For His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, the Head of State of Samoa, a mid-September trip to Salt Lake City is all about family. First, there were the extended family members with whom he shared Sunday brunch, renewing acquaintances and making familial connections. And then there was the work he is doing in Utah on behalf of that broad and expansive family back home in Samoa, about whom he worries like a father worries about his children.
"We are like the Mormons," he said at the start of a brief tour of the LDS Church's Church History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City. "Wherever we see Samoans, we see family."