5 Months!

Malo e lelei!

Well this week was an exciting week! Congrats to my cute sister for having a baby. I’m finally an Aunt! Yay!!  She’s the cutest little peanut I’ve ever seen. 

Also I hit my 5 month mark on Saturday. That’s crazy! I will be coming home at this time next year! Time is going too fast. 

I first want to share a little story. So in one of the wards we cover they have their ward conference this month. Ward conferences here are a BIG deal. Hahah they have stuff planned everyday of the week. Anyways they've been fasting for us missionaries to be able to find someone to baptize for their conference, and this week they invited us to come to the chapel and eat with them. So we were sitting in Bishop’s office with the ward council eating and I was eating this meat and it was sooooo good!  I thought maybe it was pork or something and then I was on my last piece of meat and someone asked me " Oku ke sai'ia kuli?" which means Do you like dog? and I just sat there!  Haha….. I was eating dog!! And what was worse was that I liked it! hahah It was so good. But after I found out it was dog I couldn't really eat it because the thought just  made me sad. Today for p-day our district leader got a member to cook us a dog and I dont know if I'll eat……but we'll see. 

This week the work really progressed here. Sometimes it gets really hard to work in a small village. Knocking on the same doors everyday, but diligently working truly brings miracles. We visit our members everyday and I cant even begin to explain how important member missionary work is. If it wasn’t for our members we wouldn’t have any teachings. We've tracted here a couple of times and we've received some investigator’s but they eventually tell us they don’t want to see us anymore haha. But this week we received some investigators through our members and one ladies name is Masi. Last transfer me and Sister Palenapa tried to teach her but she never gave us the chance. One of the members told us we should go see her again so we did and she told us to come back. Were able to teach her and the lesson ended with all of us crying because the spirit was so strong. Her husband passed away and she has 4 kids. She doesn’t have a job right now so they hardly ever have money for food. We told our ward mission leader about it and they went out to "uta" (the bush) to get her some vegetables which are like ufi and manioke. We also are going to do a service project for her as a district. We haven’t been able to teach her again but we have an appointment with her tonight and we are going to ask her to work towards baptism and so hopefully she will say yes. 

In Alma 17 we read about the sons of Mosiah and their work as missionaries. In verse 2 and 3 we learn the importance of diligently studying the scriptures, and the importance of much fasting and prayer. Because they did these things they were able to teach by the power of God. I have a strong testimony that when we do what we are asked to do in the scriptures you will see blessings from Heavenly Father in your life. This week was a really good week but also one of the hardest weeks. I didn't let it get me down though. Instead I used the hard times to help me strengthen my relationship with my Heavenly Father. I know Heavenly Father is SO aware of us. At times it might not feel like it, and trust me there have been days where I feel like he is no where to be found but when I turn to much fasting and prayer and study my scriptures the next thing I know there is some sort of tender mercy or miracle right in front of me. So I hope you all know how much you are loved by your Father in Heaven. He loves you so much!! I love you guys too and I’m so grateful for all of you. Thanks for all of your love and support!

I want to challenge all of you to give a referral to the missionaries this week. Have them over for dinner or something and give them someone to teach. Member missionary work is so important. 

have a good week! Ofa lahi atu!!!

SISTA SYLVESTER