Puah....Both a Flower and a very neat lady.

Today we went with David on a lot of visits to many different people that he knew. This was very fun for us because he chose to invite all of these people to lectureship in two weeks, you could tell how much the people really enjoyed their relationship with David. David encouraged the Tafuna church to have 125 people in worship in 2 weeks, so that is why he started inviting people today. This afternoon was really fun. Puah, the wife of an elder (Tia), met us up at the school to make lava lavas with us. She taught us how to design and make a lava lava using tapa board. This board has a design on each side carved out onto about a 3 foot board. First off she told us to choose a flower that we wanted to draw on a piece of cardboard to use as a stencil. We first tried drawing our own. Marci chose the hibiscus flower, while I chose the ginger plant. Our drawings were awful, and when we showed them to Puah she just laughed and said "good try". She then drew the flower for Marci and I while we cut them out. The next step was to paint the flower using the stencil that we had made. After that we used the tapa board and painted it in between the flowers to go along the bottom of the lava lava. It was so much fun for Marci and I to talk with Puah and learn this Samoan design technique. I was not good at it, but we talked and laughed a lot with her. There is something about laughter that makes me feel good from the inside out. I really enjoy it, and I think we were able to connect with her even through something as simple as laughter. I also believe that laughter keeps us young, and helps us not to worry about certain things. She was so excited to figure out what she was going to teach us next week. Next week we're going to do a t-shirt with a tapa design and make sei's (which are the flowers that the Samoan ladies wear in their hair). Now, when we get back we can have a craft day with everyone. Also, I nearly forgot to write about this. Puah was brought up in a family that practiced fofo, which is using medicine and massage to help heal people with aches and pains. I asked her about it because it interested me, so she taught me a few techniques. I practiced on Marci, while she massaged me, so I could feel what she was doing and try and imitate it. We're loving it here!

After I posted for today, David got a call from Emil who is one of his friends. He said that he had a frozen Wahu (type of fish here), that he wanted David to have. We picked it up and he had cut it in half, but it's still huge. We're going to eat it sometime next week...I bet it's going to be yummy.