The Little Ones

How grateful I am for God's children.

How grateful I am to BE one of God's children.

Each is precious.

Each is unique.

Each is special.

"... wherefore I love little children with a perfect love, and they are all alike and partakers of salvation."

-Moroni 8:17

My recent travels gave me the beautiful opportunity to interact with some of God's children across the world. It was such a blessing to see their smiles, feel of their happy spirits, and be on the receiving end of their warm hugs. Their are some seriously big hearts filled with a lot of love in these tiny little bodies.

Miss Casey made an adorable special friend at our clinic in Fiji :)

Major highlight of my trip was this moment right here. As I checked the heart and lung sounds of all the children at this primary school, I would finish by putting the stethoscope into their ears so that they could listen to the sound of their own heartbeat. The looks of enlightenment and amazement on their faces as they listened was... unforgettable. Priceless. Rewarding. Incredible. Inspiring. Its an experience I will absolutely never forget.

Everywhere we went with big groups of kids, we tried to teach games that they could play later on with their friends. We played LOTS of quack-diddly-oso/down by the banks (wow i've never tried spelling that before... its not easy) which the kids just ate up. They loved it.
On this day in Eua we entertained these kids for hours playing those clapping games, along with (attempting) to teach them the cup game.

Teaching the 16 kids on this tiny island how to play the clapping games. We hope they remember the songs that go along with them!

The little boys love to play marbles. So fun to just sit back and watch them.

This sweet little girl quickly became my bud. She plopped down in my lap and the rest was history.

Wherever we were, the kids loved to have their picture taken so that we could turn the camera around and they could see themselves on screen. Thats definitely something they easily have in common with American children. They loooove seeing themselves :)

Teaching in the schools was easily one of the highlights on this trip. All in all we met hundreds and hundreds of kids ranging from about 3-years-old to high school age.

The day at this preschool was pretty rough. We could barely get these munchkins to crack a smile. We even made one girl burst into frightened tears when we were playing London Bridge is Falling Down... oops!

Ahhhh they are all just so beautiful! I couldn't get enough of them!

It doesn't matter where we are from, or what we look like. It doesn't matter if we are rich or poor. It doesn't matter if we are shy or quickly befriend strangers. It doesn't matter if we have perfect bodies or if we fit it with everyone else. 

We are all children of a loving Heavenly Father who wants the very best for us. I know that that is the truth. I'm thankful for these Tongan children who helped remind me of those truths and filled me with more happiness than I could have ever imagined.

Quick shameless shout to my absolute favorite kids in the world! Aka the ones who call me Aunt Nettie :)

I Won The Tie-Dye Award

No but seriously, I did win the tie-dye award.

Each night in Fiji/Tonga two or three girls were given awards for various things such as the "mamma award" for being so good with all the kids or the "survivor award" for putting up with so many injuries that week or the "daredevil award" for being so brave and adventurous during that day's outing. Anyway, you get the picture. One of the awards I was given one night was the "tie-dye award" because yes, I was known for my shirts of many colors throughout the trip. I can't help it, i'm just a colorful person. 

And dude here's the deal. Tonga is HOT. And you sweat a lot. My logic before leaving was that i'd just tie-dye all my old white shirts different colors and wear those through the whole trip so that you'd never really be able to tell how dirty and gross I was. Well, I think it worked pretty well! But then you see all my pictures, and it seriously looks like I wore the same technicolor shirt the entire 3 1/2 weeks. Guys: I promise I didn't. I promise I showered. I promise I did laundry. I promise I rotated through my several different articles of clothing throughout the whole trip. But yeah, it was a whole lot of tie-dye. 

And I still love it all. 

Shirt #1

Shirt #2

Shirt #3

Shirt #4

Shirt #5

And then there's one of my new Tonga buddies, Casey, who likes to give me a hard time. Despite her sarcastic teasing i'm still missing her and the rest of them like CRAZY.

P.S. All credit goes to my favorite missionary Sister Rachel Thompson for making me the tie-dye master that I am. She taught me everything I know and instilled the love of tie-dye in me :)

Busses, Cars, Boats, and Broomsticks

I already told y'all about the bagillion plane rides we took between the states and Fiji and Tonga, but I have yet to mention our other modes of transportation - there were many. Let me explain.

BUS

I can't count the number of times we filed on and off of busses over the course of this trip. They were our main source of transportation, especially on days when we were going to a hospital or to the main market in town. Here's the tricky thing though: in Tonga the busses follow no schedule. It kinda seems like they just come and go as they please, so you never know how long you'll be waiting around at a bus stop before your ride comes. And they'll stop anywhere along the road to pick someone up... no matter how full the bus already is. I've never seen so many people packed into one tight space before. No matter how full to capacity it seemed, we always made room for more. You gotta get real friendly with the people around you real quick! My favorite parts though were the holes in the sagging bus floor (can you imagine the scene if the floor in one of those full busses gave way cruisin' along the road?!) and the office bell that had a string attached to it that was pulled whenever someone had to get off. So creative, and quite effective.

I wasn't joking about the holes in the floor...

Some bus rides were pretty nice. Others caused people to fold over in ways that make you wonder where in the world their heads have gone.

The Liahona transportation bus was always the best. Roomy seating and AC say whaaaaaaat. Definitely a luxury.

This was the bus we took on the daily to get to the hospital for clinical. Often times the door either remained ajar or had at least one person hanging out of it. On this day I scored a seat right by the door and took all that refreshing wind I could get.

The very last bus we took. Off to the Tongan International Airport, homeward bound!

CAR

I'm a firm believer in seat belts. Always have been. I was that child who wouldn't let mom start the car until she put her own seatbelt on. And with how many times dad has climbed behind the wheel and told everyone to "buckle-zee-nupsin!" (the guy practically has his own language) how could it not be automatic? But Tonga mighta knocked that safe habit right out of me. At least for the duration of the trip. Why? Because seat belts were either unavailable or broken enough to be ineffective.

When we couldn't get busses, we rode in cars driven by locals. And that usually turned out to be quite the adventure. Oh and let me tell ya what, it threw me for a loop to see the driver on the right side of the car, driving on the left side of the road. So many times I thought for sure we were going to die because we were going around the roundabout the "wrong" way. Whew. Weird.

Probably my favorite was the time we rented a taxi to get to church. The driver pulled up in his white van and Debs asked him how many people he could take. After he told us seven, we stepped back, surveyed the car, and decided we could jigsaw puzzle all 16 of us in that baby. And we DID. Double stuffed big white van. Done and done.

On our day trip tour around Eua (which will have a blog post all to itself) we split up between two cars and hit the road. While we may have taken a few too much off-roading risks in these beat up pieces of junk, it was super fun. I thought so, at least. Who doesn't like to fear for their life as the car roars and sputters trying to make it up a huge hill? I mean come on.

At least we rode IN the cars. This was not an uncommon sight everywhere we went. Along with cars packed full of tiny little children all squished into a back seat. Or drivers with babies sitting or standing on their laps. Or babies standing all alone in the passenger seat. *Shudder* I am happy that clicking that belt in was an automatic for me as soon as I climbed back into an American vehicle. 

Well, I guess there was that one time in Fiji when we rode in the flatbed part of a truck on some wood benches. That one was just good fun though :)

VIDEO OF THE TRUCK RIDE

BOAT

Those of you who stay up-to-date on my blog, you already know about spider raft. Eesh. I'll never forget this thing.

Kayaks! Even though my fear of whales was spurred on a Kayak when I was like 12, our day kayaking in Vava'u was soooo fun. We saw jellyfish. And a gigantic bee. And bluuuuue blue blue water. Kayaking > canoeing by a longshot. Just saying.

While in Vava'u, we spent an entire day with the community nurses traveling from tiny island to tiny island (again, this'll get its own blog post eventually). Twenty people. One boat. THIS boat. Imagine yourself in vast open ocean water with a lot of other people on this mini beast. I'll tell you right now, you sit wherever you fit. And half the people only fit on the roof soooo, there ya go.

Finally, whenever we weren't flying or bussing or driving or boating, we were flying on our broomsticks.

Obviously.

Boy Meets World

Fact about me: I love television shows.

I love movies, too.

But there is something about a good TV show that really gets me. 

Thorough character development and good story telling is what reels me in.

Maybe i've been known to watch entire seasons of shows in a matter of a few days or weeks (LOST {twice}, Arrested Development, Grey's Anatomy, One Tree Hill, Friday Night Lights {twice}, the list continues).

Huge waste of time? 

Maybe.

Also totally worth it?

Uh, chyea.

In my earliest memories, I can remember watching two shows pretty religiously with my mom. 7th Heaven was one of them, and unfortunately when it hit its 179th season it went off the rails wacko with weirdo post-heart attack Pastor Camden and sweet little Ruthy turning into kind of a bad girl (please tell me i'm the only one who felt pain when all that went down). Anyway, thats not one that'll go down in history as an endlessly great classic.

But the other show we watched was pure gold from beginning to end. We're talkin' Boy Meets World here my friends. Hands down my favorite childhood show. Heck, my favorite teenage and now adult show. I distinctly remember many afternoons laying on my mom's bed after school watching a new episode together and my dad coming in the room to see Cory and Topanga kissing on screen and him saying, "WHAT are you guys watching?! This isn't appropriate!" I just rewatched the entire series from start to finish. All seven seasons. And it was magical. I smiled. I laughed. And heck yes, I cried. When I watched the series finale the other day I was a little bit embarrassed by the tears coursing down my face as I said goodbye to Cory, Topanga, Shawn, Mr. Feeny, and so many more. I can't help it. Watching those kids progress from elementary school to college, it is almost like you went through life with them as their friends and you know everything about them and love them as people. I know its just a show, I know. But i'm telling you, there is a special bond here. It is so interesting to watch these episodes now that I have grown up (a bit) and catching things that I never caught before; certain themes and jokes and undertones that went right over my head when I was a kid. It was just so FUN to relive the whole thing again.

NEWS FLASH for those who don't already know: Disney is releasing a new show in 2014 that will be called Girl Meets World. Now now, before you get too upset, know this: Cory and Topanga will both be returning to the series as the parents of a little girl. Also, this new series has the same writer and producer as Boy Meets World did back in the day. Disney, I beg of you, please don't screw this up. Please.

Here's to hoping for the best.

It is impossible to choose favorites with this show, but this episode might be my #1 pick. Eric Matthews just steals the show with his sneak attacks. And poor Jack's disgust with Eric is so great. Plus there are bloopers at the end of the episode, which they only ever do twice in the entire series. Its worth the 20 minute watch, even if you've never seen any of the other episodes. So. Dang. Funny. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, the best parts are at these times: 4:04-5:03, 8:00-8:33, 9:57-10:50, 12:59-14:57, BLOOPER: 19:53-21:26. Okay so thats a lot of best parts... but at least watch the last one and I dare you not to laugh. Maybe its only really funny if you know the characters and their whole story buuuuuut yeah I don't know, its all good stuff.

And here's the finale that made me cry like a baby, the very last scene especially:

Other great moments!

The Feeny Call:

WARRRR, what is it good for?:

Hot stuff guys' dance:

Topanga's dance (start at 1 min):

The moment Eric turned hot:

Okay, I could go on and on and on... and on. But i'll spare you. Actually y'all should just go watch the WHOLE SHOW (conveniently located on YouTube) and join in my joy of the greatness that is Boy Meets World.