Samabula - Week 5

Oiau qori!

Talofa!

It's been a nice week.  President Layton is currently in Rotuma for a week=no meetings+lots of time to go and work in our area!

So yeah we have had a lot of time to go and work in our area this week.  It has been really fun, and we had a great time helping out all of our investigators, less-actives and recent converts that we are teaching!

It's been fun to see our recent converts after they were baptized last week.  They are super excited to members of the Church!  They all were confirmed yesterday and then Bruce and Joshua were sustained to receive the Aaronic Priesthood.  Bruce is excited to start passing the sacrament and wants to start sharing the gospel with his family.  We have an appointment with his sister on Tuesday!  I remember the 1st counselor in our Bishopric blessed him during his confirmation that he would "go on a mission and baptize lots of people."  Which I thought was amazing!  He's 17 so he could go in a year or two.  Joshua is excited as well; we saw him at a church activity yesterday evening with all of the old people doing their family history.  We went over to talk to him and he had already completed 4 generations of his family tree!  And Sister Rajendra is doing well and received an interview to prepare to go and do baptisms for the dead.  It's awesome to see the ward help so much by welcoming and helping these converts!

We've been teaching quite a few investigators.  First off is Kesa, who is 25ish and half Fijian half Tongan.  Her Tongan mom is a member who has just started to come back to church after 40 years, and Kesa is really keen to be baptized.  The only problem is her husband.  For some reason he has no problem with Kesa taking lessons and going to church but he won't let her be baptized.  So we're praying that he will soften his heart and say yes.  We are also teaching a Tuvaluan guy named Salutu and his half Fijian/half Palagi wife Alice.  It's been fun teaching them since he's from Tuvalu, and they're actually going back to Tuvalu in a month or two because he just graduated uni.  Their main concern is the Book of Mormon so we've been going over that a lot lately.

I've actually been able to see heaps of Tuvaluans here in Samabula!  We go visit a recent convert family that I used to visit every week, and I even saw Brother Niko in the mission office the other day!  It was so good to see him!  He was telling me that his son got a chance to meet the Queen of England!

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.nz/5206668571515805021 

And Sala Lausaveve, one of my favorite members from Tuvalu, just showed up at our sacrament meeting yesterday!  It's pretty fun to see them and try to speak my broken Tuvaluan to them.

Fiji is ecstatic about the Olympics and winning their first gold medal in Sevens Rugby.  Friday was chaos after the game with everyone driving around beeping their horns and celebrating!  A member fed us lunch on Friday while the medal ceremony was on and we saw them receive their gold medals from the Princess.  It was so cool how they knelt and clapped when they each received their medal; that is the custom here in Fiji when you receive a gift from a chiefly person.

It's been a great week, looking forward to another one!

Love,

Elder Harris