Easter Weekend

All-
Well hello from the other side of the world! All is well and we have just had a wonderful Easter meal [leg of ham] at our temple pres. house. From his balcony you can see the reefs surrounding all of the main island. These reefs were what kept Fiji so isolated from the world. Most adventurers shipwrecked and were....eaten. When Fiji was made a province of the UK, in the 1850's they were made Christians and no more cannibalism was allowed. Did you know that Texas had the only cannibals in the USA? They were the Karonkawas [sp] and they were from Galveston down to Matagorda Bay. We have had such a wonderful Good Friday here. Easter isn't egg hunts and candy here. It is about Christ. On Good Friday we open the temple at 6:00am. So we are up at 4:40 to be there by 5:30. People started arriving at 5:30. Taxis were lining up [people here don't have cars] and the public transports [buses] would be in 15 minutes dropping people off. We had sessions scheduled for 6, 8, and 10. But we were so busy and backed up with saints that we had to add an extra sesssion. We had the Suva stake youth doing baptisms for people from the Kiribati Islands . They were our island group for the week. As I moved from the baptistry and opened the great glass doors that opened in the temple foyer there were women dressed all in white sitting on every couch and chair available and all over the floor = about 35 sisters in all. The 6:00 was past full and I asked if there was such a person as a 'fire marshal" Br. Tagidugu laughed and said " who is this man". The temple had never had such an out pouring of saints. Also the temple has a very generous front porch with deep steps and they were also full of saints , still in their street clothes. Waiting, and waiting. To just go in the temple and pass the recommend desk. We couldn't let'em out of the celestial room to go back and dress because it would cause a traffic jam. The Fijian sisters said we needed a round about [explain this yourselves] . So we started another session. The sun had been up for one hour and we were really moving. All parts of the temple were full all day until 1:00. My heart will always see those sisters sitting in the Fiji Temple's foyer and all over the floor, all in white and sitting so quietly. We went to a "lovo"-feast cooked in an earthen oven. At some point, the Fijians lost the ability to make cookware and had to resort to cooking everything underground inside banana leaves. We went to a village, which was way back in the boonies on a dirt and rock road. It was only 3 kilometers form the main road but took a long time. The brother that invited us(all the temple missionaries and president) all individually and was so proud to have all of us at his home. We sat outside under a shade covering and had fish, prawns, pork, chicken, salad ,potatoes, spinach cooked in coconut milk, bread. The food was set in the living room corner with 2 of the children fanning away the flies. Quite and event! Dad tried a little of everything so if anyone was going to be the sacrifice it was him. The president's wife later became a little sick, but the rest of us did just fine. Kept our pills handy just in case.


A little note about our Good Friday drive. We drove through a group of good people carrying a huge cross. The cross was probably the right size but, still it looked huge. The newspaper told the entire story the nezt day. It seems people were chosen to walk and carry this cross and then one man was latter to be whipped-like Christ. These were great honors for all involved. So this is remembering Christ? Our matron used this event as her talk on Easter Sunday. [It seems that everyone in the temple spoke somewhere on the island! [funny] This is the heart of her talk. We pass the sacrament using 12 year olds-not in the temple like our Savior was but still in a dedicated chapel. And they were still about their Fathers business. Each helping us remember, every sunday, our Saviors sacrifice. Boys and young men in white shirts and ties pass blessed bread and water-like our Saviors sacrament He passed to His followers that yery day He was taken to His death. No crosses and no whipping-only service to our God in a simple manner, given in the same ways of old, and remembered every sunday in every chapel, all over our dear Saviors earth, and then given freely to each there within. notes from Helen Wells matron Fiji Temple 2008