Church Leaders Visit LDS Primary School

Samabula, Suva -

Church leaders and students singing Fiji’s national anthem at the opening of their devotion. 

15 Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints visited the LDS Primary School on Tuesday March 17 to meet with the school management, teachers and students and to speak to them at a special devotion. This is part of the bi -annual visits by leaders to the school to see how the students were doing and discuss with teachers and management how they could be better supported to accomplish the vision and goals of the school .

Principal of LDS Church College, Dr Michael Carthew with Mereisi Talemaitoga the Principal of LDS Primary School and Gerald Nathan the Vice Principal.

President Alipate Tagidugu the president of the Nausori Stake counselled the teachers that they were teaching future bishops and stake leaders. “ Let’s love them from the bottom of our hearts and exercise faith so that miracles can happen in your classrooms, ‘ he said.

President Maika Seru of Suva North Stake asked the students to have an “inquisitive mind,to learn more in depth and learn by study and by faith.

The school has a roll of 450 students.

Fiji Latter-day Saint Youth Spell Out Their 2015 Theme

SUVA, FIJI —

Students at the Fiji Latter-day Saint College in Suva recently showed their creativity by forming the word “Embark” on their school rugby field.

“Embark” is the 2015 theme for Latter-day Saint youth around the world.

Students from the LDS College in Suva, Fiji create the word "Embark" on the school's rugby field in March 2015. "Embark" is a reference to the school's theme for 2015 which suggests that young people have the opportunity to embark in service to others.

The theme is: “Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day” (D&C 4:2).

Salote Maiwiriwiri, the Vice-Principal of the school, said, “Our student leaders were trying to find a way of working together. We had a retreat and the theme was 'Confidence in Leadership.' The aim was to help each student leader understand how each one can touch certain students for the better."

For Emma Aitcheson, Deputy Head Girl of the school, "the word 'embark' reminds us of a journey and in the journey each person faces challenges and trials."

Head Girl, Savaira Veikoso, agrees. "In 2015 all the students of the school have embarked on a journey together to fulfil the school’s vision where 'every student succeeds every day academically, socially, spiritually and physically.'"

Each Friday the student leaders organise activities in houses to reinforce the school’s vision. Last Friday the challenge for the leaders was to practise their instructional and directive skills where they designed something beautiful and then put all their work into a collage of all their work.This required their creative skills and their confidence to pull it off. The leaders agreed to use the students to display the word "embark" on the rugby field of the school.

Students were invited to sacrifice their lunch time to do this so each class was assigned a letter to form. School leaders say it was chaotic at first but the final outcome is what you find on the photo where the 7th Form students formed the hashtag before the word embark.

Lewatu Kaumaitotoya, a new student in Form 7, said that she learnt the importance of cooperation and unity from this activity.

Watch a video about Latter-day Saints and education.

Elder David Bednar Counsels Service Centre Staff to ‘’ Buckle Up “

Suva, Fiji -

Staff of the 07 Service Centres in the Pacific Area were last week fortunate to be part of an Area broadcast with Elder David Bednar and his wife Susan in which he counselled all “buckle up “ as ‘the Lord is hastening his work. “

He said that it was “all about change” The purpose of education was for one to learn and change and the purpose of the gospel was also one of learning and changing and that we all needed to change.

“The patterns of the past was not going to work in the future and all will change so staff need to buckle up and be prepared for the changes. “

Elder Bednar was visiting Australia and New Zealand last week with Elder Robbins.

Sia Maiwiriwiri said that her take-away from the devotion ‘was a greater desire to do more and more and more to help build the kingdom not only in my callings but my role as wife and mother to get my family to do way more, more, more because we have no time to waste so we need to buckle up with the Lord.

‘Elder Bednar’s counsel regarding our dear prophet Joseph was not only inspiring but strengthens my testimony that Joseph Smith is indeed a Prophet of God! I loved what he said that if we come across things in our studying church history and what’s available on the internet and it weakens our faith and testimony, well it wasn’t strong to begin with, said Sia .

Meli Racava the Travel Coordinator said that from the devotion he learnt the importance of learning Church history.