BEWARE! This is a long post but with great pictures at the end....so if you don't want to read, go at least and see a year of pictures that follow! 😅
What a year it has been. There has been some wonderful things about this year and some things that we hope will quickly go away and never return.
The year started great as we were serving as ITEP missionaries (international teacher education program) in Suva, Fiji. We had been in Fiji for 5 months and looking forward to a full and complete year of working in both the LDS Church College (high school) and the LDS Primary School. We were excited with the idea of starting and ending a school year with these wonderful teachers.
In early January we helped the College Leadership enroll and orient the students for a new school year. Kim was and I was taking each student's picture and orienting them to the handbook. Kim and spent quite a bit of time helping get the handbook put together in a format that everyone could access it easily. After a week of orienting, school started. I spent the next week orienting all the students who didn't come in for their orientation and getting them into class. Then there was the new dorms. The college had been building a dorm for foreign students to enroll in the college. Students from Papa New Guinea, Vanautu, and Solomon Islands were invited to attend the school. Since this was a new adventure for Fiji, they only enrolled 52 students for the first year. The new dorms hold at least 100, possible as many as 140. We were fortunate to have been able to be present when the new students arrived that first day. The first half came in the afternoon and the rest came that evening. There were mentor students who volunteered to help get them settled in their new homes. They sang them songs, introduced them to the leadership, and helped distribute supplies. The students were fed a meal and set free to explore their new surroundings.
In February we were asked to help with the dorm students. Sister Maiwiriwiri, the assistant principal over the dorms, asked us if we would be willing to provide an activity every Friday night for the dorm students and provide a devotion on Sunday evenings. We excitedly agreed. This soon became one of the highlights of our mission. We started out with a Chinese New Year Celebration since it was the weekend of the Chinese New Year and we had just spent a year and a half in China. We played games, did calligraphy, learned how to use chopsticks, and other activities. At the end we set off Chinese lanterns into the night sky. We were a bit nervous not knowing if the night air was too warm to allow the lanterns to lift into the sky. But after waiting patiently they all floated away to the cheers of the students. The fireworks that we lit at the conclusion set off many loud hoops and hollers. We were able to play birthday party games, learn how to bake cookies, dance, bear testimony and sing with these students. It was these students whom we spent our last night with that gave us our last farewell. It was only fitting.
Kim taught a class on classroom management to five teachers at the schools. There were two newly hired teachers at the college that took the class that we loved getting to know. We were just coming to the end of the class when news came out that the Corona Virus or Covid-19 had struck Fiji. How quickly plans were made for us to go home. We got the news on a Thursday and we were flying home on Sunday night. The shortened version goes something like this: We were in a leadership meeting at the college where we were discussing what to do if the virus came to Fiji. There were lots of ideas and opinions expressed. Just after the meeting the announcement came out that a man Lautoka was diagnosed with the virus. The Prime Minister announced that Latoka would be locked down at midnight. No one goes in and no one goes out. There was a senior couple in the city that had hours to get out of the city with all of their belongings. There was a misunderstanding and Kim thought he also shut down all the schools in the country. (He actually was only shutting down the schools in Lautoka). Thinking the schools were shut down, we went and visited the mission president who told us it was time to go home. All of the temple missionaries had left when the temples closed. There was a humanitarian missionary couple who had gone home earlier in the week. The 2 office couple missionaries were going to stand it out. We got a flight to leave that Sunday evening. Later in the day, Fiji airways announced they would fly out of the country on Sunday and then no more foreign flights. Phew! That was a blessing. We went ahead with our plans on our Friday night activity for the dorms. After our activity, the students surprised with a good bye celebration. They gave us gifts, sang the tradition Fiji farewell song, Isa Lei. And ended with God Be With You. Talk about tears. Then there were hundreds of photos taken and we were off. We packed that weekend and met the couple that had been in Lautoka at the airport and flew home to the US on Sunday. It was a week later when the country DID shut down all the schools in the country and another week when the church chartered a flight that picked up all the US missionaries from Kiribati, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. The last two couples that worked in the mission office were required to be on that flight. How quickly things can change.
We decide to fly to St. George since Katie and Brandon were in our Orem home. No one was living in that home and we were required to do 14 day quarantine. There was no big homecoming at the airport or anywhere for that matter. Millie and Jacob stocked the cupboards. Millie and the girls would walk the trail behind the house so we could see each other from a distance. After the quarantine, we bought a car. We had sold our car before leaving for Fiji because we were going to be gone for 2 years. Once we had a car things started to get a little bit normal. As normal as anything was at that time.
We eventually made trips to see all our kids. First Orem to visit Katie and Brandon. Then Colorado to see Annie and Dale and Iowa to see my parents. The day after we arrived in Iowa, my 91 year old father was put in the hospital for congestive heart failure. At that point we didn't feel like we could leave my mom and our 2 day visit turned into a 2 week visit. No one was allowed to visit my dad at the hospital. My mom would talk to him on the phone and occasionally a nurse. We finally got word that they were going to send him home the following week and set him up on hospice. We decided to make a quick trip home and be back in time to get him home. We arrived in St. George on a Friday evening and on Saturday morning I got a call from the doctor telling me my dad had passed away that morning. My heart was broken as I felt like I had deserted my mom when she need me to be there the most. We quickly got back in the car and arrived Monday with my older sister, Cheri arriving there on Sunday. My sister Kim and brother Hollis came as quickly as they could. We had a very nice funeral and burial and I stayed 2 more weeks just to help my mom get settled into being in the house alone. This was all in June. She has has done quite well the rest of the year. She gets lonely but I'm proud of how strong she is. After June, we were finally able to make it out to California and visit Abbie and James.
Kim found many projects around the house. It started with cleaning the carpets throughout the house. That was a huge job. He put backsplash up in the kitchen and added smart plus and switches around the house. He added an awning on the back patio. His biggest project was painting the garages in both the Orem house and the St. George house and putting epoxy on the floors. In St. George he redid all the shelving. We have the best garages in the neighborhood. That's what happens when a couple of months on leave from your mission turns into 9 months.
In July, the director over the Pacific Island Schools asked me to help Sister Poll, the coordinator over the ITEP missionaries, and the principal at the Fiji Primary School, Meirisi, put together a reading program for Kindergarten through 3rd Grade. He named it the Pre to Three Reading Program. Tima, the resource teacher, has also been very involved in the program. I went to work on take home packets with readers and activities and discussion questions for Kindergarten. Tima and Meisi went to work on year 3. They did a trial run with the things they put together in September. I haven't heard how they went other than the parents were excited about the program. In January, when their new school year begins, they will start the project for other years as well. It's been a lot of work and a lot of work still to go.
We have been able to make a couple of trips to California. One in September for Maverick's 2nd birthday. Then on October 9 Abbie gave birth to Luka Max. We both went out for a week and Kim went home and I spent another week helping Abbie adjust to three kids. She's a pro and doing very well. We also took a couple of weekend trips with Millie and Jacob. We went to Bryce Canyon one week end and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on another one. We did some hiking at Zion's National Park, Kolob Canyon and Buck Skin Gulch. We also have made several trips back and forth to Orem.
When many people are weary after this long year, I find gratitude for the time we've been able to spend with our family. I'm grateful I was home for my father's funeral and for the birth of our 12th grandchild. We have missed the people of Fiji and feel like we left long before our work was done. We pray daily for the time when we will be able to return. We have enjoyed continuing to work remotely with Elder and Sister Poll and our Fijian teachers. We have officially been granted a 6 month extension on our mission. We haven't been officially released and are considered "on leave" and our clock is still ticking. Our release date was July 2021 but is now December 2021. We don't know when but we feel confident we will be returning and finishing our work there.
May you find peace, joy and happiness, and good health this holiday season. We love the Savior, Jesus Christ. We love our Heavenly Father.
Merry Christmas.
Marau ni Kerisimasi! (English Fijian)
Marau ni Siga ni Sucu! (Real Fijian)
Get you a tissue before you watch this video. Esme has wanted this since she could talk.
