President Parker being called as an area 70

Email #59
Area: Mildura South Pickers of the Marion Zone
Companion: Elder Fala & Elder Siaosi

Excerpts from Mom's email:

Hey Mom!

This week had some exciting days and some really slow days haha. I have really grown to love the culture here! I even sing a lot more with them and have a lot of fun with that. There is a lot of exciting things going on in the mission including President Parker being called as an area 70! Yeah that is super exciting. It kind of was on the down low for a little bit, not even the assistants knew where the Parkers were going just knew they were going to be gone for a bit. We heard about it yesterday and were super excited! That is not a common thing to have your mission president called as a 70 while he is still out. He is a very hard working man, probably one of the most dedicated man to the work I have ever met! I knew he was going to be called sometime, but I didn't think it would be so soon. Pretty crazy for sure.

On Friday and Saturday we had our sports nights and FHE with the pickers! The turn out was awesome! There was more non-members there then there was members! Over 25 non-members including the sisters investigator and our other ones as well! This is the first time in my mission where we have had so many investigators and so many of them being taught at one time! The cool part is that we found out yesterday that more Samoan pickers have arrived, but we don't know where they are at yet. So far all of them that we have come by have been willing to learn. Tongans are a little different story for sure haha. The Tongan elders have had a harder time with them and they have hundreds to work with at the moment. There are two of the pickers we are working with that hold the strongest potential. With the other ones there is one who is priest of another church and he has been a little harder to go around. He even got 10 of them drunk over Easter, but then 5 of them refused to and came to Easter with us at a members house here in Mildura. That really was a good indicator  that they were really prepared to be able to refuse like that.

We got in contact with another one of our investigators named T... finally who is pretty much set for baptism. He moved out of his ex partners house so he could be baptized even though his kids live there. He still sees them as much as he can for sure. To be able to afford the flat he is staying in though, he has to work heaps! We never see him he is so busy so that has been hard. Still working things our and it might take a little longer to teach him all the lessons then we had hoped but still the time will come where he will be ready.

Love yous! Have a good week!


Excerpts from Dad's email:

Hey Dad!

To continue from Mom's email, I have really loved the culture here. What's crazy is that I have become accustomed to it! There is this drink called Coco Samoa that when I first had it I though it tasted kind of bad. Now it is honestly my favorite! It is basically like a weird Samoan hot chocolate, but it doesn't taste like chocolate at all. It is mad straight from the coco bean. Samoan food is now my favorite as well! Man I am going to miss it when I go...

This past Sunday was as you know fast and testimony meeting. Normally now I am not nervous even a little bit public speaking because I do it all the time. However this time was a little different.. I decided to bare my testimony in Samoan and English for the first time in front of so many. There was a lot of non members there for the Easter sunday so I thought I would do it for them so they may understand as well. They told me I did really well so I hope I didn't mess up on any words haha.

Well that was basically my week haha. I am having a harder time finding things to tell you about as time goes forward. I feel like I repeat things sometimes so getting harder. Sorry for that.

Love you heaps!!!