from the United Kingdom to the United States where they met and married and then decided to pioneer to Australia in 1920 and stopped briefly in Samoa on their way. Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion after the death of ʻAbdu'l–Bahá, launched the Ten Year Crusade and during this plan, 34 years after the first Baháʼís of Australia had stopped at Samoa, a woman named Lilian Wyss pioneered to Western Samoa from Australia in January 1954 leaving behind a position on the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia at the age of 24 while her brother, Frank Wyss, introduced the religion that year to the Cocos Island. For their service, Shoghi Effendi awarded both of them the accolade of Knight of Baháʼu'lláh. Later she married and took the name Suhayl ʻAláʼí. About this time Emmanuel Rock, one of the earliest Samoans to join the religion, did so prior to the beginning of the Ten Year Crusade. Simple Baháʼí literature was translated into the Samoan language about 1955 and into the language of Niue Island in 1956. At this time Baháʼí sources claim there were five Baháʼís known among the Samoa Islands. The first native believer Mrs. Lotoa Rock, Emmanuel Rock's wife, joined the religion in 1956. In late 1956 Saialala Tamasese was the second native to join the religion and the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1957 in Western Samoa with another five smaller groups of Baháʼís, followed by an assembly election in Samoa in 1961. Many of the early Baháʼís were well educated and some had Christian theological training and after conversion sometimes held positions of high office in the religion. Developing community Connections to and from the Baháʼís From then events have multiplied involving the growing community. Starting on 29 October 1958 the first visit of a Hand of the Cause in the person of Enoch Olinga began an extended tour of the islands during which Olinga was honored with a Kava based ceremony. In 1959 the Baháʼís gathered in the first summer school with some 30 attendees and hosted by a local chief, purchased the first Baháʼí cemetery, and gathered with Samoans from both islands to consult on the growth of the religion on the islands. In 1962 the religion had reached the island of Savai'i and the first public talk on the religion was given in Apia – which was extended to three additional