Navua - Week 11

Sa yawa

Bula!

Man another great week here in Navua.  This has got to be one of the best times of my mission so far!  The Lord is giving us so many blessings down here and we're just trying to keep up.

First off a little miracle that I saw this week which wasn't even in my area but I got to be a part of.  The Lami Elders met this guy a week ago on Saturday, and they found out that he had been going to church for about 3 months and really enjoyed church.  They taught him a typical first lesson, invited him to be baptized and he accepted.  I went on exchange with Elder Miller the following Tuesday to follow up and continue the lessons, and it went really well!  But after the lesson he told us that he worked for a fishing boat that takes him away from home for 3 months at a time, and they usually called him to go out with only a day's notice.  He really wanted to be baptized but was worried that he might get called out before his baptismal date.  We thought about it for a second, found out he was living the worthiness requirements already, and then invited him to be baptized the coming Saturday! We then proceeded to teach him all the rest of the lessons in one sitting which took almost 3 hours!!  He was ready and I was able to do the interview for him a few days later, which was so good!  

Everyone was excited for his baptism on Saturday.....until Friday night when he got the call from the fishing boat that he needed to board about an hour before his baptism was scheduled.  To make matters worse, their entire bishopric was too busy to do the baptism earlier in the morning.  So the Elders had to call him and say that it would have to be cancelled.  But then this man made a huge decision that showed a tremendous amount of faith!  He called the fishing boat, his livelihood, and quit.  And he was baptized and confirmed this weekend. 

We also saw some great things out in Navua!  The Waqabaca family and Api are scheduled to be baptized this weekend!  I'm so pumped to see them make that step; they have been progressing so well and it is so great to see them so happy from applying the gospel in their lives.  Ciri, especially, has progressed so much and bore such a powerful testimony at our last appointment.  It's going to be a great day on Saturday!

We spent a lot of time out of our area this week between exchanges and a meeting at the mission home for all the people training.  Also we found out that our car should be coming soon, so we really needed to get my license.  We have been trying to get it for the past month and a half, but every time something went wrong and I didn't get it.  So this time we were really hoping that everything would work out.  We went in to the Fijian version of the DMV with a determination to stick it out until I got it.  I'm pretty sure everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong, but 6 hours later I walked out of there with my Fijian drivers license, and I'm not planning on going back.

Another cool thing that is happening is the temple open house.  All the sisters from the whole mission are way lucky and get to go be tour guides for the temple.  This week is the VIP tour for government officials and stuff, and next week it is open to the public for two weeks.  We are excited to go and bring our investigators with us!  And right now all the members in Fiji are going crazy handing out invitations.  It's gonna be awesome!

Loloma levu from Fiji!

Elder Erisi (that's how they spell Martin Harris' name in the Fijian BoM, so I might steal it.)

Elder Giacalone made pasta for this family!