we will not have a dinner appointment so we will have to buy dinner,
which is also hard because I am out of monthly money already. But I am
managing. My comp and I always just ask other elders for food when we
visit them so we are not starving most days.
I got your Christmas packages! I will be careful with them and try not to snoop or anything.....but the temptation is very strong.
Yes I think I got somewhere to skype... what is your skype address again?
Send my love to the family!
Alofa atu!
-Elder Lamoreaux
Just a cool under-water pic
(disclaimer notice: I did not go swimming to get this picture)
Happy
Christmas!!! Its been another great week this week and I hope all of
you had a great week as well. This weeks activities included: Organizing
a Christmas party for all the missionaries on the island, talking in
church with a member of the first quorum of the 70, sending a missionary
home on medical leave, getting rid of the cockroaches inside our car,
going Christmas caroling, getting pulled over by a police man (my
companion, not me), and of course good old preaching the gospel to white
people (I'm still not used to it).
Not a ton of other stuff
happened this week. We have been staying busy and I probably just forget
a lot of things that I could write about because I didn't do that good
at writing in my journal this week.
We went
caroling as a zone this week and that was pretty fun. We had each
companionship pick one of their investigators for us to go sing to. We
sang Po Filemu (silent night) and read the Christmas Story in Luke 2 to
all the houses we went to. I thought we did pretty good, we would sing
the first verse and then hum the second one while Elder Hingano read the
story and then we would sing the third verse. Then we would give them
some cookies and go to the next house. It was a good spiritual
experience and we made someone cry at every house we went to, Still not
sure if they were crying because of the spirit or because their ears
hurt.... but lets hope it was the spirit.
I
also got to have the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting this
week. My comp and I were asked to speak about Christmas and Jesus Christ
and we were sitting on the stand waiting for the meeting to start and
then in walks President Halleck, one of the members of the fist quorum
of the 70. It made me nervous because I was having to do the talk in English and I would much rather do it in Samoan, but it went well and he
said I did a good job so that's good.
This week has been busy and full of excitement and rain. Its crazy how
fast time goes out here, it seems like we just barely had p-day and now
its p-day again. I feel like I am tired 24/7 now and I love it! I enjoy
being able to lay down in bed at night and think back on the day and
know that I did all I was supposed to.
My new comp is awesome, his name
is Elder Faletoi - he is from Utah. He has been out for just about a month
longer than me so we are a pretty young companionship. He also has a
full ride scholarship to play football at some collage after his
mission. He has been waking me up at 4:45
each morning to go play basketball and lift weights, but other then
that we get along fine. ;)
The work is going well in our areas, we are
actually covering 2 areas right now because there is a shortage of
missionaries here in Samoa. I am actually still covering my old area I
was in before this transfer as well as my new area. It's a nice busy life
covering the two areas because they are on different parts of the
island. But despite the hardships we are having success in both areas.
We are staying busy trying to organize a Christmas program for the
missionaries on this island.
Sorry I don't have a bunch of time this week, but I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
Alofa atu ia outou!
-Elder Lamoreaux
[Bob emailed Elder Lamoreaux and found out he is a Zone Leader now, that's why he has the new responsibilities]
About the family Christmas picture - "Wow, tell Spud that he better not think that just because he is tall he is buffer then me..... tell him I could still take him."
This has been a very very busy week. My new companion is Elder Faletoi
from Utah. He is Samoan but his family moved to Utah. He and I cover the
white person ward here on this half of the island.
Honestly I feel kind
of like I am starting my mission over again because now I have to learn
how to speak English again. I thought it would be really easy to be
teaching people in English but then in our first lesson with a white guy
I realized that it is very very hard. I have been so used to only
teaching in Samoan that all my English skills are totally gone. The
struggle is real haha.
Because we are the only ones with a car on
this half of the island we are the ones that get to go and do all the
chores that people need done. But hey, I like this life. We are always
busy now and I really like it. The days are going by so fast that it
seems like... I'm actually not sure what it does seem like but its
crazy anyways. ;)
So right now my companion and I are
"white washing" as we call it here. We are both transferred into this
area at the same time so nether of us know the area. It is actually
pretty fun because we get to go and try to find all the people who the
old missionaries were teaching. This week we have been teaching a little
guy named Jayden. He is 9 years old and he is planning on being
baptized this Saturday. We have also been teaching a guy named Tuliese,
he is a Samoan guy but he doesn't know a bit of Samoan so we have been
teaching him. He is pretty cool and we are trying to get to know his
family as well so that we can baptize them as well.
Other then that not much has been going on this week. Just busy doing chores for people and trying to learn English. ;)
Well I love you all and I hope yous have a wonderful week.
