Teaching in Samoa

Given the General Conference weekend, the Area Presidency were in Salt Lake for almost 3 weeks. So, we took the opportunity to do some additional "social media" training for the PSD department (Publishing Services). In the past, we've been to Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne (in Australia); to several locations in New Zealand; and during their July break this year we went to Tonga. So, now we are off to Samoa. They have high schools on the island of Upolu and on Savai'i. We started off going to Apia on Upolu. The school is right next to the temple and we were able to stay in one of missionary housing apartments there (that happened to be vacant).

Our flight arrived late Monday night and we went for a walk around. Here's the Apia Temple. It was about 40 feet from where we were staying. It is a lot warmer in Samoa ... like 85 degrees! This is something we were not used to, given the typical 65 degree weather in Auckland. The apartment had air conditioning, so that was nice. But, we did have a few issues in the apartment (fridge didn't work well, no internet, and some bugs). But, overall, everything was just fine and we had a wonderful time.

Here's some of the classes we taught: 

The kids at the high school were just fantastic ... and they were so fun to be around. I now have more than 100 new friends on Facebook, so that was exciting too!

They have so many cool buses in Samoa ... how about this one: "Queen Patsy"!

On Thursday we caught the ferry to Savai'i ... it is about a 1.5 hour trip.

We are at the campus!

Our first class ... we taught a total of 10 classes.

This is the Vaiola school.

On the weekend, we had some time off, so we saw some turtles, went snorkeling, and found some awesome shells. 

We went on several walks and it was fun to see bananas growing by the side of the road. Also, on Monday it was Patsy's birthday!  We had a fun birthday breakfast in downtown Apia.

On our last day, it was raining, but we still had a great time at the beach!