These pics were taken his first day on the island. Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Elder Wall's Debut
Elder Wall's mission president was kind enough to mail us some pictures to prove Jake arrived in Fiji in one piece. Due to the fact that Jake is now eating 3+ dinners per night, we're considering saving these for the before and after shots of his mission physique! Just kidding. We love you Jakie... even if you do get fat :)
These pics were taken his first day on the island. Enjoy!
These pics were taken his first day on the island. Enjoy!
Monday, March 16, 2009
March 15, 2009 Email
So good news on the mushrooms...went to the doctor got some pills and cream and they should be gone in six weeks. They are getting better already!
Apparently this brand of soap and powder stuff we have been using is no good and makes you prone to grow them. (plus im white) so I stopped using it and it is looking good.
Scabbies: been there done that already. They have awesome scabbies cream that killed them in like two days. Hemrhoids were also taken care of with a cream. I am doing fine stop worrying!!!
So I got some huge very surprising news. I got transfered. I am going to Rakiraki. My new companion is Fijian Elder Cokenauto. Fijian elders take all your stuff. There is no such thing as stealing; two pairs of shoes already got taken.
Bad part is, it has a reputation for being the armpit of the West. It has a very disfunctional branch. Guess I got my work cut out for me. However I am probably gonna get real good at Fijian cause that is all they speak- not much English. I leave tomorrow morning.
It is really sad to leave people and a companion I love. Plus we were just begining to be succesful and have good things happen. Oh well. I guess the Lord has different plans then mine. I thought I would be in Nadi forever. So pry don't send things to Nadi anymore. Pry wont get to me for a while if you do.
Well this week I had the hardest experience of my mission yet. One family clearly did not care anymore about progressing so we had to say bye to them and it tore my heart out. I love them very much. Maybe someone else can finish teaching them another time.
Zone conference was really good. President Ostler is such a great man. Our ward mission leader freaked out and said we were terrible missionaries because we have not been getting baptisms and he was calling president. President told him the same thing we did, which is that we're supposed to focus on less actives and gave him a really good ear full so that is cool. Other then that not a ton happened.
We began running on the beach for morning excercise time (it used to be lay on the couch and listen to mo-tab time). I almost died, so fat and out of shape. I am also getting really good at chopping cocunuts. We bought a sele and have been practicing and drinking lots of bu the milk.
Well I will let you know next week how rakiraki is. I hear the branch president is a real wack job and I am gonna have some awesome stories, so that will be fun.
Thanks for the love.
P.S. Rakiraki is supposedly the hottest part of Fiji. Lucky me. And it is a walking area.
Love Elder Wall (Lalaga)
Apparently this brand of soap and powder stuff we have been using is no good and makes you prone to grow them. (plus im white) so I stopped using it and it is looking good.
Scabbies: been there done that already. They have awesome scabbies cream that killed them in like two days. Hemrhoids were also taken care of with a cream. I am doing fine stop worrying!!!
So I got some huge very surprising news. I got transfered. I am going to Rakiraki. My new companion is Fijian Elder Cokenauto. Fijian elders take all your stuff. There is no such thing as stealing; two pairs of shoes already got taken.
Bad part is, it has a reputation for being the armpit of the West. It has a very disfunctional branch. Guess I got my work cut out for me. However I am probably gonna get real good at Fijian cause that is all they speak- not much English. I leave tomorrow morning.
It is really sad to leave people and a companion I love. Plus we were just begining to be succesful and have good things happen. Oh well. I guess the Lord has different plans then mine. I thought I would be in Nadi forever. So pry don't send things to Nadi anymore. Pry wont get to me for a while if you do.
Well this week I had the hardest experience of my mission yet. One family clearly did not care anymore about progressing so we had to say bye to them and it tore my heart out. I love them very much. Maybe someone else can finish teaching them another time.
Zone conference was really good. President Ostler is such a great man. Our ward mission leader freaked out and said we were terrible missionaries because we have not been getting baptisms and he was calling president. President told him the same thing we did, which is that we're supposed to focus on less actives and gave him a really good ear full so that is cool. Other then that not a ton happened.
We began running on the beach for morning excercise time (it used to be lay on the couch and listen to mo-tab time). I almost died, so fat and out of shape. I am also getting really good at chopping cocunuts. We bought a sele and have been practicing and drinking lots of bu the milk.
Well I will let you know next week how rakiraki is. I hear the branch president is a real wack job and I am gonna have some awesome stories, so that will be fun.
Thanks for the love.
P.S. Rakiraki is supposedly the hottest part of Fiji. Lucky me. And it is a walking area.
Love Elder Wall (Lalaga)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
March 10, 2009
We had zone conference today and learned that fun medical things such as my
mushrooms, scabbies, diarrhea, hemrhoids, and lots of other things are just
a part of the Fiji mission experiance. I have some antifungal powder and
cream and am doing my best to take care of things. Ha ha I am doing alright
though. Zone conference was awesome and really motivating to do the work. I
am excited for this next week.
Love,
Elder Wall
mushrooms, scabbies, diarrhea, hemrhoids, and lots of other things are just
a part of the Fiji mission experiance. I have some antifungal powder and
cream and am doing my best to take care of things. Ha ha I am doing alright
though. Zone conference was awesome and really motivating to do the work. I
am excited for this next week.
Love,
Elder Wall
Monday, March 9, 2009
March 8, 2009 Email
Hey everyone,
It was a great week. Bad news first: I have mushrooms! Apparently you get them from sitting on dirty ground and being in the humidity. They grow in the damp dark secluded areas, so I will let you figure that one out. A lot of Elders have them and they don't go away till you go home to dryness and stop sitting it dirty places. One elder got rid of them though, so I am trying the anti-fungal cream and such. Great week though.
I love Sundays. They are like pay day on the mission. I think we broke a new record yesterday with investigators at church. We had 10; it was so awesome! I love it. You feel so good to see them there.
We also have been having tons of success working with the ward. We have gained their trust and they like us. I guess the ward has hated the last few sets of elders. So i am very happy.
Bad thing is though, EVERYONE wants to feed us. We eat 2-3 dinners every night (curry almost every meal) and they get mad it you do not eat enough. It is killing me. Good though.
Our focus on the ward has paid off as far as investigators. Also, people have just been coming up from all over and we have lots of new investigators. It is awesome. I love it.
We have Zone Conference tomorrow and it's gonna be cool. I am very excited.
Richard G Scott is coming here at the end of april to dedicate a building, do a missionary conference, and a fireside in our chapel. I am so excited.
My fijian is getting a little bit better, but very slowly.
I am doing good in Hindi too. The people think it is so cool when you can say anything in Hindi.
I don't know if any of the Hindi things you sent will help cause they don't speak true Hini. It is called Indo-Fijian or something like that, hopefully it does though.
Well I am doing great and I love ya'll. Thanks so much. Keep writing.
Love,
Elder Wall ( Elder Lalaga ) that is wall in Fijian and the members think it is hilarious to call me that.
It was a great week. Bad news first: I have mushrooms! Apparently you get them from sitting on dirty ground and being in the humidity. They grow in the damp dark secluded areas, so I will let you figure that one out. A lot of Elders have them and they don't go away till you go home to dryness and stop sitting it dirty places. One elder got rid of them though, so I am trying the anti-fungal cream and such. Great week though.
I love Sundays. They are like pay day on the mission. I think we broke a new record yesterday with investigators at church. We had 10; it was so awesome! I love it. You feel so good to see them there.
We also have been having tons of success working with the ward. We have gained their trust and they like us. I guess the ward has hated the last few sets of elders. So i am very happy.
Bad thing is though, EVERYONE wants to feed us. We eat 2-3 dinners every night (curry almost every meal) and they get mad it you do not eat enough. It is killing me. Good though.
Our focus on the ward has paid off as far as investigators. Also, people have just been coming up from all over and we have lots of new investigators. It is awesome. I love it.
We have Zone Conference tomorrow and it's gonna be cool. I am very excited.
Richard G Scott is coming here at the end of april to dedicate a building, do a missionary conference, and a fireside in our chapel. I am so excited.
My fijian is getting a little bit better, but very slowly.
I am doing good in Hindi too. The people think it is so cool when you can say anything in Hindi.
I don't know if any of the Hindi things you sent will help cause they don't speak true Hini. It is called Indo-Fijian or something like that, hopefully it does though.
Well I am doing great and I love ya'll. Thanks so much. Keep writing.
Love,
Elder Wall ( Elder Lalaga ) that is wall in Fijian and the members think it is hilarious to call me that.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
March 2, 2009 Email
An email from the sulu boy! His first line refers to the fact that we all told him he wasn't giving us enough information. I added Kelsi's email at the bottom because he told her about the Hindu people that he is working with.
Wow! Sorry, but apparently my last email was less then appealing to many of my readers haha.
So we are mostly teaching less active members, but we got a few new investigators this week. One lady blew my mind in our lesson yesterday! She came to church not knowing anyone. She just decided to come. So we got her info and went to teach her. She said she has seen our church do good things like flood help, likes it, and wants to join in. She used to be a methodist. So we were trying to teach her, but she seemed very unconcerned. She just keep saying, "I will learn slowly by coming to church. I just need to go."
So we taught her and she said it all sounds good. She started asking about getting a hymn book and a Book of Mormon and stuff like that. Then she said, "Oh yeah, and I am gonna need a calling too, you know so I can get involved help some people and meet the ward?"
I don't know how to take her. I feel like we need to bust our butts and have crazy spiritual lessons before she joins. But i guess it's not what i want. So hopefully that goes good and she is baptized.
We have one guy right now who is an RM we want to be activated and made our ward mission leader cause he is awesome. He came to church, so I am excited.
Our ward mission leader is nuts. He thinks we're retarded cause we're white. He is a pain in the butt to work with, so we're gonna try to get him released.
Our ward is coming along great. We're having good success gaining their trust. In the past I guess no one really liked the Elders but we're coming great. We almost had a fight over who got to feed us this month cause our dinner list was full (not a real fight just bribing each other about who gets to feed us) . It was funny. We eat multiple dinners some nights just to make people happy. You would never believe how much we eat. They get mad if you do not eat enough.
We have one family now, the Shankars, that I am pretty sure we're gonna be baptizing soon. They have been through multiple pairs of elders and sisters, but they told us now that they want to be baptized as a family. Me and Elder Lloyd get along awesome. We're a lot alike and have a lot of fun. Our motto is that if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.
My Fijian is slowly getting better, but it's tough because I teach maybe three times in a good week in it and thats all it gets used.
We have one little girl who is about to turn eight and be baptized who we teach in Fijian, but her mom said she gets scared when Pilangis ( white people ) speak to her...so she does not understand a whole lot but we're trying. Hindi is so so hard to learn and there is not any resources for it cause it is a wierd dialect- not true Hindi.
We teach lots of lessons and I love it. Not much else to say.
Love you all. Thanks so much.
Love,
Elder Wall
Kelsi,
There are some cool things about Hinuism such as the colors and temples, but the beliefs are nuts. It is satans church. They pray to crazy eight-armed idols and stuff like that. There is a Hindu temple right across from my flat and they always do crazy chants and stuff; it's freaky.
Satan loves the Hindu religion.
I saw a Hindu wedding one time. It was cool cause of the weird instruments they play and the crazy costumes, but seriously the bride did not even matter. I could not even tell who the bride was; it was all about the groom. And almost all Indian marriages are arranged. They have newspaper sections for marriage adds. It is weird.
We teach about Love marriage and people think we are nuts. Well you look beautiful in your dress. I can't believe my baby sister is all grown up... I don't like it. Well stay strong and make good decisions. Love you.
Love,
Elder Wall
Wow! Sorry, but apparently my last email was less then appealing to many of my readers haha.
So we are mostly teaching less active members, but we got a few new investigators this week. One lady blew my mind in our lesson yesterday! She came to church not knowing anyone. She just decided to come. So we got her info and went to teach her. She said she has seen our church do good things like flood help, likes it, and wants to join in. She used to be a methodist. So we were trying to teach her, but she seemed very unconcerned. She just keep saying, "I will learn slowly by coming to church. I just need to go."
So we taught her and she said it all sounds good. She started asking about getting a hymn book and a Book of Mormon and stuff like that. Then she said, "Oh yeah, and I am gonna need a calling too, you know so I can get involved help some people and meet the ward?"
I don't know how to take her. I feel like we need to bust our butts and have crazy spiritual lessons before she joins. But i guess it's not what i want. So hopefully that goes good and she is baptized.
We have one guy right now who is an RM we want to be activated and made our ward mission leader cause he is awesome. He came to church, so I am excited.
Our ward mission leader is nuts. He thinks we're retarded cause we're white. He is a pain in the butt to work with, so we're gonna try to get him released.
Our ward is coming along great. We're having good success gaining their trust. In the past I guess no one really liked the Elders but we're coming great. We almost had a fight over who got to feed us this month cause our dinner list was full (not a real fight just bribing each other about who gets to feed us) . It was funny. We eat multiple dinners some nights just to make people happy. You would never believe how much we eat. They get mad if you do not eat enough.
We have one family now, the Shankars, that I am pretty sure we're gonna be baptizing soon. They have been through multiple pairs of elders and sisters, but they told us now that they want to be baptized as a family. Me and Elder Lloyd get along awesome. We're a lot alike and have a lot of fun. Our motto is that if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.
My Fijian is slowly getting better, but it's tough because I teach maybe three times in a good week in it and thats all it gets used.
We have one little girl who is about to turn eight and be baptized who we teach in Fijian, but her mom said she gets scared when Pilangis ( white people ) speak to her...so she does not understand a whole lot but we're trying. Hindi is so so hard to learn and there is not any resources for it cause it is a wierd dialect- not true Hindi.
We teach lots of lessons and I love it. Not much else to say.
Love you all. Thanks so much.
Love,
Elder Wall
Kelsi,
There are some cool things about Hinuism such as the colors and temples, but the beliefs are nuts. It is satans church. They pray to crazy eight-armed idols and stuff like that. There is a Hindu temple right across from my flat and they always do crazy chants and stuff; it's freaky.
Satan loves the Hindu religion.
I saw a Hindu wedding one time. It was cool cause of the weird instruments they play and the crazy costumes, but seriously the bride did not even matter. I could not even tell who the bride was; it was all about the groom. And almost all Indian marriages are arranged. They have newspaper sections for marriage adds. It is weird.
We teach about Love marriage and people think we are nuts. Well you look beautiful in your dress. I can't believe my baby sister is all grown up... I don't like it. Well stay strong and make good decisions. Love you.
Love,
Elder Wall
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