This week was a good week! I just looked at my companion and asked her "okay what happened this week?" So I could write it in my letter and she laughed and said "nothing!" which is true hahah not a lot happened this week but it was a really good week!
Anyways today I hit my 6 month mark. Thats crazy! A year from today I will be coming home. Time is going by too fast!
We "tukituki" a lot this week which is like tracting. Its so funny to tukituki here at times because they dont have doorbells so you just yell to them like "Malo e lelei" and there have been times where we can see them look at us through the window and they see that its the missionaries so they dont come to the door hahah. We usually just yell "okay Ofa Atu" and then leave. This week we were able to meet with a lot of people through tukituki, none of them wanted us to come back hahah but we were able to share a lot about the gospel and hopefully plant a little seed in their lives.
Theres a an old couple that live in our area and the wife is a member but her husband is not. He is a very strong catholic and he loves to bible bash with us. We hadn't seen his wife at church for awhile so we've been going over there and sharing spiritual thoughts with her and her husband and inviting them to church. We always have to lie though when were are there and tell them we have somewhere to be or else he will just bash with us for hours. So this week we went there and my comp was telling them that we had a meeting to go to and she kept looking at her watch to show them that we had to leave in a hurry. Hahah well she wasn't wearing a watch that day because she forgot but the old couple didn't even notice. Man we were both trying not to laugh! Anyways I felt really impressed to give Mosese (the old man) a commitment to read the Book of Mormon. He was really hesitant at first but he accepted and said he would if we would come back and read it with him. So the next day we came back to read with him, and we had spent all morning praying to know what things we should teach him and read with him. Well we highlighted different verses about faith and we were going to study them with him and then have him read 1Nephi 1-4 by himself. The story where Nephi had to get the plates from Laban. We even had a sticky note with a question on it for him to answer after his reading. So the next day we went there so excited to give him the Book of Mormon and read with him because we've never had a chance to actually teach him. We talked with him for a bit and then we went to give him the BOM and he just started yelling at us. Telling us how are church is not true, bashing on Joseph Smith, basically he threw everything just back in our face. Man I have never felt so sad before. I guess it was just hard because we had prayed so hard and really studied what we could have him read because he's so difficult to work with, and we wanted it to be something simple. We left his house both of us almost in tears. Hahah I guess not everyone here will accept us, but we just have to keep giving it our all!
Yesterday after church we taught one of our investigators, his name is Hausia. He lives in a different area but comes to our ward with his fellow shipper so we are only able to teach him on Sundays. He accepted our invitation to be baptized, but his parents want him to come back to Vavau ( another island) to be baptized. Were just going to pray really hard that he will be able to be baptized here because if he goes back to Vavau he doesn't have anyone to go to church with, and he really wants to stay here. Anyways yesterday while teaching him we taught lesson 3 and we were talking about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and he shared ann experience with us how he felt a prompting from the spirit. Last week there was a really bad car accident here and 7 boys were killed because they were drinking while driving. Well those were all of Hausia's friends and he shared that he was going to go with them but felt something tell him he shouldn't . We explained to him that that was the Holy Ghost and after baptism he will be blessed with that gift to be with him forever when he does what he's supposed to. That just made him even more excited to be baptized. It was a really powerful lesson and cool to see him witness the power of the Holy Ghost.
Although not a lot happened this week it was filled with spiritually uplifting experiences and what could be better than that? I just love missionary work! Through the good and the bad days you are able to see Gods hand in your life. Have a great week! Ofa lahi atu kamoutolu!
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Sista Silivesita
This is one of our ward members her name is Lina :) She was a less active and we helped her and her family come back to church. She started selling "Lu" to help provide for her family. She always tells us its the blessings from the church that have helped her and her little business. She thanks us everyday for helping her come back to church.
Lu is a food that they eat here. Its really yummy! Theres different kinds of Lu like Lu sipi (lamb) Lu pulu ( beef) Lu moa ( chicken) the lu is the leaves that they wrap the meat in and they will usually add like coconut milk and then "umu" it. Umu means cooking something in the ground. They just let the steam from the coals cook it.
1. Helping Lina with the Lu
2. Preparing the umu
Helping our Ward mission leader umu his dinner. Lu with manioke, and kumala (Sweet potato)
1. Fafanga with our Bishop, Pisope Kaufusi
2. Manioke Tama and lolo (oil). I love eating this! hahah its so yummy. They take the manioke and coconut and umu it and then you dip it in the oil.
3. Role plays with our neighbor hahah
Lina invited us the next day to eat some Lu pulu and manioke!
Okay so this is called "tutu" a lot of the lady's sit and do this all day everyday! You can hear them hitting it all day haha. Basically Tutu is a plant that they soak in water and then they hit it on the wood and it expands into something bigger and then they let it dry. When its dry they call it "Ngatu" and sometimes they will paint it. They give it to people for birthdays, funerals, farewells, its very respectful. If someone gives you one its a big deal.
1. The Tutu
2. Hitting the tutu
3. What it looks like after they hit it and they are letting it dry.
Sometimes they combine them together to make one big Ngatu
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