So this week was insane to say the least. I will just start out from the beginning which would be Sunday. All of you know Sunday was the day I left to Samoa. It was a very long day of traveling, I think we were in the air for about 20 hours total! Anyway so we finally got to Samoa and I remember walking out of the plane and literally just getting hit with this wall of humidity and heat haha! It was pretty intense! After we landed we were picked up by the AP's and the President and his wife and we were taken to the mission home. I told Sister Hannamen about Patrice and she was really happy and was just telling me all these memories she had with her. President Hannamen remembers surfing with you Dad! He said he misses those days haha. Anyway so that night President started assigning areas to all the Elders and it was getting late and he had only assigned like 5 Elders and he told us he would do the rest in he morning.
The next morning we woke up and we all had a meeting with President and he just started assigning everyone. I got assigned to Pavaiai in American Samoa! I was so surprised that I would be serving in American Samoa my first area! We were all really excited and then all the Elders got split up to go do training with other Elders American Samoa had a room Upolu went to one place and Savai'i went to another and that was the last I saw of those Elders. (I don't have much time to email so I am skimming over details) We were surprised when we figured out American Samoa Elders wouldn't be leaving for two more days! So for the next two days we were stuck in a tiny room for 12 hours studying! We then figured out we would be traveling to American Samoa by an 8 hour boat ride that left at midnight! So flash forward to the night we are leaving. One of the people that work at the mission office gave everybody sea sickness pills (I don't know what they are called) and said we take two every four hours. So with that we had our bags and were sent to the dock. I wish I could go into more detail but I don't have a lot of time. The boat ride was so long, cold, wet, smelly, and very uncomfortable! It was a very long night with hardly any sleep. I wish I could go into detail haha.
So when we finally arrived at American Samoa it took us about an 1 1/2 to get off the boat because everyone had to go through customs and all that! And when we finally met all the other missionaries that were going to be taking us to our new areas they all seemed so clueless as what to do haha. But we finally made it our area after another 2 hours. My companion and I were so dead tired so we took an hour nap. When we finally woke up I was able to take a look at the house.... It is seriously so gross haha. The kitchen is right next to the toilet, the others had left the house a total mess just clothes, food, toys just laying all over the place. There are spiders everywhere cockroaches, ants, a gecko we call Ron who eats all the bugs. Anyway the place is just trashed so we are going to clean it today and I am excited but also nervous to touch stuff.
This week was pretty hectic because the Elders before us were Ka'a (Lazy/Don't work) That's the whole reason so many new missionaries got sent here is because AS is known for Ka'a Missionaries and so President White washed all of American Samoa! So we have a lot of work to do! The previous Elders didn't even leave us with a map of the area so we had no idea where to go and we just were walking blind trying to figure things out. By the end of the week and with the help of few ward members we have somewhat of and idea where our area is. This Wednesday the ward clerk Niko is going to go on splits with us and help us figure everything out so we are excited. A lot of work needs to be done here and I am beyond glad my companion actually wants to work. So these next 12 weeks should be really hard but good! We are just really disappointed in the Elders before us who to this calling so lightly. We stay with a family, they are the ones that provide us with the small house and they were telling us how the Elders would watch movies, sleep in, stay up late with family and all these other things. They told us that they don't care if we do that and they offered us movies but we said no obviously haha. Anyway that just covers a small portion of my week. I am almost out of time and I still need to send pictures so that is about it.
Cool experience this week. My companion and I were walking around tracking/finding and my companion has only been out 3 months and so he takes the leads in discussion and i have no idea what they are talking about but, I realized that when we would run into people he would just kind of get to know them and not share a message so the next person we ran into who seemed to be in a rush I just stopped her and straight up asked if we could share a message and she said yes so I shared a message and asked if she wanted to learn more and she said Yes! Although she isn't in our area so we gave the contact information to the Elders that cover her area and now we have a new goal to share something gospel related in every discussion we have! Ohhhh I want to write so much more. Remind me next week to write about Richard a Bahai (I think that's how you spell it) Anyone I love you all so much and I miss you like Crazy! This has been pretty tough emotionally but I am looking forward with optimism and hope! I hope all of you are doing well and I hope you all know I keep you in my prayers!
Alofa Atu!
Elder Barton
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