Website Feedback
Please find attached feed back sent to us by people who have viewed our site and felt something special from it, or have found that it has brought back memories from their past.
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Lelani Nielsen
Email - 22 July 2009
Dear Andy and Shirina,
Thank you for your lovely Cook Island website.
I was born in Aitutaki, Cook Islands and spent most of my childhood in American Samoa. We moved back to Utah the year I turned twelve. My parents were in The Cook Islands with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon), building the LDS chapel on Aitutaki. I was born in the missionaries home by the chapel. I have not been to Aitutaki as an adult, but one day I will return.
You wrote, "My wife had found a part of her that had been missing". I am attaching a poem I wrote, you will see that I understand that feeling. My sister cried when she read the poem. She and her husband visited The Cook Islands in February 2008 and loved it. They met at the airport by the woman who had been our babysitter, and were treated as family by the people of Aitutaki. They will go back. The poem I have attached will be in my book of poetry, that starts with my birth in The Cook Islands.
Thank you again for your website and for sharing your story.
Sincerely,
Lelani Nielsen
Island Girl Lelani Nielsen
3-2008
I have a longing, a yearning, a need
to return to the islands of my birth.
Somewhere deep within me, I feel
I will find something I have lost.
The little girl, a part of me left behind
in the sand, in the ocean, in the winds
of the tropical isles of my childhood.
There is a part of me that did not make
the long journey across the sea,
to this new land. Memories of the islands
and my carefree days fill my dreams,
and the need to return grows stronger.
You may say I do not look like an island girl,
my skin is white, my hair is golden,
but my heart knows no color. It knows only,
that I am an island girl, a part of the South Pacific,
and my heart longs to go home.
This night I wake once more
from the peaceful dreams of my childhood,
and I pray God, that He will take me home
to the islands, that I may find the lost little girl,
embrace her, and at long last, find peace within myself.
Email - 22 July 2009
Dear Andy and Shirina,
Thank you for your lovely Cook Island website.
I was born in Aitutaki, Cook Islands and spent most of my childhood in American Samoa. We moved back to Utah the year I turned twelve. My parents were in The Cook Islands with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon), building the LDS chapel on Aitutaki. I was born in the missionaries home by the chapel. I have not been to Aitutaki as an adult, but one day I will return.
You wrote, "My wife had found a part of her that had been missing". I am attaching a poem I wrote, you will see that I understand that feeling. My sister cried when she read the poem. She and her husband visited The Cook Islands in February 2008 and loved it. They met at the airport by the woman who had been our babysitter, and were treated as family by the people of Aitutaki. They will go back. The poem I have attached will be in my book of poetry, that starts with my birth in The Cook Islands.
Thank you again for your website and for sharing your story.
Sincerely,
Lelani Nielsen
Island Girl Lelani Nielsen
3-2008
I have a longing, a yearning, a need
to return to the islands of my birth.
Somewhere deep within me, I feel
I will find something I have lost.
The little girl, a part of me left behind
in the sand, in the ocean, in the winds
of the tropical isles of my childhood.
There is a part of me that did not make
the long journey across the sea,
to this new land. Memories of the islands
and my carefree days fill my dreams,
and the need to return grows stronger.
You may say I do not look like an island girl,
my skin is white, my hair is golden,
but my heart knows no color. It knows only,
that I am an island girl, a part of the South Pacific,
and my heart longs to go home.
This night I wake once more
from the peaceful dreams of my childhood,
and I pray God, that He will take me home
to the islands, that I may find the lost little girl,
embrace her, and at long last, find peace within myself.