Arts and Crafts with Pua!

Today we had a very busy day filled with lots of different kinds of activities. We started off the day watching the US Open Finals (yay Tiger!) because it was on "real time" which was morning for us. Most of our television channels runs 2 weeks later than the mainland. Then we went and invited people to the church the week before the lectureship. We visited about 3 different families. Then we went to lunch at the ever popular McDonalds. Then we went to the school and met with Pua, Tia's wife. She first showed us how to print on fabric. 

Then she told us to go outside and pick a leaf or flower for us to draw to make a stencil out of. I picked a little white

 flower called a "pua". That was the flower that Pua was named after. Then I attempted to draw it on cardboard. That didn't work so well, because of my lack of artistic ability, and Pua decided to help. Pua grabbed the cardboard and my picture and proceeded to correct my lack of ability. She did a great job really fast. 

Marci and Melinda picked different flowers and Pua helped them draw too. She then showed me how to do th

e painting and told me what she thought would look good. Little did I know that it would take me about 2 hours to paint the 4 flowers on the bottom of my lavalava. A lavalava is basically a sarong. After I finally got finished painting mine (the others girls were done long before I was and I was the first to start), we did the topa design on mine. Topa is where you put a board with a cut out pattern under your fabric and then paint really gently so you can see the pattern. We went around my flower and it was finally finished. I mentioned that my back hurt to Pua from

leaning over. Pua's mother was sort of a chiropractic/indian doctor for her people and she had taught Pua the methods. She gave me a great Samoan massage and my back did feel better after that. Fofo is the technique that she used. It is a very traditional Samoan healing method used by the Samoans for thousands of years. A very sick person would require two days of treatment, but we just needed one session because we are basically healthy. I don't know about the healing aspect, but it really did make my back feel better. She told me that I had a swollen spinal cord in one region and a little lump in another. The second part I knew, and I suspected the first. Pua is so kind. She taught us so much about Samoa today.

Dana, my missionary's wife, told us that we should perform a siva or Samoan dance at the 3rd Annual South Pacific Lectureship in July. This is what we are planning the VBS for. The Friday night of lectureship each congregation that participates provides little piece of live entertainment. This year, we are it. This should be funny. David thinks that this would really show the Samoans that we are trying hard to learn the culture. I am not too sure about this, but if Colleen will teach us, I know it would be okay. We would wear our semi-matching lavalavas that we made today. This would be very interesting. We will take a lot of pictures.

Sorry but we had a little addition to our day: We went to one of David's friend's houses to pick us some fish that he was giving us. When we got there he gave us like half of a fish. Our half is probably about 3 feet long. The fish is a Wahoo(sp?), the cadillac of tuna. We are going to freeze it and have it after our time in Apia. That is what the gross picture is of.

I hope that everything is going well for you and your families. I am praying for all of you who see this blog.