Church in Samoa

Church is a huge part of the culture. Pretty much everyone here goes to church every Sunday. Church is one of my favorite parts of the week. As pretty much everyone reading this already knows, I’m LDS (mormon) and so I attend the LDS church regularly.  But I have been trying to attend all the churches just to get to know people and get my face out there, if you will.  On Sunday morning almost everyone in the village can be found preparing food for the “Sunday To’ona’I” (the meal).  Actually, if you don’t want to go to church, the only really good excuse for missing is “I had to make the food.” This is an acceptable (and understandable because, HELLO, it’s food!) reason for missing church.  Churches usually begin sometime between 9 and 10, but for the most part it’s 30 minutes after the bell rings. This was one of the funniest things to me when I first came to Samoa to get used to.  I am used to things starting at a specific time, so when I asked “what time does church start?” And the answer was “after the pastor rings the bell.” I thought, ok, this is definitely different.  So anyways, typically in the Methodist and EFKS churches the pastor rings the bell and then everyone starts getting ready for church and then about 30 minutes later he rings the bell again and then church starts about 2 minutes later (this is a general statement, some churches obviously stray from this protocol). Generally there is a prayer and a song at the beginning and then money collection and then a prayer that lasts between 10 and 20 minutes, during which everyone is on their knees (as you can imagine, this is my least favorite part—it’s painful!), and then maybe a few more songs, then a sermon which can last anywhere from 15 minutes (that was a great day!) to 90 minutes (that was a LONG day!) and then some man will come up and read out the amounts of money that all of the families in the congregation donated that day.  This is the biggest difference I have noticed in the churches here. It’s a funny thing to me because no one really seems to feel shy or ashamed about it, but at the same time we were told during our training that one of the reasons that they started doing this here is because Samoans are very competitive and they kind of use this as a way to shame people into giving money to the church.  So after the man reads out all of the donations, there is usually another song and prayer and they end by singing this beautiful “Amene, amene, amene” song.  My favorite part about church is the singing. It’s amazing. Everyone seems to know how to harmonize in Samoa, and they all know how to sing their parts (alto, soprano, bass, everything!) even though most of them don’t have song books.  Which that doesn’t really matter because the song books don’t have any notes or anything in them, just the written lyrics to the songs.  Another funny thing about the songs is that even when you are singing from the book, they tend to change words, add verses, change the order of the verses, sing multiple lines of a verse or skip a line of a verse all together, so half the time I feel like it doesn’t matter whether I have a hymn book or not.  Everyone wears white to church in the Methodist and EFKS churches, and women wear a big, fancy hat. You can wear any shoes because generally you leave your shoes at the entrance of the church (but I have noticed this varies a lot from church to church). 

Some things that are fa’asa (forbidden) in church: drinking water from a water bottle, taking off your hat if your head gets really hot, laughing when the pastors son is sleeping and falls of the bench, looking at the pastor directly when he is talking. 

Some things that are NOT fa’asa in church: belching, picking at scabs on your feet, picking your toenails, picking your nose, talking during prayers, talking during any part of church actually, sleeping, lighting up cigarettes or bringing in real beer bottles during a skit. 

The LDS church runs pretty much exactly the same all over the world (I have found this true from experience in the US, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, and Australia), but there are some funny cultural differences here. Although it technically starts at 9:00 ever Sunday (there is no bell),  when you get to church at 9:05, you will be one of around 3 women in the relief society meeting and one of about 10 in the whole church.  People generally don’t start showing up till 9:30.  The meeting usually doesn’t begin till 9:20 or so, so the “late” people really haven’t missed anything yet.  There is no rule about not talking while the teachers are talking in the classes or while the speakers are talking in Sacrament meeting.  It is also not all that common for people to bow their heads and close their eyes during prayers.   I have to say there are many reasons why I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but being here reminds me of that even more. I love that it is the same everywhere you go. It’s the same classes, the same lessons, the same doctrines, the same outline of the program, etc. I also love that tithing is paid in secret and that none of the money goes to the bishop or leaders of the church since no one in the church gets paid. And I love that the spirit feels the exact same to me, no matter where I’m going to church or what language the people are speaking.  I love that my testimony can be strengthened, by a simple song or a testimony shared by a child, even when I can’t understand anything that is being said. 

One thing that is really great about Samoa is that God is everywhere. There are not laws prohibiting talking about God anywhere or laws saying that you can’t pray.  No one is afraid of being politically incorrect.  Today we went to church in town for all of the teachers. It was a service for literally all the teachers on the island. Everyone was required to pay $10 to go on a bus to this church service. It made me laugh thinking about if you tried to force teachers in the states to pay $10 to go to church.  Or if you tried to make all of the teachers go to the same church for a service, you know someone would be offended. 

I have found that being active in a church in Samoa is a great way to meet new people and get involved in the village. So much of village life is centered on church.  I feel grateful that I am already used to going to church every Sunday and being involved in church so this part of the culture is not a huge transition for me.  I also feel grateful, yet again, to have God in my life and to know that no matter what church I am going to, or how I am worshiping Him, He is always with me and He is always aware of me and my goal is always to make Him proud.