Super Saturdays

Saturday the 6th we decided that we needed to support the Guam GATE program. They were performing Cinderella. The cast came from all the High Schools on Guam. Our own Brother Ching was the percusionist in the orchestra and we wanted to see him in action. We invited Sister Miyazaki to go with us. We went to dinner at Caliente, a great mexican restaurant, and then headed to the theater. The play was really good. There are some really talented young people on the island. Brother Ching was quite entertaining also. There was so much use of percusions in the music and you could see in his face that he loves what he does. I wish that we had had our camera with us. The sets were great, especially the pumpkin carriage.

During the week I again got my exercise cleaning an apartment. We have been looking for an apartment for a senior couple who will be coming Dec. 8th. Since we moved the sisters down south to keep that apartment from molding again, we have an empty apartment here in our building. Our landlord was supposed to let us know if there will be an opening here but so far we have not heard from her soooooo we decided to put the Hertzburgers in the sisters apartment. Of course I want them to have a clean place. After apartment inspections Elder Clarke will be painting. We have had the apartment for 5 years so it does need a little freshening up. Since it is on a month to month lease now they can decide if that place is okay or they would like to move somewhere else. At least the decision will not be ours. If we do not put them there we will have to sign a one year lease somewhere else and they will be stuck with what we have chosen. Too much pressure for me!

Friday night we visited with an investigator who is having trouble giving up his last 4 cigarettes. He had decided to try the patch and we were excited to see if it helped. Unfortunately, he could not get it until he has a physical. He is scheduled for this week. He is a tremendous person and has a great testimony of the gospel and is anxious to be baptized.

So that brings us again to a super Saturday. We started the day off early. It was our turn to clean the church. Brother Ching is our team leader and he usually calls to give us the time. Since he was so involved with Cinderella he forgot to call everybody. We figured he would be starting early since he has in the past. We showed up at 7am and found Brother Ching and his sister (who was just visiting him!). They had been there since 5:30am. He said that since he had not called anyone he knew no one would come and he had to be to work that morning. WE LOVE BROTHER CHING. He is the one that is always there, always doing what needs to be done.

Brother Ching left and we took a couple hours to finish up the work. As we were getting ready to leave one person showed up ready to work. Lucky her! We headed for home to clean up and then head south.

When we first arrived on the island I had read about Gef Pago Village and wanted to check it out. We went down to Inarajan to see what it was but there was an entrance fee and it really did not look worth paying for. This week they were holding a story telling festival at Gef Pago - and it was free! We decided to take Flat Macayela to check things out.


We arrived just in time to take the shuttle to the old area of Inarajan. If you look real close you can see Flat Macayela looking out the window.

Flat Macayela met Angie and her grandson Sean Diego. Angie is an original resident of Inarajan.
As we walked around the old area she told about the buildings and the people who had lived there. Inarajan is one of the oldest villages on Guam. It used to be a thriving area but did not weather the typhoons very well.
This was a very large home that has totally been neglected. So sad.

Macayela stopped to check out the roosters. There were about 5 cages with some really pretty roosters. The owner came over while we were looking. He said that he raises them for Cock fighting.

Even though most of the buildings are in various stages of ruin, the historical society has done these murals to show what the buildings were used for. This building had been a clinic, a post office, a store and tailor shop.

This is one of the oldest structures in the village. Originally it had a thatched roof and was open air on the bottom. Ifil wood posts were stuck into the ground and then a floating floor was installed. The ifil wood is a very hard, strong wood and many of the houses had these posts that were 100 years old. They were in perfect condition. It is termite proof and although the rest of the house may have rotted away, the posts still stood strong. The Spanish came in and put the stone walls on the bottom. It made a cool place for storage. The tin roofs replaced the thatched roof sometime after the war.

Flat Macayela liked all the flowers that she found along the way.

This was the house that Angie grew up in. In 1976 there was a huge typhoon that destroyed the house and over the years the foilage has taken over. There is a tree growing inside the house now. Angie's mother was an entraprenuer (however you spell it) and ran several businesses. There was a retail store, post office and little soda shop in the first floor of the home. She also had a farm and they fished and sold the fish. According to Angie her mother worked 24/7 and the kids worked almost as much. Angie's father was a teacher and she said that she decided she would never be a business person. She wanted the schedule that her father had. She and her siblings all went into education. She was a principle and when she retired she started farming and looking for a business that she could get into.

After our tour of the old town, we finally went into Gef Pago Village. There are several little huts set up to show the old Chamorro ways. Macayela liked the old mode of transportation, although the caribao's motor seemed to be idling at the time.

Again, we saw the Spanish influence. This little beehive oven was an example of the way they baked. There was a man making bread. They were baked to perfection.

There is a pavilion where they do performances and we were lucky to be able to see a group of kids singing and dancing. They are one of ten groups throughout the island who study the old Chamorro ways so that they preserve their culture. The performance was so good. Wayne filmed just a small portion of the dance. Notice the little guy. He was so CUTE.






After the kids performed, Angie gave memories of growing up in the village. As she talked I kept thinking about Hillary Clinton's "It takes a village to raise a child". Angie talked about how everyone was family and if you did something at one end of the village, your parents would know by the time you made it home. She felt her parents were very strict but realizes that it contributed to successful adults.

After Angie spoke, there was a group of storytellers who were supposed to give a feel for the history of the area. The first man was interesting but then it started going downhill. It got a bit raunchy and we decided it was time to go.

When we got home we quickly did Saturday chores and then decided to go to Chili's for dinner because we had a coupon which expired on the 15th. We were a little disappointed that the free appetizer turned out to be restricted to either an artichoke dip or the queso dip. We had used this coupon before and Wayne made a meal out of the appetizer we got. Oh well, not as good as we had hoped but we ordered and then waited. And waited. They finally brought out the appetizer which we finished off and then waited for our food. And waited. The waitress came by to apologize for the wait. And we waited. The manager finally came over and told us she had just found out that we had been waiting a half hour for our food and she comped the whole meal. What a great way to end a Super Saturday.

Today was another good day. We had decided that we should invite the men in our Branch who are here on their own to come for dinner. We had an older man who has been here 1 1/2 years without his wife, a younger man who is waiting for his family to come and two single guys. We had a great afternoon getting to know them better.