Adrian and Todd back in Upolu - Sauniatu

The Monday of the last week of Adrian and Todd's visit was spent looking over LDS Church sites - the Fagalii Cemetery and Sauniatu.

The Fagalii Cemetery is where several of the early LDS missionaries, wives, and their children are buried.  The early missionary leaders came with their wives and children.  Many of them had children while they were here, but the survival rate for these children was not very good.  It is a sad thing to read of two or three children from one family being buried here.  Or, the story of a family in which the mother died in childbirth and the little girl was raised by a Samoan nanny until she was a year old.  The father continued to serve as mission president during this time and when the little girl was old enough to travel safely, sent her to the United States will a group of returning elders to be raised by grandparents until the father finished his assignment as mission president.  This is truly faith and endurance through your trials.  We have a presentation on the people buried in this cemetery and will enlighten you when we return.

 We have written in previous blogs about Sauniatu.  This was the place of refuge for early LDS Samoan people.  When a person converted they were most often persecuted by the preacher and village for apostasy.  To escape this persecution, they fled to the mountains of Sauniatu and developed a well-kept village that prospered during these times.

Now that's a tree of papayas!

There is a beautiful fresh water river, waterfall and pool here that is an attraction today.  Todd and Theron went swimming in the waterfall, Adrian and I stayed dry.


We were fortunate to meet President Neria (the Upolu North Stake President) the day we were here.  We had been trying to make contact with him to set up technology training.  He asked us to train on Wednesday so Todd and Adrian got to see the first of our four technology training lessons.  We didn't have a training scheduled while they were here, but were very excited about this one.



Tonight was a relaxing dinner at the Yacht Club where we watched the sun set on the horizon and listened to the waves lap upon the shore under the deck we sat on.  It just doesn't get any better than these evenings.