Samabula - Week 20

Noqu vanua au mai butu'a!

Bula vina'a!

Well yes I know this is an early email, but I promise we have permission from President!  So I know it was a question last week where I was going to be going, so I guess I'll just let you know.

I'm in Taveuni!

That's right on Thursday I got to return to the beautiful garden island which I call my birthplace.  Except this time I didn't have to take any buses or boats; we just flew in.  We are here with President and Sister Layton and the entire Taveuni zone.  We had zone conference/Christmas party yesterday where we had an amazingly spiritual meeting in the morning about our Savior Jesus Christ.  I learned so much.  In the afternoon, President and Sister Layton thought it would be good to have a little fun, so we played some games and got to watch Finding Dory!  Pretty rad.

We will be here until Tuesday, because this is also the time for our mission tour.  Mission tour happens once a year where a General Authority comes and tours the mission.  We have Elder Cardon of the Seventy who is here in Taveuni doing a district conference and then mission tour on Monday.  We will then fly to Nadi and then back to Suva later on next week.  We had dinner with the Cardons and the Laytons yesterday which was so cool!  He asked Elder Faamoe and I, "What questions do you have for a General Authority?"  So we asked a bunch.  I think the best quote I got from him was, "There are no secrets and there are no shortcuts."

Taveuni is great; it's like a dream being back here.  I got to see Senitiki today and also talk to Tuicakau, the big-time chief whom he works for.  We have 26 missionaries on the island, so we just flooded the villages inviting everyone to district conference.  I am looking for Naliva, which is crazy because I found out he moved to Suva for a while but just came back recently to help his father who is sick.  I am hoping to meet up with him because I heard it's been a while since he's been at church.  We were also able to meet this lady named Aileen whom we met in Samabula.  She came to church with one of our recent converts, and we invited her to district conference, and she was like "Of course I'll come!"  It's gonna be a great week.

Loloma levu,

Elda Harris

Borrowed these pictures from Elder and Sister Whitehead's Blog

They are from Joti's Baptism in October