For many in the Northern Hemisphere, the lead up to Christmas is associated with cold winter nights, warm hearty meals and snow. In the Southern Hemisphere, however, it’s summer — long days, barbecues, summer fruits and, for Latter-day Saint youth, For the Strength of Youth conferences.
Throughout December 2023, FSY and young adult conferences convened in Tonga, Kiribati and Fiji.
In speaking to roughly 900 youth ages 14 to 18 gathered at the University of South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, on Thursday, Dec. 14, Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman noted they all had something in common: “This is my first FSY since I was called as the Young Women general president, and this is your first FSY in Fiji,” said President Freeman, who began her service in August 2023.
While in Fiji the week of Dec. 12, President Freeman not only ministered to and counseled with youth, but also participated in humanitarian aid projects and met with local pioneer members of the Church.
She was accompanied by her husband, Brother Greg Freeman, and the counselors in the Church’s Pacific Area presidency — Elder Taniela Wakolo and Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi, both General Authority Seventies, and their wives, Sister Anita Wakolo and Sister Amy Jaggi.

1st FSY conference in Fiji
During the conference, President Freeman taught about Jesus calling Phillip and then Phillip telling his friend Nathaniel, “We have found [Jesus] ... come and see” (John 1:43-46).
FSY can be “a place filled with holy moments,” President Freeman told the youth. “We are going to experience holy moments together that we will always remember. Jesus Christ is at FSY. I invite you to ‘come and see.’”
During his remarks, Elder Wakolo issued five invitations to help youth walk the “joyful way back to [their] Heavenly Father.”
- Have a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Have a current temple recommend.
- Never stay home from church “unless you are sick.”
- Regularly worship and serve in the house of the Lord.
- Enroll in seminary.
Kelera Vosa, 14, from the Labasa Fiji District, told the Church’s Pacific Newsroom, “FSY has helped me to learn more about Jesus Christ and that He is always there for us during our hardships.”
Another youth, Jade Chan from Suva, Fiji, said FSY has taught her “how to live more like my Savior.” Despite challenges, “we can keep holding on to the word of God. Jesus Christ believes in us.”

Bringing life and light to children
On Friday, Dec. 15, Elder Wakolo and President Freeman presented a portable echocardiogram machine and “SolarBuddy” lights to the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Hospital in Suva on behalf of the Church.
Known as the “heart hospital,” the facility provides lifesaving heart surgeries for children across the South Pacific with no cost to the families.
The ultrasound machine will provide imaging of a child’s heart to help in the diagnosis and monitoring of heart defects and disease.

Approximately 200 children in Fiji and 2,500 children across the South Pacific are born each year with congenital heart defects, according to the news release on the Church’s Pacific Newsroom.
In presenting the machine, Elder Wakolo noted that the work of the Sai Prema Foundation, the nonprofit organization that built the hospital, is Christlike. President Freeman also presented the heart hospital with a donation of SolarBuddy lights — portable solar-powered lights for children and youth in communities with limited or no electricity.
“We hope that you will be able to look at families that come into the hospital and see the need of someone who you could give light to, so they can read medicine bottles or see important numbers for a child’s healing,” President Freeman told representatives from the hospital.

Sumeet Tappoo, director of Sai Prema Foundation, noted that the portable machine will allow the hospital to say “yes” to providing care, whether the call is coming from Nauru — a tiny island country in Micronesia — or Tonga or Kiribati. “We can say ‘yes’ not just from Sai Prema, but we will say ‘yes’ on behalf of the beautiful members of the Church. We will say ‘yes’ on behalf of all of us,” Sumeet Tappoo told Pacific Newsroom.
Dr. Krupali Tappoo, director of the heart hospital and medical coordinator of the Sai Prema Foundation, said the foundation’s goal is to conduct widespread screenings throughout Fiji and other South Pacific Islands.
Children from Fiji, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Christmas Island will receive lifesaving surgery at the hospital, Krupali Tappoo said.
Meeting with pioneer members
President Freeman’s trip to Fiji held extra significance knowing her grandparents, McKinley “Mickey” and Belle Oswald, had served there together as senior missionaries from 1968 to 1970.
During the FSY conference, President Freeman noted that her grandparents had helped to increase Church attendance from six people to a Church building filled with people.

Although uncomfortable with speaking in front of people, Mickey and Belle Oswald trusted that they “could do all things through Christ,” President Freeman related. “The moment that President Thomas S. Monson invited [Grandpa] to speak to a large gathering of Fijian Latter-day Saints, he said, ‘I will do it in the strength of the Lord.’”
On Saturday, Dec. 17, President Freeman met with several pioneer members in the area who knew her grandparents.
Maryann Sorby Wright remembered Sister Oswald as “gentle and beautiful. Elder Oswald was sparkling, twinkling and had laughing eyes. They were so lovable.”

Many shared memories and photographs of the Oswalds with the Freemans. To conclude the gathering, the group sang “Isa Isa,” a Fijian song of farewell. Roughly 4,000 Fijian Latter-day Saints sang the same song to President Russell M. Nelson during a devotional in Nausori, Fiji, on May 22, 2019.
In a post on Pacific Area’s Facebook page, President Freeman expressed her gratitude for being in Fiji. Her ministry to the Pacific island country came just weeks after a 10-day ministry in the Africa West Area of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in November. Roughly 23,000 Latter-day Saints in Fiji are in 52 congregations.