May 31, 2009 E-mail

These are the letters that make it all worth it-- even with the annoying and scary hospital visits. The second email is responding to our emails about how wonderful our Stake Conference was. What a wonderful missionary he is!

E-mail #1:

Well another week down and even though most of it was spent in the stinking hospital, a lot of things happened.

My arm is almost completely normal sized again. I am still taking antibiotics, but it is good. I feel good and I am motivated to go back and continue on in our up hill battle of Rakiraki.

Things were good this week in church. We still had no one come out to the first two blocks of church, but we had a good number of people who came out to sacrament and that is really good.

Both of my recent converts, Miti and Keresi, are doing awesome. They are excited and motivated about being in the church. Next week Miti is going to be ordained a priest and then the next, he is going to bless the sacrament. I am very excited.

Keresi loved going to the temple and doing baptisms for the dead and is excited in planning for our YSA activity in July. We're doing it pioneer. We're going to have a dance and everyone is going to dress cowboy. I love it. It is a regional YSA thing, so all of Fiji is gonna come to Rakiraki it will be so good to see real members and a real operating activity.

My fijian was really good this week and the members decided they want me to learn their dialect, so they were trying to speak to me in the dialect always... it went ok. It is just so different from standard Fijian, hopefully I can pick more of that up.

I had an awesome interview with President Ostler, the mission president, this morning. It is Zone Conference tomorrow and I am in Lautoka. I just laid everything down and told him what I think needs to happen and told him more things I have found about the Branch President and he said things are going to change and that if he has to, he is going to go to the area presidency. So I'm really excited to see some change. Sitting in sacrament and recording our attendance, I felt really successful as a missionary. These people who I love, are finally coming to church! My first week, we had six people: two missionary's and the president and his family of four. The past three weeks we have had attendance of 25-30. I have finally been able to make things change and happen, to help them and to give them an oppurtunity to have a Branch that hopefully someday soon, will be functional. I just hope to be in Rakiraki long enough to see these awesome people be a part of a large opperating Branch. The joy and sense of worth this would bring me is something I keep looking forward to with high hopes. These wonderful people are the only thing that keeps me going day to day.

Well I love you all and thanks so much for everything you do. I miss you all and am praying for you.

Love,
Elda Lalaga


Email #2:
I wish I could have been there; that sounds awesome. The leadership of this church amazes me. I had an Ensign in the hospital and that is about it, so I read all of the conference talks and studied from them. The things those men know and say are incredible! I wil never ever forget the feeling I had sitting in a missionary conference being taught by Richard G Scott. I was on the front row and the man was so close; it was incredible.

Personal Revelation and learning through it is something that is becoming so real to me. My study lately has been awesome. I have gotten into some deep deep doctrine and I love it. As a member of the Branch Presidency, I now have a church handbook of instructions (which I hear are supposed to be pretty tight kept) and I have studied out of it and learned things about the gospel a twenty year old probably is not fully ready to know, but through personal revelation and reasoning and spirit behind things, it has strengthened my testimony so much. Our Heavenly Father has a knowledge and PERFECT plan for everything. Everything has a reason and purpose, whether I understand it or not. But if I diligently seek to know and understand and sacrifice my will for God's, then the knowledge and understanding is given to me.

I love this gospel. Thanks for the love and support. Sorry I have been such a pain in my life. Thanks for never giving up on me, even when I gave up on myself.

Love,
Jake