We traveled to Kuku and passed this crazy house.  I think someone has a secret wish to go to sea.  It's a homemade house and to the left of the truck bed is a pointed structure fashioned to look like the bough of a ship.

From the other side is a tall structure on the right horizontal structure (behind the small shed)
on the  left of the picture another square structure and small pointed bough 

Elders enjoying the potatoe barat the Trainers meeting. Two Elders on the right are Elder Palmer and Tremea little did they know they would be in a car accident on Saturday.  Elder Tremea kept his sense of humor....right after the accident he jokingly said "is my face okay?" They certainly received a tender mercy from the Lord last night.

On our way out the door for work, I noticed this big rainbow in the sky after a quick shower.

Happy days!, Elder Hogge gets to break in this new truck for a month, before a new couple the Walkers arrive.  The will be taking it up north to Vanua Levu where they will be serving at Savusavu

This is a new flat we found for the Edwards who will be here for 3 months  before going to Kiribati. The two single (widowed) sisters who will be filling the spot the Whitings are currently doing in our office (financial secretary and nurse)will move into this flat after the Edwards leave.  The Whitings head out in August so there's lots of changes happening in the months ahead.. 

I found this cool yam at the store yesterday.  Back with skin, front a bright purple flesh but tastes great.

We dropped the Elders off at church this morning after our visit to the hospital for exrays.

New flowers for the week.  I see them blooming along a fence at many homes in Suva

Where the car  hit the truck

Where the pole hit.  We were grateful it was by the back seat and not the front where the Elders were sitting.

Right next to the wrecked cars was the big Rewa river and a small boat

next to the river is a large park where the young men go at night to play rugby.

Bula Vinaka friends and family:

Last Tuesday, I went to help prepare a big lunch with two other sisters for missionaries who came in for training, and when I returned to the office was surprised when Elder Hogge said "while you were gone I did the blog for this week"  and I thought, great! not realizing when I opened our blog it would be the shortest blog we've ever done.

We hope all you mothers had a good celebration for mother's day in spite of the big challenges some of you had with sick kids, sick moms etc.  We love and admire all you do to take care of your children and husbands and want you to know that we love you, and appreciate all you do.

Here's a few of the highlights, and low points of our week:

Last Sunday we had 2 stake speakers.  One was Lai who works in the Service Center and installed some new shelving in our office recently.  He has 7 sons and 2 daughters and said sometimes his house is so noisy that it's like a fish market!  Everyone laughed (Fijian's have a sense of humor that is a bit different from ours) He spoke on obedience and shared how one of his son's has been a challenge to raise and teasingly said to him one day "If they ever allow us to sell our children, you're the first!"  He saw one of his companions from serving a mission in Fiji and how his life is growing dim as he has become less active, then shared his gratitude for a friend of his named Manwell who moved to the United States, but gave his name as a referral when he was a young man, and how that had made all the difference in his life and closed by saying that referral is why I'm here today and bore his testimony.

The second speaker also spoke on obedience and how he was asked to speak here today.  He arose at 6 am, walked a half hour to the river and saw his brother in law.  He asked if he would swim across the river to fetch the small boat he needed to cross, but his brother in law said he was sick, so this meant he had to walk back to his house, put on some grubby clothes return, and swim to fetch the boat himself.  By the time he made it to where he needed to catch a bus and change back into his Sunday clothes he thought for sure he was going to miss the bus, but it was late.  When he got off the bus he had to walk some more and it began to rain hard.  He took a taxi the rest of the way and when he got out he had exactly $5.00 which was the cost of the fare.  I had to admire this man who had such a positive attitude in spite of the difficulties he had in just trying to get to church and fulfill his assignment.

There's been a few late night calls this week.  Elder and Sister Whiting took Elder Ruben into the hospital with a lot of pain from a bad sinus infection at 1 am in the morning.  Last night, I took some pain medication to help me sleep and heard Richard stirring at 11pm.  Two Elders in Nausori were returning from a discussion, and with no warning a car hit them broadside and both cars continued to slide across the road until impactiong a pole.  There is only a clinic in Nausori and the War Memorial Hospital is pretty old and used mostly by people who are terminally ill and go there to die.  After spending a long time at the police station, they decided to go home and get some sleep and then Elder Hogge and I got up early Sunday morning and took them to be checked at a Private Hospital that opened in the morning.  We were glad we went early as we were first in line and avoided having to wait with the many other people that began showing up in the waiting room.  Elder Palmer and Tremea are okay and we are grateful they were in a truck.  They said that the place their car plowed through usually has people waiting around for a bus quite late at night, but last night there was no one waiting for a bus.  The other driver was drunk, but trying to tell the police that his car had bad brakes.  We're grateful they're okay and no one else was hurt.  Sadly this truck was due to be inspected Monday and then trade in for a new truck, but now it will take a considerable amount of time before it's decided what to do about the situation.    

Well, after having two senior couples over for dinner today, I'm ready to relax a bit before it's Monday morning once again.  Have a good Sabbath tomorrow.

Love Elder and Sister Hogge