A Weekend to Remember

Our week started out calm, but ended up with Fiji's worst Cyclone in history.  In this photo below, we are on the Ferry (from our two weeks away visiting other islands), having just stopped at the beautiful harbor at Savusavu, before travelling onward through the night to our home in Suva. We were on the ferry for a total of 24 hours!  It felt good to return to our Fiji home.

After arriving in Suva about 6am, we got home and did our laundry, and ran a few errands, and then went out to lunch with our good friends, the Stanfords, who we hadn't see for some time.

After lunch, we then drove for 3.5 hours to the west side of the main island of Fiji, to prepare for our week's work doing eye care on that side of the island.

We checked into this interesting,
but nice resort called, "First Landing".  

Just off the coast of where we were staying
is this cute little island, shaped liked a foot.
It's called "Big Foot Island".  We had fun
walking on it, and snorkeling off of it.

The outdoor restaurant has the same name.

It was pretty at night.

Here's a few photos
of the resort.

This week, we worked at three different churches on the west side of the main island; one in Tavua, one in Lautoka, and one in Nadi.

There were line ups again, at each city.

We had to, unfortunately, turn
people away at the end of each day.

We saw almost 100 patients each day.

Checking in the patients......

We both loved this young girl.
Fortunately she didn't need any glasses.

This 74 year old lady, said that she had been
praying for us to come, and that her prayer
had been answered. She wanted to be able to
see her genealogy work better, so we got her
some better glasses!

At the end of the day, this fine young Bishop
who had heard Rick likes to arm wrestle,
put out the challenge, and Rick took it!

Working it....

Although it looks like Rick may be beating
him, this Bishop kept his unbeaten record
intact!

These two young boys really wanted to help
us out carrying our boxes of glasses back to
our vehicle at the end of the day.

Bishop still had enough energy to carry our
boxes....

On Saturday, the youth from all the surrounding islands came to put on a cultural celebration in Suva, for the opening of the newly renovated Fiji Temple.   It was quite an extravaganza.

Pres. Eyring and Elder Cook were in
attendance.

We were privileged to help Susan Stanford in the mission home, prepare the food for President Eyring & Elder Cook and all of their security, technical people and other dignitaries.  Sister Layton is the mission president's wife and I enjoyed working along side her much of the three days we came to help.

Susan doing what she does best!

At the end of the first evening, we were blessed
to have our photo taken with President Erying
and Elder Cook, along with the Fijian YSA
who helped serve.

Saturday started off fairly normal but as the day

progressed, we heard more and more about the

onslaught of Cyclone Winston.  Because of a curfew

put out and because stores, transportation, etc. all closing, 

the cultural celebration was cut short and we headed

back to the mission home to finish feeding everyone.

By late afternoon things were getting bad......

 As we drove home for the evening, we saw the beginnings of the storm. We hunkered down for a long dark night and listened to the howling of the wind and debris hitting our house.  Our power had gone out so we sat in the dark and waited till bed-time.   We had water coming in through our windows and ceiling.  The winds howled all night and the rain came in sheets.  It was very scary at times, but the winds started to subside early in the morning.
When we awoke we assessed our damage...

We lost our beloved banana tree!

Another of our trees went through our 
fence and onto the road.

As we drove around we saw more
 damage on every street.  We felt very blessed
to have been protected and also to have been
able to experience something like this!

We headed toward the temple to help with
food again and also to attend the dedication.
We found the temple to be safe and unharmed.

Well, this weekend has been one we may not likely forget.  The contrast of having the special experience meeting President Eyring and Elder Cook who came for the temple dedication, and then having the adventure of surviving Cyclone Winston.  As we wait for power and water to return, we can truly say this is one for the history book.