Aloha Oi Hawaii

By now most of you have heard that we have moved to American Samoa (ya, it’s a real place, go look it up on a map). After some quick packing and a lot of prayer we arrived here safe and sound on May 20th. On the 16th, which was the Sunday prior to our departure we were greeted at church by our wonderful bishop Schlag.( We believe he was asking questions in regards to a few possible callings, that’s really why we left so hastily J) “Hello bishop! “ “and how are the Hydes today?” “we’re doing great, thanks, and yourself.” “doing well, Congratulations on your graduation.” “ Thanks bishop, it’s been a long time in the making!” “Well congratulations, and how long are you planning on sticking around now that school is finished?” “ we’ll we’re not quite sure about that, we’re still waiting for a little direction but when we know, you’ll know.” “ I appreciate that. You two have a great Sabbath.” “ You too bishop”……that was the last time we ever saw bishop Schlag . Which reminds me, I need to let him know we’ve moved.

Anyway, that got us thinking, we need to make some plans. So we arrived home from church with a bit of an uneasy feeling. As we were discussing this feeling Matthew blurted out, “lets move to Samoa.” To which I offered a sarcastic “ um, okay, I’ll start packing.” Surprisingly, Matthew was serious. As we applied reason to this seemingly unreasonable decision it truly started to make sense, that’s when we knew we were in trouble. So we decided to leave it to the Lord. We decided to go and prayed that the Lord would confirm our choice if it was right.

With our prayer said, Matthew set off to choir practice like the valiant saint that he is and I stayed behind to chat with family online. Several minutes passed and I got a phone call in Samoan! My friend Jen Fiso from back home called and started talking to me in Samoan with such a thick accent that I had no idea even who it was. Once I figured out who I was talking to I told her we were thinking about moving to American Samoa, and by the end of the conversation we had a place to live and someone to pick us up at the airport. …..The Lord has such a sense of humor!

When Matthew returned from choir practice we started making our list of what needed to be done by Thursday at 5 o’clock pm HST. Why Thursday you may ask? Because that was the next flight leaving for American Samoa, and we were going to be on it!