Christmas at the Beach

Our version of white Christmas this year was white sand not white snow!
And you will notice it was enhanced with a beautiful blue sky!
Nothing I am used to but definitely how it is done when Christmas comes around in the summer instead of the winter. We found it was very easy to adjust our traditions!
The real reason we went out to this beach was for a Christmas lunch buffet. We were invited to a Fijian feast called a LOVO. This is a traditional method of cooking all the food in the ground.

And here is our chef de jour -- Elder Fitch!
He is an amazing cook and he had been planning this get-together for weeks.
He and a few other Elders got to the beach at about 8 am, dug a 2 or 3 foot deep hole in the sand and filled it up with hot stones and lots of food wrapped in coconut palm leaves, buried it all and by the time we arrived at about 11:30am, served it all right off the trunkbed of their truck -- quite the production.

Here is a little closer look at the buffet table which included roasted chicken and roasted squash.

This meal was delicious!!! Honestly, the chicken was so moist and tender and the squash was the best I have ever eaten. Now, the stuff just below my hand is some kind of tomatoes and corned beef and onions wrapped in some kind of native leaf. I avoided eating it after I heard from some of the other Elders that that green leaf makes your throat sting when you swallow it. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to some of the native dishes.

There were lots of other Elders (probably about 12) and a set of Sisters and 9 senior missionaries so we had lots of company to enjoy the holiday celebration with. Here is one of the local Fijian missionaries. I wish I could remember his name. I am terrible with the Fijian names though Paul can pronounce and remember them, thank goodness! There are about 25 local young men and women serving their missions here. We really enjoy their company and I'm especially grateful for the name badges they usually wear (oops, I forgot to wear mine too!


After the feasting, there were other activities taking place like volleyball, rugby, ukelele strumming, singing, visiting and laughing. It was great to hang out with these hardworking,
hard playing, dedicated representatives of the Gospel.
We stayed for about an hour and then we needed to get back to our computer so we could Skype with our kids and grandkids on their Christmas eve. That was truly the highlight of our whole Christmas. All our family was together laughing, playing and we even got them to sing Christmas carols to us. We loved being able to participate in two totally opposite special events on totally opposite sides of the world! Amazing!




But as the sun set on our unique Christmas experience with our "missionary family" we were grateful to be where we are, doing what we are doing and knowing that this is just a small moment in time and before too long we will be back home and these days will just be precious memories.