Anyways... This week has been
good and awesome. We had a bit less rain this week but still a good
amount. This week we had some old people die in our village. One of them
was the "Tamalii" or the high chief of the village.
While these times
are always hard for people and we feel for the families who have lost
loved ones, they give us a great opportunity to not only teach these
people that they can see their loved ones again, but it also gives the
opportunity to see some cool parts of the Samoan culture.
Whenever
someone dies in Samoa they make a huge deal out of it. They call it a
"Fa'alavelave" or an interruption. When a faalavelave happens people
gather from all over the place to take part in it. After the actual
funeral service is when the fun starts.
The village gathers and the
Matai (the second highest Matai, because the highest Matai doesn't talk
to the people) stands in front of them and directs the program. First
the family who had someone die stands up and makes a very long and fancy
speech that can be shortened to "We want to thank all of you for coming
and your love for our family. We will now give all of you very
expensive presents!"
They then will bring out ie toga, a very soft,
handwoven mat made from grass. The ie toga take about a year to make and
they cost about $1-2,000. The family will pass out heaps of them as
well as lots of dead pigs, boxes of canned fish, boxes of corned beef,
etc. The way they give them out is they will tell the person that they
are giving them to that because of their goodness and love for the
family they will give them...Whatever they are giving them. The person
who is receiving the gift will then stand up and say that they
appreciate the generosity, but they can not accept so much. They family
will then tell them that if they do not accept the gift they never want
to hear from them again and they will chase them out of the village,
then the people accept the gift.
Then the people who are gathered
together will all give presents to the family in the same way. And then
everybody goes home fat and happy. Its pretty cool.
This
week we had some really good lessons with a investigator named Lui. He
used to live in California for most of his life but he moved here to Samoa a few years ago. He prefers to speak in English rather then Samoan
so that is awesome. :) He attended church this week and had a really
good experience there and said that he wants to keep coming.
This week
in church I was able to feel the true joy of missionary work. We had 5
investigators at church and all of them are changing their lives for
the better and coming closer to Christ. Sitting in church I felt happier
then I had ever felt in my life.
Not only was pleased with how these
people were progressing, but I could feel that Heavenly Father was happy
with me, and that is what made me so happy. I know that the way we will
all be happy in this life is by focusing on others rather then
ourselves. We all have problems and weaknesses and trials, and if we
focus on how hard our lives are then we will never be happy. Only when
we look past ourselves will we be truly happy.
I love you all and hope you have an awesome week.
Alofa atu,
-Elder Lamoreaux
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