Bearing my testimony, praying, and teaching a few principles in Samoan

Email #61
Area: Mildura South Pickers of the Marion Zone
Companion: Elder Fala & Elder Siaosi

Excerpts from Mom's email:

Yeah crazy about my birthday. Don't feel like that much time has passed at all! Yeah I got the package last Monday actually! Thank you so much for that! The ties and everything are awesome! I'm trying not to eat candy and stuff like that so I gave most of that to my companions, but they loved it so it is all good:) I had just a little bit haha.

You know, even with all of the challenges, I am really loving to serve! I have said it before, but for some reason or another it just feels like it is where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to do. The gospel continues to just make more and more sense to me and my understanding of it increases daily. Of coarse the hardest part of the process is then applying what you have learned and I know I am not perfect, but that has been a huge blessing to me. I never thought a simple concept like obedience (especially with even the little things) would make such a difference to everything! It is hard, yes. Knocking doors EVERYDAY for 3 hours per day and being rejected door to door is not the easiest thing in the world, but there is nothing I would rather be doing right now in my life then this.

This week was pretty interesting! A great highlight was the sports night on Saturday night! I will send you pics of this. There was about 25 pickers there and even got to ball with them in basketball haha. Then the best part at the end was sharing with them about the gospel. To be honest I don't really know all that was said, but the spirit was there. It was cool to see all of them sitting around us listening so closely. Bearing my testimony, praying, and teaching a few principles in Samoan has become a lot easier. I need to work on my prayers so they are not so basic, but that's okay.

We as well last night went to a members home for dinner and we sang hymns almost the whole time! The best part is singing in Samoan, I have loved doing that! It is hard, but they all sing really loud so not to difficult.

Well love you heaps Mom! Have a good week!


Excerpts from Dad's email:

Hey Dad!

Man I really love reading emails to be honest! It always gives me a good lift up. I am really curious what the heck you are talking about with the changes with home, but I guess I am learning patience with that one haha.

Yeah there are a lot of interesting foods that Samoans eat here. A few to mention would be: Fish head, taro, sapasui, and KFC. I swear my companions have eaten that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner many times! I won't, I refuse to haha! I will not really eat fast food anymore because there is just KFC, McDonald, and Hungry Jakes. That's all. I cook Mexican when I can at home. I've lost about 6 kgs in the past few weeks. I'm at 78 currently, but when I got here I was at 85.

Something really cool actually about that is D......, our master chief, is having us over for dinner tomorrow!! So pumped for that because he cooks semi healthy haha. Their family is really awesome! I'm not sure how far they might go, I hope baptism and onward of course, but who knows. They still haven't come to church so maybe next week. The lesson tomorrow we are doing something called the Cupsteration. It is basically using cups to explain the restoration of the gospel in a way kids could understand it. It is really good actually, we made cups for it a while ago with pictures and stuff.

We got some exciting news from our investigator T... yesterday! He is finally off work! We stopped by off a prompting to see him and see if we could catch him and he was there. The bad news is when we walked around the back he had a beer in his hand... You could tell that his heart sank when we saw him. He just moved out of his home where his kids live because his ex partner and him aren't married, but he wants to be baptized. In order to pay for his new rent, he has to work a lot. However those he moved in with are a bad influence on him "making him" drink beer to celebrate finishing work. It is confusing, but we have an appointment tonight to set expectations and help him out.

Much ups and downs for sure. With the new transfer coming, I hope things pick up and there are some changes as well. We'll see I guess, but I know whatever happens I will go and do what the Lord commands:).

Love you heaps! Message me! :)