Fiji South Pacific Conference

 On December 1, 2014 we headed for Fiji for an Area Conference with all Welfare Service Missionaries and Welfare Managers.  We were very excited to go and maybe have a little more variety in shopping, especially in the food grocery stores.  There are so many things we are unable to get here in Tonga.  When we arrived to the airport in Tongatapu, we learned that our flight to Suva, Fiji was delayed for two hours, which made us miss our connecting flight to Nadi, Fiji.  When we flew into Suva, the Fiji Airlines set us up in a very nice hotel and provided us with vouchers for our supper and breakfast the next morning.  It was a very nice hotel and the bed was wonderful, but still no bathtub.  Charmain was sad about that!  The next morning on to Nadi, a short flight, then to our hotel that was close by the airport in Nadi.  It was very very nice, but bed was not near as nice as the one the night before.

We had a wonderful conference directing us on the projects that would be good in our areas, especially Diabetes Projects.  Diabetes in the South Pacific Area is almost at epidemic.  Here in Tonga 60% of adults have diabetes.  We are to try and work projects that will help the people to change their habits in eating and watching more closely their intake, more exercise as well.
Following is some photos of this conference and the hotel that we were at.

These were the people at the conference in Fiji.  Standing to the right of me is Sister Winters and her husband is in the back center.  They are our bosses from New Zealand.  On the front row at the left is Ana, our Welfare Manager in Tonga and next to her Luisa form New Zealand, she is Assistant  Area Welfare Manager.  The man on the right in the back row is Hans Sorenson, he is the Area Welfare Manager for the South Pacific.  They are all wonderful people.  I wish that I could remember all their names but I am unable to do that.

This is our first dinner night out.  It was a Thai and Indian Restaurant.  It was some interesting food, but very different.

This is our second night out to dinner it was very good.  It had New Zealand steaks that were very expensive.  Kent of course had fish, it was very good and I had chicken cordon blue.  It was wonderful, even the chicken!

This is the hotel we stayed in for our conference in Fiji

This is the slide into the pool.  We thought it was pretty cool.

Here is the pool.  It looked so inviting, but we never did have time off enough to get into it.

This is the gardens in the back of the reception area of the hotel.

More gardens at the hotel.  The flowers were so pretty.

Here we are shopping after our last dinner.  They had some nice little shops to look in.  We almost thought we were back in San Diego at the harbour shopping area!

This is down town of a little town by the air port in Suva.  We had about 3 hours of waiting so we got a taxi and walked around.  It was not the greatest shops, kind of like what we have in Tonga, only on a larger scale.

This the view from our last night out for dinner, a very nice restaurant on the bay.  Across the bay are very beautiful homes.  The food here was also very good.  Elder Winters and Hans Sorenson ordered a huge platter of  all kinds of fish that they shared.  It was $85.  There was a whole fish that they ate the body and then Ana ask if she could have the head.  She pick the eyes out and the lips and ate them.  We were shocked, but she says they are delicious.