This week was really good. Two elders Logsdon and Cadogan are staying with us in a foursome while they wait for the boat to Rotuma, so we were on splits everyday with them. We switched back and forth from the Wailoku and Tamavua wards.
We also had Zone Conference, which was awesome as always. We had really good spiritual trainings and it was awesome getting to see all the other missionaries. Interviews with the President went really well also.
One of our investigators in Wailoku is a cute little 11 year old girl named Kini. Her father had a stroke the first part of this year and can't speak or really do anything. So we went and did service there. We cleared and weeded their plantation so they can have food to eat. It went really well. I really hope her whole family will come around and let us teach them and baptize them. We always have her sit in on the lessons so she can hear and feel the spirit, so we will keep working with that.
Jone (15) is coming really well and we had an awesome lesson where his dad came and sat in. He was asking tons of really good questions. We invited the whole family to church, but only Jone came.
Rusilla has been coming to church lately, so we set her baptismal interview for this week. Next week, she will be baptized. I am really excited. She is very strong and has a solid testimony. I now hope that she will be able to activate her less active husband.
We also taught a recent convert who is the only member in his family. He came alone faithfully, but we're trying to work with him to get his family to join. I think they are just lazy though and don't want to come to church.
We went to a cool waterfall early today which was fun, but other then that it about sums up my week. Things are going well and time is flying. I can't belive this week I will hit my nine month mark! It is going so fast.
Well I love you all and hope you have a great week. Thanks for all the love support and prayers. I need it.
Love,
Elder Wall
Monday, August 31, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
August 24, 2009 E-mail
Well this week was awesome! We had a lot of good things happen and taught tons of lessons. But by far the highlight of my week was Friday.
The Nalila family (the chief) from Rakiraki came with family names to do baptisms for the dead in the temple. So not only did I get to see them and see a recent convert family I love do temple work...but I got special permission from the mission president to go on exchanges with a senior elder and perform the baptisms for the dead and confirmations! It was incredible. Plus I did them all in Fijian, which was cool. We were doing his father and grandfather and brothers. All chiefs, so we did all these names from the chiefly blood line. It was awesome. We did 246 names. I was exhausted after, but it was so incredible. I loved every minute of it. I am so grateful for the temple and the opportunity I have to do things like this.
Other than that, Saka from wailoku ward was baptized Saturday and confirmed yesterday. He is awesome. I love him and hope maybe soon his parents will come around and take lessons. I am pretty sure it is just his dad holding back. We also got a couple of new investigators who are golden and are for sure going to be baptized.
Transfers were this week, so we had some elders staying with us while we waited for planes and boats to other islands which was fun. Especially since elder Alba was one of them. It was fun to be with him again. We have two elders waiting for the boat to Rotuma that only goes once a month or so. So they will be living and serving with us for about a month. They are cool so it will be good.
In wailoku ward, we have been having great success in building up the ward and had really high attendance again. Tamavua is doing great. We have more investigators than time to teach them, so we are trying to pick out all the best ones. So it is going really well. We have some more baptisms coming up, so I am excited! Work is good and I am happy. Although I miss the bush. But i did get to see some other areas in Suva and compared to those, I am in the bush, so I will just count my blessings that I get to be there.
Oh, and Thursday, I successfully climbed my first coconut tree. It was only like a fifteen footer, but I don't care. At least I was up there.
Well I love you all and am praying for you. Keep up the good work in America.
Love.
Elder Wall
The Nalila family (the chief) from Rakiraki came with family names to do baptisms for the dead in the temple. So not only did I get to see them and see a recent convert family I love do temple work...but I got special permission from the mission president to go on exchanges with a senior elder and perform the baptisms for the dead and confirmations! It was incredible. Plus I did them all in Fijian, which was cool. We were doing his father and grandfather and brothers. All chiefs, so we did all these names from the chiefly blood line. It was awesome. We did 246 names. I was exhausted after, but it was so incredible. I loved every minute of it. I am so grateful for the temple and the opportunity I have to do things like this.
Other than that, Saka from wailoku ward was baptized Saturday and confirmed yesterday. He is awesome. I love him and hope maybe soon his parents will come around and take lessons. I am pretty sure it is just his dad holding back. We also got a couple of new investigators who are golden and are for sure going to be baptized.
Transfers were this week, so we had some elders staying with us while we waited for planes and boats to other islands which was fun. Especially since elder Alba was one of them. It was fun to be with him again. We have two elders waiting for the boat to Rotuma that only goes once a month or so. So they will be living and serving with us for about a month. They are cool so it will be good.
In wailoku ward, we have been having great success in building up the ward and had really high attendance again. Tamavua is doing great. We have more investigators than time to teach them, so we are trying to pick out all the best ones. So it is going really well. We have some more baptisms coming up, so I am excited! Work is good and I am happy. Although I miss the bush. But i did get to see some other areas in Suva and compared to those, I am in the bush, so I will just count my blessings that I get to be there.
Oh, and Thursday, I successfully climbed my first coconut tree. It was only like a fifteen footer, but I don't care. At least I was up there.
Well I love you all and am praying for you. Keep up the good work in America.
Love.
Elder Wall
Thursday, August 20, 2009
August 16, 2009 E-mail
Wow this week was great. We got a bunch of baptismal dates and commitments set and had a baptismal interview that went awesome, so now Saturday, we have a baptism. It is gonna be awesome. We have been getting tons of referrals too. So many that we have not had time to meet with them all. We are gonna talk to President about splitting the wards into two areas cause we're going crazy trying to fit everyone in. But it is good.
One really good thing that happened this week is we had one investigator who came back from his village in the jungle and was gonna ask us to stop coming cause his strong methodist family convinced him to stay methodist, but we had an awesome lesson with him. He decided he changed his mind and wanted us to come back again. Then the next time we came, he asked us if he could be baptized and bore a crazy good testimony to us. It was awesome. So we set a date for him. It is gonna be really good.
Then we went back to one of the referrals we talked to last week and he had read the introduction to the BOM and all the way up to 2 Nephi! He described perfeclty the story of Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem and going back for the brass plates, then building a boat and coming to America. And how he knows that Jerusalem was really and truly destroyed. Then he asked about how the intro tells of Christ visiting the Nephites, so we talked about that too. We tried to teach a lesson, but he just kept having all these awesome questions and we spent like three hours answering questions and reading scriptures. It was really cool. He was amazed and so happy when we told him about a living prophet today. He also asked about temple work and work for the dead and his face lit up when we told him. He said, "that way all people have an opportunity to accept Christ." It was awesome; the best part all of this was my ability to speak Fijian. It was amazing! I just flowed with words explaining deep doctrinal things. I was definitely experiencing the gift of tongues cause I was speaking on a much higher language level than I am capable of on my own.
We also had a really good ward activity and ward conference in Wailoku ward and the chapel was overflowing! We were really busy and it was a tiring week, but it was awesome. That's about all I got now. So I love you all and have a wonderful day. I will be sure to do the same.
Love,
Elder Wall
One really good thing that happened this week is we had one investigator who came back from his village in the jungle and was gonna ask us to stop coming cause his strong methodist family convinced him to stay methodist, but we had an awesome lesson with him. He decided he changed his mind and wanted us to come back again. Then the next time we came, he asked us if he could be baptized and bore a crazy good testimony to us. It was awesome. So we set a date for him. It is gonna be really good.
Then we went back to one of the referrals we talked to last week and he had read the introduction to the BOM and all the way up to 2 Nephi! He described perfeclty the story of Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem and going back for the brass plates, then building a boat and coming to America. And how he knows that Jerusalem was really and truly destroyed. Then he asked about how the intro tells of Christ visiting the Nephites, so we talked about that too. We tried to teach a lesson, but he just kept having all these awesome questions and we spent like three hours answering questions and reading scriptures. It was really cool. He was amazed and so happy when we told him about a living prophet today. He also asked about temple work and work for the dead and his face lit up when we told him. He said, "that way all people have an opportunity to accept Christ." It was awesome; the best part all of this was my ability to speak Fijian. It was amazing! I just flowed with words explaining deep doctrinal things. I was definitely experiencing the gift of tongues cause I was speaking on a much higher language level than I am capable of on my own.
We also had a really good ward activity and ward conference in Wailoku ward and the chapel was overflowing! We were really busy and it was a tiring week, but it was awesome. That's about all I got now. So I love you all and have a wonderful day. I will be sure to do the same.
Love,
Elder Wall
Monday, August 10, 2009
August 9, 2009 E-mail
Well this week was really good. I was sick most the week, but I'm tough stuff and went out everyday anyways haha.
We shot a couple shots into our barrell and came out pretty good. We have like six baptisms coming up now. Saka is going to be next week. He is the smartest nine-year-old I have ever met. We reviewed all the lessons. I expected he would remember very little since he is only nine and when I was nine you couldn't have gotten me to hold still long enough for lessons. But he amazed me and knew all the lessons inside and out and remembered everything we taught him. It was crazy! He also came to the activity this week cleaning up the chapel and worked way hard. I am amazed at the kid. He is gonna go places in life. He is very excited about being baptized and his father who is a pagan, even decided he doesn't hate us anymore and invited us for dinner. So that is really awesome.
Taravini lives with her boyfriend at her cousin's house, so we clarified that the child is hers but not from her womb. But they have to get married so we're working on that. The only problem is they have no money so they can't get married and bishops here can't perform weddings, so we're working on it. She is very faithful and wants to be baptized really bad so it will work out.
Rusilla is going to be baptized in three weeks and she is awesome. She is very smart and loves the BOM and has a strong testimony. However this week she invited us to a party and wanted us to be guests of honor, and still doesn't understand why we have to be home at nine and can't come. But she is awesome.
Timoci, another kid absolutely ready and excited to be baptized, is good but his girlfriend hates the church and drags him to her church every other week. The power girls have over eighteen-year-old kids. Geez. He has to come three weeks in a row, then he will be baptized, but he promised he was gonna tell her no next week, so it will be good.
So the work is going really well. Wailoku ward is struggling, but we have seen some good improvement this last week. We got two new referals down there and have a full dinner list from them so it is good. We also visited a bunch of less active people who all seemed really happy that we came to visit. The Elders Qurom Pres. is an RM from this mission and was the old AP. He is awesome and has been working with us lots, which has been really good. He is incredible and teaches us some cool stuff. So we have had good success there.
In Tamavua ward, we got a new ward mission leader who went out with us a couple times.
He is really good and knows a lot of the less actives and is good with helping us with the language as well. So that has been good. We're still trying to get home teaching going cause no one home teaches. We had a combined home teaching activity and only a few people showed up, but we made some really good visits. So it has been a really good. We got a whole bunch of lessons and accomplished some good things. I feel really good about our week. But there is always room for improvement, so this next week is gonna be better.
Elder Smiler is doing good and learning quickly. I got some bad news from Rakiraki. The branch is still a mess. The Branch President and his family stopped coming and are very rude and anti towards the members. The Stake still has not really done anything to help the branch out. They just assign someone to run sacrament and that is all that has really been done from what I know.
Miti got the Melchezadik (no I dont spell good) priesthood. He seems to be doing well. He has some new investigators for the missionaries. Too bad they do not have a branch to go to. But they are really good. So hopefully some good things will happen their soon. President Ostler said that if they get a new Branch President, he will send missionaries back. But they don't really have anyone who could be president. Keep praying.
Well I love yall. Keep up the good work back home.
Love,
Elder Wall
We shot a couple shots into our barrell and came out pretty good. We have like six baptisms coming up now. Saka is going to be next week. He is the smartest nine-year-old I have ever met. We reviewed all the lessons. I expected he would remember very little since he is only nine and when I was nine you couldn't have gotten me to hold still long enough for lessons. But he amazed me and knew all the lessons inside and out and remembered everything we taught him. It was crazy! He also came to the activity this week cleaning up the chapel and worked way hard. I am amazed at the kid. He is gonna go places in life. He is very excited about being baptized and his father who is a pagan, even decided he doesn't hate us anymore and invited us for dinner. So that is really awesome.
Taravini lives with her boyfriend at her cousin's house, so we clarified that the child is hers but not from her womb. But they have to get married so we're working on that. The only problem is they have no money so they can't get married and bishops here can't perform weddings, so we're working on it. She is very faithful and wants to be baptized really bad so it will work out.
Rusilla is going to be baptized in three weeks and she is awesome. She is very smart and loves the BOM and has a strong testimony. However this week she invited us to a party and wanted us to be guests of honor, and still doesn't understand why we have to be home at nine and can't come. But she is awesome.
Timoci, another kid absolutely ready and excited to be baptized, is good but his girlfriend hates the church and drags him to her church every other week. The power girls have over eighteen-year-old kids. Geez. He has to come three weeks in a row, then he will be baptized, but he promised he was gonna tell her no next week, so it will be good.
So the work is going really well. Wailoku ward is struggling, but we have seen some good improvement this last week. We got two new referals down there and have a full dinner list from them so it is good. We also visited a bunch of less active people who all seemed really happy that we came to visit. The Elders Qurom Pres. is an RM from this mission and was the old AP. He is awesome and has been working with us lots, which has been really good. He is incredible and teaches us some cool stuff. So we have had good success there.
In Tamavua ward, we got a new ward mission leader who went out with us a couple times.
He is really good and knows a lot of the less actives and is good with helping us with the language as well. So that has been good. We're still trying to get home teaching going cause no one home teaches. We had a combined home teaching activity and only a few people showed up, but we made some really good visits. So it has been a really good. We got a whole bunch of lessons and accomplished some good things. I feel really good about our week. But there is always room for improvement, so this next week is gonna be better.
Elder Smiler is doing good and learning quickly. I got some bad news from Rakiraki. The branch is still a mess. The Branch President and his family stopped coming and are very rude and anti towards the members. The Stake still has not really done anything to help the branch out. They just assign someone to run sacrament and that is all that has really been done from what I know.
Miti got the Melchezadik (no I dont spell good) priesthood. He seems to be doing well. He has some new investigators for the missionaries. Too bad they do not have a branch to go to. But they are really good. So hopefully some good things will happen their soon. President Ostler said that if they get a new Branch President, he will send missionaries back. But they don't really have anyone who could be president. Keep praying.
Well I love yall. Keep up the good work back home.
Love,
Elder Wall
Monday, August 3, 2009
August 2, 2009 E-mail & Pictures
This is Jake's arm as the infection from the bug bite started spreading. For additional information, see his previous e-mails regarding his last visit to the hospital.
Here is the bug bite. Bleck.
.... Recognize this guy?
Today is my eight month mark on my mission. It is crazy. I can't believe how quickly it has gone, but it is going very well.
This week was a pretty good week. Things didn't really go the way we had planned, but we were able to still get some good things done. I got to know the wards a little bit better.
Wailoku ward is struggling a little bit they are having some problems with the ward members and contention, but things are getting better hopefully. We had a really good conversation with the Bishop. He is awesome and willing to do what it takes, so we're gonna be working with him and doing some good things.
In Tamavua Ward, things are going well. We got a new ward mission leader who is awesome and lucky for me, wants to concentrate on recent converts and less actives, which is exactly what I want to do. So it's gonna be good.
I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but we help and teach every week at mission prep class. I laugh cause all the things I didn't do before my mission that I should have, I now not only have to go, to but I teach it-- Seminary, Institute, Mission Prep...I think it's funny. They have a saying here for that goes like this, "Pote Kemu Maleka." Basically it means, 'I eat what I deserve'. I love mission prep and stuff though, so I don't care, it's good.
Me and Elder Smiler are great. we're working hard and improving. He is picking up Fijian very quickly, much faster then I did. He knows Mauri, so I think that is helping out a lot. We're building some good new habits for his mission and breaking some bad old ones. I like training so far although some things are hard. We had a really good experiance with a less active this week.
We had some fall throughs so I decided we were gonna see some LA's. We went to this family and usually the husband doesn't want to sit with us for a lesson, but he did. He said that they were reading about the temple (we gave them a preparing to enter the temple pamplet) and having a spiritual experience, then they decided they wanted the elders to come visit them so they prayed we would come and then we came.
Bro Laitia cried when I asked him to bear his testimony and said he was touched that we would come here and learn his language and his culture and serve his people. He then bore good testimony. It was an awesome experience. He didn't make it to church but his family did.
We also had an awesome lesson last night. After mission prep, I told three future missionaries from our ward that preparation time was over and they were coming with us for the real thing. They were scared and wouldn't teach, but came and bore awesome testimony. It was a really powerful lesson with crazy spirit. I think it is one of the best lessons I have taught in Fijian. It didn't feel like I was speaking Fijian; I was just talking and it came out fijian. It was cool.
A young lady named Taravini read the reading assignment we gave her and picked out some awesome things she liked to share with us. I asked her if she believed the things that we taught and she said yes and then started bawling and bearing testimony that she knows the church is true and she wants to change her life. So I challenged her for baptism. I am pretty sure she will be baptized. Were going back tonight to figure things out cause she has a kid and lives with a guy. But last night she told me that it is her kid but it didn't come from her womb and that the guy she lives with is her cousin. But they seem really friendly to me to be cousins.
We will see.
We will see.
Well it has been a good week and I hope for a better one next week. Love yall and miss yall... Thanks for the prayers they are working.
Love,
Elder Wall
July 26, 2009 E-mail
-We went to Island Park this weekend and so all of us sent one big happy email. This is his reply:
Ni sa bula vinaka noqu matavuvale kece!
Hello my all family. Thanks for that email. It was awesome to hear from everyone.
Cherie- unfortunately I didn't keep my mushrooms, which you inform me are for eating, but if you want I am sure I could grow some more and you can eat them.
Sounds like all of you had a great time in Island Park. I am glad. I have had a pretty good time here in Suva. I eat pancakes for breakfast and I drink real milk. I didn't think I would ever get to do that. I also have a real mattress not just a foam pad. So Suva has its benefits.
My companion is awesome. He has a goofy accent and keeps telling me to pop the boot (trunk) and other wierd words, but he is great. He is very eager to learn and I am doing my best to teach him. His first trainer didn't really teach him much, so I am starting with a pretty fresh slate. His Fijian is not real good yet either, so I have to do almost all the talking and teaching. It has been really good for me.
I have been doing well and getting better. I am doing my best to teach him too which actually helps me out a lot also. As for the work here, it's like shooting fish in a barrell with a 12 gauge. I cannot believe how different it is from the West side. In one of my first lessons here, I asked the investigator if she could read a chapter from the BOM, pray about it, and come to church on Sunday. She said yes,..then I stared at her blankly and didn't know what to say cause I was preparing myself for giving a lecture on why it was important and why she needed to do it. That never happens in the West. You have to force them with repeated visits and commitments before they do anything and they never just say yes, they make excuses. I was shocked but it was good.
We cover two wards Tamavua Ward and Wailoku Ward. Our area is almost all Fijian speaking. They are both big functioning wards who do things for us when we ask them. It is crazy. We had two baptisms on Saturday which was good and more on the way. Tamavua ward has had 40 baptisms this year. It is crazy how the work is booming here. We have ward mission leaders and ward missionaries who actually come with us and do their jobs. It is good. One ward missionary ,Inia, is preparing for his mission and comes every morning and spends all day with us. It is awesome.
Well Mom, I got your cookies that were in qurantine for a month. Not sure why. They were still wonderful and I loved them. Thanks so much. I love you all. Keep writing. It is so nice to hear from everyone. It makes a missionary's week.
Cherie- your excuse of not knowing where to send is a terrible excuse. Just ask my mother jk. But thanks for writing.
Au Lomani Kemuni! (i love you all)
-Loloma LevuElda Lalaga
Ni sa bula vinaka noqu matavuvale kece!
Hello my all family. Thanks for that email. It was awesome to hear from everyone.
Cherie- unfortunately I didn't keep my mushrooms, which you inform me are for eating, but if you want I am sure I could grow some more and you can eat them.
Sounds like all of you had a great time in Island Park. I am glad. I have had a pretty good time here in Suva. I eat pancakes for breakfast and I drink real milk. I didn't think I would ever get to do that. I also have a real mattress not just a foam pad. So Suva has its benefits.
My companion is awesome. He has a goofy accent and keeps telling me to pop the boot (trunk) and other wierd words, but he is great. He is very eager to learn and I am doing my best to teach him. His first trainer didn't really teach him much, so I am starting with a pretty fresh slate. His Fijian is not real good yet either, so I have to do almost all the talking and teaching. It has been really good for me.
I have been doing well and getting better. I am doing my best to teach him too which actually helps me out a lot also. As for the work here, it's like shooting fish in a barrell with a 12 gauge. I cannot believe how different it is from the West side. In one of my first lessons here, I asked the investigator if she could read a chapter from the BOM, pray about it, and come to church on Sunday. She said yes,..then I stared at her blankly and didn't know what to say cause I was preparing myself for giving a lecture on why it was important and why she needed to do it. That never happens in the West. You have to force them with repeated visits and commitments before they do anything and they never just say yes, they make excuses. I was shocked but it was good.
We cover two wards Tamavua Ward and Wailoku Ward. Our area is almost all Fijian speaking. They are both big functioning wards who do things for us when we ask them. It is crazy. We had two baptisms on Saturday which was good and more on the way. Tamavua ward has had 40 baptisms this year. It is crazy how the work is booming here. We have ward mission leaders and ward missionaries who actually come with us and do their jobs. It is good. One ward missionary ,Inia, is preparing for his mission and comes every morning and spends all day with us. It is awesome.
Well Mom, I got your cookies that were in qurantine for a month. Not sure why. They were still wonderful and I loved them. Thanks so much. I love you all. Keep writing. It is so nice to hear from everyone. It makes a missionary's week.
Cherie- your excuse of not knowing where to send is a terrible excuse. Just ask my mother jk. But thanks for writing.
Au Lomani Kemuni! (i love you all)
-Loloma LevuElda Lalaga
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