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