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 Week 30

Area Communication Seminar

9 March 2025


I know we said we were busy last week, but we lied. This week topped last week. We have been working for three months to plan, prepare, and pull-off the annual communication/public affairs seminar. That means arranging for the flights of 30 people from every Pacific island, helping them process visas, negotiating with a venue for all the rooms and convention services, planning the program, swag, meals for everyone, and assigning topics to panel members and presenters. Thankfully, with the Lord's help, it all worked out great. Mostly because the people who came are wonderful, faithful, and committed saints.


We started the week by bringing the Area communication leaders together for a "Team Building" trip to Rotarua . We went to an elevated redwood tree walk, (bridged walk ways between redwood trees), Maitai cultural experience, gondola ride and yes, for the third time in seven months, Hobbiton.



These are such great people. We love working closely with them.


On Thursday all the communication directors arrived and we started our three day seminar of training, sharing and instruction. We covered topics like:

How to developed and keep relationships with the media, inter-faith, and government officials.
How to do an Easter Inter-faith dinner event.
Working with your priesthood leaders.
Training your stake communication directors
Taking quality pictures
Writing quality stories
Disaster response communication
The list goes on.



Kelly's traditional Simon Says.


Most of the group during the seminar.



We bused everyone to the Auckland Temple open house.
The humor in the picture below is that we just had a training on taking quality pictures using the correct lighting. We did everything wrong. The picture below has hard light, not soft with no effort to defuse or bounce hard direct light. Look at the shadows!! We were laughing as we took the picture.



Kelly:  There we so many inspiring things that happened during the seminar. I will mention just one. This young sister in the middle with the black sweater is a brand new national communication director from Tahiti and was just called 10 days before the seminar. We really wanted to get her to come. (Another miracle is how we booked flights and got her Visa in 10 days)  While we were video chatting with her, we found out she speaks very little English. She got teary during the call and with the help of Google translate she expressed she was afraid to travel alone and participate in an English speaking conference. We re-assured her we would figure out a way to make it work. When she arrived for the Thursday night kick-off dinner, everyone just wrapped their arms around her, used Google translate and made her feel very loved and welcome. She said the spirit told her she could do this and she felt peace. We set up a Teams video for her in the room and downloaded an app so that she could read everything being said in French.  (Technology is amazing!) We also found out she understands more than she speaks. She was a completely different person when she left. It was inspiring to watch the change. Love changes people.


Best if you just don't ask about this one. There is a video but it will never be released. The term Haka took on a whole new meaning.


Launette did much better with Poi then the men did with the Haka.



Wonderful people, the Samuela's. They were in charge of media day and the invited guest at the temple open house.  They have served as the Auckland Coordinating Council communication directors for 12 years. Beautiful hearts, very talented, so skilled as communication directors and are scheduled to be released next week. They will be missed.





Launette:  Meet Solomone Kauamatotoia from Fiji, my cousin!!!! The last activity of the day was pulling up "Relatives Around Me" on Family Search. We laughed for 30 minutes at who was related to whom in a room full of 40 people from 12 different islands. Solomone's grandfather was from Scotland.  We hugged and laughed and hugged again. There was a reason I connected with him.


All of these people are related! We are from Tonga, Fiji, US, England, and New Zealand. So interesting!!



Launette:  This is Lavinia and Solomone Kaumatotoia from Fiji. They are the most kind, loving, genuine people you will meet. We feel like we have 40 new best friends. This seminar was an interesting process for me. In the planning stages, these people were just names on a spreadsheet. As we meet together and shared thoughts, testimonies, and experiences, I fell in love with them. At the end of the week, I loved them as a bother or sister with an eternal perspective.

Mission life is good. We love what we are doing. How can we be happy and still miss you all? I don't understand it. I think my heart is expanding, not shifting. :)

We love you all and miss you.

Elder and Sister Shaw





Comments

  1. NoreneMarch 9, 2025 at 5:34 PM

    For the umpteenth time we note how inspired this mission call is for you. What beautiful experiences you are having. Thank you for sharing. Love you and miss you like crazy!!

    ReplyDelete

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