Savusavu trip

Bula Vinaka

We had to go pick up a bike.out in the bush and drove on this dirt road that was so full of deep pot holes that we were bouncing around in the van we borrowed pretty good, so I grabbed the loop and leaned forward to save my back.

These three Elders are staying in one of our very nice new flats.    Elder Swerling on the right has played professional  rugby and is built pretty solid.  He complained of his tush hurting with the narrow seats on the bikes so we
 bought him a saddle style seat.  Now we're dropping off a heavier built bike for him because he stripped the
chain on his current bike pumping so hard.  Bike repairs is a regular task that Elder Hogge has to deal with.

LABASA/SAVUSAVU TRIP.... We flew to Labasa Friday morning to look for two flats one in each area.  The Terry's  drove us around and this is the chapel in their area.  They live in a flat that is older but it's so hard to find flats in this area, that we're going to hang on to it  for a couple coming in September that will repalce them.  If they are unhappy with the flat, we'll let them look and see if they can find a flat they would prefer to live in..

Sister Terry loves to cook for the missionaries and has two pet Gecco's that  climb on her appliance's when she
 is in the kitchen, patiently waiting  for her to put a dab of whatever sweet thing
she is cooking on the bar, then slowly lick up every bit of it.  

The Terry's found one flat that would be good for the sister's to move in, but the current renter  who hasn't paid rent for some time, refuses to leave, and the landlord will have to serve papers to evict him, which typically takes a long time,
so they basically said other than that there's nothing else available.  They left to run an errand, and we were feeling down and decided to pull into a car wash to get the dirt off of the truck we borrowed from the ZL's.

This is Siste Aoina and Ongesel.  Their flat is on top of a big steep hill and the flat is built on the side of the hill  which means a lot of steep stairs to climb down.  The water seeps up into one of the bedrooms, and the walls are always wet creating mold problems, so we need to find them a healthier flat to live in.  When the tenants above them have cava parties, they lock themselves in their flat to try and feel safer, also not a good situation.

This is how dirty the truck was.  The car wash area has two workers with a power  washer and to the
back of the lot were some young men working on cars with old sheds and car parts. 

This is the nice looking clean truck.  I remembered that we had seen a small sign  on the front of the car wash entrance saying flat for rent and reminded Elder Hogge to ask about it.  They had us follow them to the back of the lot and down a trail which opened up into a complex of 3 homes, nicely kept and the son of the owner of the flat showed it to us.

Sadly the other flat we needed to check out is a big flat near town that the Elder's live in.  It needed a good cleaning and the couches (this one looked like a smashed cake) have got to go.  There were also very old mattresses (had to be twenty years old) that we told them to put out on the curb, sometimes people will take them, and recover them, but they definitely needed to go.  Elder Hogge will arrange for some new ones for them along with some cleaning supplies.  We asked the Terry's to find someone to make drapes and paint the walls.  It's difficult getting around to these other islands and keep a handle on the condition of the flats, but now that we know we'll get the things more livable for them.

Back to the flat we found for the sister's, it has a nice new interior and we will be the first renter's.  The landlord has had other people interested in renting it, but wanted good renter's and wouldn't rent to them.   They like LDS renters because they know we pay our rent and also we do not drink or party as other people sometimes do.  The other two renter's are a policeman and his wife and baby and the other a fireman.  The landlord takes good care of the complex, so we truly felt like the Lord helped us find this flat.  As Elder Hogge said "the Lord takes care of his missionaries".

Living space where we'll put table and chairs for studying.  The two bedrooms are painted a bright pink.

The Landlord is Indian and his wife Fijian and  this is their cute little daughter

Outside of the sister's new flat.  

We drove down to Savusavu from Labasa that afternoon after signing a contract  for the sister's flat

We're staying in the same hotel we did last time.   There seem to be more sail boats in the lagoon this time.

We headed up to drop off Elder Read (L) who we picked up at the Labasa  airport and  dropped  him off  at  the flat  where he's been transferred to.  I can't remember this other Elder's name, he's here on
temporary assignment until his visa comes through to serve in the Phillipines.

Elder Hogge flew up by himself to arrange the contract for this flat, and Elder Trent was given the assignment to find someone who would make some drapes.  He did a great job, I think we ought to have more Elders find drape makers.

As we were leaving I saw this, you may remember it was hanging above a door entrance at the "purple  palace"  They brought it to the new place and it's now decorating the porch!

Elder Trent, Read, Hogge, ---

View from our hotel room

From the beautiful view pictures you may think we're spoiled, but we still have to iron our clothes on a table with  a  folded sheet, there's no tv in the room, and the showers are cold, but it does have a wall unit air conditioner...Yes!

We shopped for some things the flats needed and I took this  picture of town.    The poles in the
 background are the masts of all the sailboats docked at a favorite hang restaurant.

Tide is out

flowers on the shoreline

I went shell hunting for a few minutes while elder Hogge tried to get a phone signal  to call Elder's on another remote island.  I was excited to find a small piece of the deep red coral.  There is such a beautiful variety of shells in Fiji 

There are so many steep mountains on this island, that the only flat space is along the outer perimeter of the island.
I tried to capture  the depth with this picture.  Each of the  5 houses is built on a higher level than the one below it.

We had lunch on Saturday with the Howard's (welfare couple serving 6 months here)
 They even had homemade ice cream for dessert, it was such a treat.

We have a new support couple arriving on the 15th who will be assigned to Savusavu and we  checked out a flat that's built on a very steep hill with a small landing space to park their top at the top.  This driveway was so steep that Sister Howard and I volunteered to walk back down then be in the truck with Elder Hogge backing down it.

Flowers at the side of the new flat Howard's found to live in.

unusual bush in their yard.  Green leaves, white leaves (look kind of like leaves on a poinsetta) and yellow star  stamins.  

laundry area outside the Howard's bathroom, I was impressed with how nice the tile floor was.

Beautiful wood floor..Elder and Sister Howard

I've found a kindred spirit, sister Howard loves shell like I do.

This little boy was having an apple before church started.
 In fast meeting a young Fijian man bore his testimony and  shared that when he was a missionary in 2002 there was no transport from Savusavu to Labasa and how hard it was to walk the steep mountainous roads to get to Labasa.  It took us an hour by truck driving on steep winding roads to get from Labasa by truck,
so I can't imagine how hard it must have been to walk all that way.  

Sister Howard found this beautiful delicate shell on the beach it's a light lavendar color,but so fragile
 like an eggshell, so I don't know how she will be able to take it home.  I have only found pieces of it
so it was fun to see what the animal looked like.

Well we fly back to Suva tomorrow and 11 new missionaries will be arriving Tuesday morning, so I'll close
Take care, and know that we love and miss you.  Love Elder and Sister Hogge

Bula Kei (life to you brother)

Hi there everybody!
     The stores are all crazy around here, they don't want to service the items they sell, so to find parts for repairs, I have to do some digging before finding them.  Here is a good example:  I went to buy a mop and broom for the sisters who live about 45 minutes away from town.  I stopped at a hardware store that sells mops.  I asked for a mop, but they only had a mop head, and no twist-on handles.  So I didn't buy it there.  I went to the next store, and they had mop heads that slide onto a handle, and a wooden handle, but they didn't sell the screws to attach the mop head to the handle, so I ended up at a third store just to get two screws!  Talk about stupid stuff.  I also go to buy bikes, but the department store doesn't carry parts (like lights, tubes, pedals, tires, etc.). Same thing goes for buying vacuums-they will sell a vacuum but no bags to replace a used bag.  America, you are the BEST.
    Also, the mission got permission to trade in two small cars for a couple of new vans to help move the missionaries around to new areas.  The Toyota dealer here had two brand new vans  on their lot ready to be sold, or so I thought.  I was told it would take two weeks for them to be delivered!  Can you believe that?  That's not the only problem, after two weeks we still didn't have them and we needed to move 70 Elders in just one 8 seat van.  Yes, Fiji time!  It was four weeks before we got them.  It's no wonder nobody makes any money here, CRAZY!  I will not miss this part of my mission.

This is a painting in the hall at the entrance to our office. It captures the wild jungle growth
that is in great abundance  on the east side of most islands in Fiji.

I love this painting that is also in the hall depicting the great love of our  Savior Jesus Christ 

Monday we had a satellite broadcast for three of our zones and the senior missionaries here in the Suva area.  Lunch for 80 went well with the giant pot of sloppy- jo mix sister Klingler made, chips, fruit cups a bottle of water and cookies 

Tuesday we had a farewell dinner for Elder Tay.   He bore a beautiful testimony that brought tears to all of our eyes.  He was an airport Elder  when 4 of our missionaries were sent home after being  given a second chance and still choosing to disobey.  He saw the pain and sorrow when they left the airport for home, and in his last Zone Conference he bore
testimony to the missionaries of the importance of being obedient.   

Elder Palmer and LeDoux our AP's, President Klingler, Elder Tay, Sister Klingler,
Sister and Elder Whiting  who will  be heading home August 3rd, Sister and Elder Hogge 

I heard a loud noise the other day while looking out the window of Elder Hogge's cubicle.
  I saw this man standing on top of the Catholic Church,  power washing the roof, it made me quezy just watching him!  

We took a trip up to Ba this weekend and stopped at the Sigatoka Elder's flat.
Elder Hogge had to check  out the new shower  heater that Elder Jack created a part for
 using a piece of hose  and some duct tape.  Elder's have to be resourceful here in Fiji, and Elder Jack
is a redneck from Blanding

This is the view from their flat of the big river at the base of the hill they live on

The gold building is a Hindi temple, the blue a church and the red above it a large home.  Houses here are colorful  

In the yard by the flat I saw this orange flower I hadn't seen before next to the  lighter orange bird of paradise

I had to include these big lacy leaves of the bread fruit

and of course this cute purple flower

We've gone back and forth to Ba so many times that it takes a bit of effort to find something new.  As we hit the year mark this month I wanted to try and capture how beautiful these large rain trees are on both sides of the road

To the side of the trees is the daily rugby game that you see being played in  many villages  we travel through

I snapped this when the car was moving pretty fast, when the Sugar cane gets
these  lacy blooms on top it's ready to harvest

We were able to travel to Ba on Saturday and have the landlord sign the papers, then drove back to Nadi and the comforts that are available at the Tanoa Hotel.  Sunday morning we met with a second landlord who agreed to do some repairs on the flat we looked at last month and completed that contract as well.  On the way back to Suva, I insisted we stop at a nice stretch of the beach and give me a chance to look for some shells. I found some beautiful red coral pieces 

Wouldn't you know it, this pretty shell was being occupied by  a hermit crab so I had to settle for a picture of it.

I don't know what this fury looking creature was when it was alive, but had to take a picture of it.

More beautiful driftwood I can't take home

I saw these fascinating flowers on our way to  Ba and quickly wrote down the village name  after we passed them
so I could make Elder Hogge stop for a picture on the way back.  I have never seen these flowers before,
and knew we wouldn't be around next year when they bloom again

We heard of Brother Magoon's passing away last week and attended the funeral on Monday.  It was his house we went to for net fishing earlier this year.  He had been steadily losing weight since that time.  He went with a group of young people who came from the United States to help install septic tanks and toilets in some of the poorer villages in Nadi, and simply died while serving these people.  One of his greatest wishes was to see this chapel full on Sundays in the small community he lived in, and on the day of his funeral, it was full of so many people who knew and loved him.  How blessed we were to know him while serving our mission.  He was a faithful temple worker, and we often would see his "Colgate smile" as his granddaughter put it when we entered the temple.

Friday we will be flying up north to Vanua Levu to look for and hopefully sign contracts on two flats.  We planned it during the time the ZL's will be in Suva leaving a truck free for us to drive from Labasa where one flat is needed after our intake next week, then plan to travel down to Savusavu where a second flat is needed for a Senior Couple that will soon be arriving and traveling to this month.   We are so thankful for the help we receive from the Lord in finding these flats and are grateful for his tender care.  We pray that all our family members know how much they are loved.

I want to thank all of you who have emailed . I'm sorry I haven't always had time to write back, but appreciate so much hearing from you, and pray that you will feel of our Savior's love for you and that he will help you in your times of trial.

Moce Kei, Elder and Sister Hogge