Day 13... Sunday, May 16, 2010

We got to sleep in today since we had church at eleven. It was nice to rest after all the hard work we have been doing the past week. As we all got beautiful in our church attire (it was nice to see everyone so cleaned up after the usual gym shorts and a t-shirt) we arrived at the church and the meeting began. We experienced our first humid and hot three hours of church. Fortunately, the members of Samoa all sit and fan themselves during church and we all joined in with our fans. Since it was so hot and humid, it was so difficult to stay awake; however we made it through the full three hours. The members there were so interested in their visitors and were very friendly and welcoming to us all (we weren’t even surprised because the Samoan people are so loving).

After church, we had a lunch/dinner with our host families. There were so many amazing different foods to try. Being the athletes we are, we experienced some great new appetites for the Samoan food. Our favorite part was the amazing dessert we had, the chocolate cakes was divine and the amazing fruit/custard in crust thing (ha ha it was my favorite, but I didn’t know what it was). We had plenty of the dessert to and more. We were so grateful for our host families and the hospitality they showed us. It was very nice to sit down and enjoy an afternoon together.

After the luncheon, we went to the church to begin the fireside. It honestly was one of the neatest experiences that we have ever had as a team. We had a wonderful meeting and nine of us got to speak (Lindsay, Garf, Dani, Kat, Me, C-Fa, Tricc, Lanni, and Patti) and coach. We also sang the “Learn of Me” which was done a lot better then in New Zealand. Lindsay also sang her amazing solo again and we also sang “Love at Home” and C-Fa and JC both started singing the first verse in Samoan. The spirit was so strong to hear them sing in Samoan. We are so blessed to have them and their culture on our team. We then sang the second verse in English. During the whole meeting, the spirit was so strong. It was definitely a great moment together and we loved every second of it.

Allyce Jones