Let's start at the very beginning—a very good place to start

We got all our stuff packed into two rolling duffels and our backpack suitcase and headed to the airport.  Because we arrived there so early, we decided to walk as we had long flights ahead of us.  We got to our gate and Dad made a restroom stop.  I thought I heard our names paged.  As soon as he came out he headed to the gate agents who told him there was a problem.  We had a copy of a letter from immigration granting us entry into Samoa, and stating we would receive our visa upon arrival.  The gate agents said that wasn't good enough and the three of them made several calls to various people trying to get us on the flight to Los Angeles.  They finally printed out new boarding passes (which didn't work and we got the red lights at the gate) so we couldn't get on board.  We were so frustrated!!!  It had been two months since we had sent Immigration our info (more than once) and now this!!  Finally one of the agents was able to bypass something and was able to scan our passports and print out the third set of boarding passes which allowed us to get on that flight.

When we arrived at LAX we were a little unsure if New Zealand Air would give us the same problems.  We went to the ticket counter and we got an agent who seemed a bit grumpy.  All we could think of was maybe we'd have to rent a car and drive to see Kris and Jenn in Oceanside if they wouldn't let us on board the flight.  She actually was wonderful and got our seats changed to an aisle and middle seat instead of the two seats in the middle of four.  And she didn't even question our visa at all!  We truly have been blessed!!  While we were waiting for our flight a young lady sat down next to me and starting talking.  Turns out she was a missionary heading home from the Portland mission.  She was going home to Tonga.  We hung out together until we got on the plane and then again after arriving in Auckland.  Our flight wasn't too bad (12.5 hrs) and we actually dozed quite a bit during the night.  Kind of restless dozing, but way better than any previous flights.  We arrived in Auckland, helped the cute sister missionary get through security and headed up to our gate for our last leg which was 3.5 hrs.  At the gate we met up with two senior missionary couples heading to Apia for the start of their mission.  Such a small world!  Here is our first view of Samoa!  And another just prior to landing.

We made it through Immigration and customs with no problem at all!!!
We were picked up by someone from the university who took us to the Digicell store so we could get sim cards for our phones.  Then we called Karoline (landlady) so we could get the key to our rental
home.  She didn't answer for about an hour. So our driver took us to the home thinking maybe she was there.  Finally she drove up and we got the key and she dropped us off at a tiny market so we could pick up a few items of food and bottles of water.  We got a taxi to take us back home and tried to unlock the door but it wouldn't work.  We called Karoline several times and finally she came an hour later and said she'd given us the wrong key.  Here are a couple of pics of our grocery bags in front of the house while we waited and one of the front yard.

We got ready to light the propane stove with the matches we bought at the market and realized they were lost or the cashier didn't give them to us.  So we ate cold soup from the cans, breakfast crackers and water.  We went to bed thinking we were going to find a different place to live in the morning.