Samoan gospel analogy

I shared this as a spiritual thought at a recent morning devotional at work. My boss, the vice president of BYU Hawaii, liked it well enough he requested I type it up. Apparently, he then shared it with the mission president, the area president, and the temple president, all of whom requested a copy and told Bro Neil to say thanks. I figure if they like it, maybe some of you might enjoy reading it too.

Just a little background information, I learned about this through my companion, Elder Puailoa. I shared this with 3 wards during my mission: 2 English, 1 Samoan. One ward in particular was quite moved by the talk I gave. A previously idle missionary ward, we were invited to 3 dinners that day, and the bishop really turned around. Anyway, here it is, enjoy! You can use your imagination to create the gospel connections.

Many of the Samoan people rely upon the ocean as a source of food to supplement their agricultural efforts to provide for themselves. At times, special occasions require a large amount of food to be acquired. Examples would be when other villages would visit for weddings, funerals, or the bestowing of chief titles. Some villages prepare for such occasions by using a fishing technique (faiva) called a fa'amo'a.

A conch shell is blown to assemble the 'aumaga or village men to the beach. They come with long sticks or machetes, usually one per hand. They line up in two lines along the beach, one on either end of the beach. At the signal, the men march into the sea single file, until the entire line is in the water and the front men have arrived at the reef. As the men walk, they slap their tools in the water, scaring all the fish into the center of the two lines. Then, the lines form a large circle, then begin to walk into a tighter circle, all while slapping the water and scaring the fish. When there is a tight circle, a few tautai, or skilled fisherman, then dive with their spearguns (faga me'i) and spear enough fish to feed the villiage and visitors.

The tautai could easily go solo fishing and perhaps get one or two fish, but certainly not enough to feed an entire villiage. Those not trained to fish couldn't get any food on their own. Only when they all work together is this great feat accomplished. Each member is critical. If one member of the 'aumaga stops slapping the water, the fish will escape through the gap left by his carelessness, wasting the entire group's efforts.

Applications:

This can be applied to missionary work, as we are all the 'aumaga and must do our part so that the tautai or full time missionaries can "catch" the greatest number of souls for our Father's kingdom. Jer. 16:16

We also learn the importance of everyone doing his duty in a community or organization. DC 107:99
Wherefore, now let every man learn his duty, and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all diligence.

I'm sure there may be even more lessons to be learned from this technique. Isnt it amazing how many symbols of the gospel can be found in everyday life!

Just a little catch up!

Well, there havent necessarily been any monumental events in my life, but just thought I'd throw in a blog of "small events" just for fun, and for the sake of remembering the "good times"!

Last week Sunday, there was a Samoan/Tongan/Fijian Club Gospel musical fireside that I was able to participate in. I sang a song with Tevita Uhi and Sione (?) both from Tonga. It was called Journey or something...not sure. Being sick, it was pretty fun to try and sing, but it went okay. Sione was on melody and didn't find his not for a while, so we sounded off for a bit. The other performances were great. Everyone was asked to dress in their traditional garb for it, which made it fun. There was a group of 7 girls that sang a song in perfect harmony that was probably my favorite.

So, now its time for the fish tank update. We have so many beautiful fish in our tank! This week, Wes's buddy Shane went fish hunting. He goes to the reef nearby and catches fish to put in the tank. This week he brought a large angel fish and that other pretty fish in the bottom left of the photo. Dont know what that one is called, but I really like it. They add a lot of color to the tank. We have removed the angel fish though because the little fish were picking on it and ate off the little top feather that is a distinguishing feature of the angel fish. Funny isn't it?



I made it to the beach this week. Yesterday, Dolly and I went to Bikini beach which the beach near my house. Its a nice beach because you can find shade. There is a lot of corral in the water, but there are patches of good swimming area.

There is an access on my street. Since the point is an elevated cliff area, there are stairs that cut into the rock and come out right where the sand meets the side of the cliff. We walk the beach a ways to get to the favorite swim spot.

There has been an influx of jellyfish lately, and Dolly got stung while we were there. She thinks its the first time she has been stung before. But it just causes a bit of itching for a while usually, nothing too bad. She didn't get too bad of a sting either.

Its a pretty relaxing activity! Dolly loves writting stuff in the sand, and you can see her starting to write my name in the sand there.

No photo for this one, but I'm actually using a Macbook Pro to do this blog. My laptop has been getting the infamous "Blue screen of death" fairly consistently this week. I was suspecting a hard drive problem, but I did a backup while in safe mode and it went fine. I am reformatting and hopefully the problem will be solved. It could have been a virus, I didn't have an antivirus for a while because the school doesn't offer a 64 bit version like BYU does.

I explained my plight to my roommate/landlord/business partner/friend, Wes, who offered to let me use a Macbook that he has. I took him up on the offer. He went and looked under a large pile of laundry, pulled this out, put it in a bag and said, "Use it, no one else does!" Its 4 months old, has a fast processor, 4 gigs of ram, etc...sweet machine, basically my dream computer right now. This makes me feel better because I was strongly tempted twice this week to buy a mac (I think I have become a believer!) but they cost SOO much! So, I may actually be using this quite a bit. We are going to load the Adobe Suite on here, and I will likely use it to do my projects on. Thanks Wes for saving me over $3000! Fixing my computer is suddenly not a top priority! :-)

There is an ongoing event at the school right now...BYUH Idol. Its amazing to see the talent at this school. The performances have been extremely entertaining. The first night, the theme was movie songs. Last night, it was "roots night" with people singing songs from their native country. My favorite last night was a guy from Thailand singing the song from Aladdin when Aladdin is running from the guards at the beginning, in his native language, complete with 10 or so character voices...hilarrious! Definately some great talent at this school. This years was better than last year. Last year there were some clear standouts but this year is proving to be a close competition between most of the contestants. We will see what happens!

My sister got married!

My sister Cassidy got married on the 13 September 2008. I was able to take a few days off of school and fly to Utah for the event. My D&C teacher wouldn't excuse the absence. Only sports are excused, not eternal marriages, although it seems to me that one of those is acually IN the D&C, but I can't be sure

I left Thursday night at 9:30. Well, 9:30 was when the plane was supposed to leave, but a faulty AC device kept us in Hawaii till 11. I sat next to a lady from Washington who was obviously drunk and she showed me ALL of her photos from her vacation with her family. When I landed, I was surprised how cold it was. I should have taken a jacket! As I waited for my parents, I looked up from my phone and Elder Richard G Scott walked right in front of me. Only in Utah! My parents picked me up and we went home. On the way home we drove and saw the new Draper Utah Temple, which kind of seems dwarfed by the huge homes going up on the point of the mountain. We took the road over the mountain and went back home through Alpine. We saw Grandpa out trimming trees, so we stopped and said hi. My mom and I made a trip to Costco, then I had some sleep before going to the temple.

Friday night we went to the Mount Timpanogos Temple so that Cassidy could go through for the first time. Grandma Northrup, Grandma and Grandpa Linebaugh, Karron and Jim, and my mom and Dad were there. Kevin had family there, although I can't recall who exactly was there. It was one of the first sessions in a while that I was extremely alert throughout the entire thing. I was pretty entertained watching my dad doze off! :)












In the morning, we left for the temple and pretty much went straight into the sealing room. This was my second time witnessing a live sealing. President Matthews from the ward was the sealer. He did an excellent job. He seemed efficient but personal at the same time and offered some really god insights and counsel for Cassidy and Kevin. I liked that the only counsel he gave to them was to obey their parents and continually seek their counsel.













We then went outside for the traditional "wait until the bride and groom come out" ceremony. I spent the time talking with the family and taking photos. I was using Cassidy's camera and my job was to get candids, which I sort of did, but most of them turned out to be more posed than I thought. I made sure to get a few photos of me at the wedding for the blog, since it is MY blog you are reading!

Following the wedding we went to the Bungalow for the luncheon. We had some delicious food. Chicken with sundried tomatoes, a salad that was better than the desert, some noodle thing, and lemon tarts and then some chocolate desert that was awesome. We cant forget the peach drink!

After the luncheon, we went home and got a chance to watch the BYU football game and get some food. BYU killed UCLA 59-0 or something like that. I also met some of Kevin's family who came to the house for some food.

Then we headed back to the Bungalow for the reception. It all went quite well. I just kind of walked around and took photos. and talked to people. People loved asking when my "turn" is...they were so creative. I also hung out with Sarah, our new "sister" from Germany. She didn't know anyone, so the wedding was pretty boring for her! It was fun to meet her.

After the reception, all the cousins and uncles gathered behind Kevin's car (Calli's Kevin) and had a dance. Everyone was laughing, but thats the way the Linebaugh family rolls! I got to see some of my buddies. Klark, Jon, and Nate took me and we watched August Rush outside at Nate's apartment. It was WAY cold! Fortunately, I survived thanks to Nate giving me a sweatshirt and then some girl lent me a blanket.

Sunday, I slept for a LONG time! I woke up for church which started at 1. We then got home and ate steak and pineapple. We then went to Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was kind of funny because I brought my laptop to do Cassidy's photos, Grandma and Grandpa had theirs out so I could show them some things, and Kris brought his. So we posed up for a photo to capture the moment! Kris has a new Macbook Pro...I'm jealous! I'm definitely turning into a Mac fan. I think the next computer I buy will be a Mac for sure! I can't believe I just said that.

After that, Carl and Kathy took me to Taco Amigo for a peach shake. I told Carl on Saturday that Cassidy refused to give me ONE bite of her peach shake (then immediately asked me for a favor...which I did! :) I guess she gets to be spoiled cuz its her wedding, ha ha), so he offered to get one for me. I got to ride in Brady's Jeep and we listened to some reggae tunes. I was a lot of fun. Thanks Linebaughs!

I flew back Monday. I misread the flight time, and we nearly didn't make it to the airport on time. I rode back with a nice guy from South Dakota, a social worker going to Hawaii for training. I told him about every place in Oahu I knew of, so he should have plenty to do. He returned the favor by passing along a cold he just caught, so I am dealing with that right now.