Blog Description

A collection of letters from our favorite missionary. This blog is compiled by his sister and is made up of pictures and images sent to the fam.

Friday, October 15, 2010

October 10, 2010 - Establishing a Home Teaching Program

Well this week was really good. For some reason during the week it seemed slow, but last night when we tallied up our numbers for call ins, I saw that we had a great week. So I guess perspective changes everything.

One thing that I was really happy about this week was the Elders Quorum. We sat down with the President and figured home teaching for companions and for families. We will hopefully be doing a home teaching workshop soon to teach the brethren to home teach cause I don't think they have ever had home teaching here before.

We also split the priesthood into Young Men and Elders Quorum for the first block in church. I really think that will help our members to get some unity and build some good relationships.

We also planned for a combined family home evening that we will be having on my birthday, so that is going to be fun.

We had some great lessons this week with our investigators and are seeing some great progress. The Teikauea family is progressing really well. We have awesome lessons with them and they are really starting to change. Bro Teikauea said he knows we don't smoke in our church so he is going to start quitting so he can join when he is ready. We almost had them committed to come to church as a family (the kids go every week but the parents stay home), then at the last minute Bro Teikauea changed his mind and said his wife and kids could go but he was gonna stay home. His wife said they have been married 15 years and he hasn't been to church once. He said he couldn't remember the last time he went to church. This week though, I think we're gonna get him. He said that he and his family need to make a plan for their family spiritual well being. Great family and they are slowly coming along.

We also had a woman named Sis Ilau tell us that she wants to be baptized with the group that we are going to baptize on the 30th. So now we are in a hurry to cover all the lessons before the interview. They finally decided to send us an elder to do the baptismal interviews. He comes next Tuesday, so this week will be busy trying to prepare all eight of out baptismal dates. It will be good.

We had great attendance yesterday at church with 71, which is the highest since I have been here. Autoa and Tofikai are still just so so awesome! Tofi has been sharing the gospel with his friends and they all meet at USP (University of the South Pacific) campus and have gospel discussions about their different religion. It is so good. He loves the plan of salvation cause he said none of the other churches know anything about it. They are so awesome and I love teaching them!

I feel like I made some good progress this week in the language. I still have a long long way to go until I will be able to openly communicate. I can understand it surprisingly well if they speak slow. But speaking is still just a guessing game of really broken sentences. We have had a couple lessons in only Tuvaluan though with some young kids who don't know English. Elder Key is picking it up really fast now and can usually get the point across. Some people he can just speak Samoan too, so that helps as well.

Well that is all I've got for this week. I love you all and hope all is well back in the promised land. See you soon.

Love,
Elder Wall

Friday, October 8, 2010

October 3, 2010 - Ganja Virus

Well this week was a bit interesting. I got hit with the Ganja virus. Jk don't know what the heck virus it was, but it sucked really bad. I was really sick and felt like crap for four days till it got better. But the Lord did teach me a valuable lesson.

When I called the mission nurse cause I got really bad sick, she told me the first thing to do was to get a priesthood blessing cause there is no qualified medical professionals here (I found out this was true. The doctor was like a child playing hospital; she had a stethoscope around her neck so she looked like a doctor, but didn't know how to use it or what it was). Well I was prideful and thought that I was tough and that blessings are for dying people, I was just sick and would be better soon. After four days of suffering, the Lord broke my pride and I got a blessing. From there on out, I was on an uphill and by the next day, I was still a bit tired from no sleep for four days but out working again. So I learned to not rely upon my own strength. If I would have gotten the blessing at first, I could have had a lot better week this week. Lesson learned. Time to move forward. We had a great week anyway.

We have some awesome investigators. We are just waiting for the APs to get over to interview them, so we can baptize them. The APs think they are busy though and keep pushing back the date. Hopefully they will get over here fast; these people need to be baptized.

One family that is progressing well is the Teikaue family. Their father told us the other day that he has never really understood religion or the gospel, just went to church before exams in college thinking it could only help. Now he is starting to understand. It is great. We just need to get them to church now. They send their boys and stay home themselves. They say that they like what the church teaches the boys, but they aren't ready to go yet themselves. We will change that. Their mother asks a ton of great questions as well. We have great lessons with them and they are slowly progressing, so I am excited to see where they go.

We also have the best two investigators in the history of missionary work: Tofi and Autoa. They are so so awesome! They love our appointments, listen intently, ask questions, come to church, and get mad if we don't give them enough reading assignments from the Book of Mormon. Did I mention that they are awesome?

The branch is coming along well. It has been very easy and fun working with the leaders here. They are so humble, teachable, and eager to strengthen the branch. This week we're going to plan an activity and start home teaching. Things are going really well.

The language is frustrating the crap out of me. I can understand it pretty well surprisingly, considering the fact that I have only been here one month. But I cannot figure out how to create sentences. Our 60 page, half illustration grammar book is 50\50 for being correct or incorrect and there is so much not in it at all. I ask the members and they have no clue what things mean, when I can and cannot use certain things, or when it is this way and when it is that way. They have no clue. It is frustrating. I have no resources to learn with and nothing to teach me. My companion can speak and understand really well cause some things are the same as Samoan, but he too has no clue why and when to use things as he does. He just says that it's because it sounds right that way. So frustrating. I will just keep praying and trying my best and hopefully the Lord blesses me with a decent grammar book or something to help me.

Well, Love you all. Good luck this next week.

Love,
Elder Wall

September 26, 2010 - Are these investigators for real?

Well we had a really good week again this week. We have some of the best investigators. I can't even believe it! They all just want to know so bad and we have had some great lessons. One family that I am particularly excited to see what happens with, is the Tekawei family.

Their sons have been coming to church and have been wanting to be baptized for like two years now. But when we taught them, we told the parents we would rather teach them as a family so they started just sitting in to make us happy, but the past couple lessons they have been asking questions and paying close attention. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with them this week and the spirit was so strong. Their mother is awesome and will definitely be willing to accept the gospel. I think the father knows that if it is true, he has to change his life. So he seems a bit more nervous to start coming to church. But they promised us they would come this next week, so hopefully they will follow through and the Lord will prepare them to accept the gospel.

Sis Ilau is also an awesome investigator, probably the most studious I have ever had. She writes down every scripture reference and studies them after we leave, takes notes during the lessons, and writes one page summaries of every chapter we give her to read. She is awesome! She can understand English, but almost can't speak a word. So that makes it interesting to communicate sometimes. But we have had some awesome lessons with her.

Autoa and Tofi are great as well. They are just so excited to finally be baptized after such a long wait. Hopefully the APs can get over here quickly and do the interviews. They always remind us about lessons so we are sure to not forget. It is hilarious because the whole rest of my mission, I have been the one reminding people so they don't forget. Now the tables have turned and I love it.

We had a great meeting with the Branch President and made some great plans to help establish the church more here. He is a very humble, teachable man who wants so badly for the Branch to be good. He just tells us over and over that he has never been a member in a large branch, so he is not sure how things are supposed to work. He is awesome! I love him.

We are hoping to have a combined family home evening on Monday and I think all the members are really excited. The language is slowly but surely coming along. We only have one forty page BRIEF book about the language, so it is a lot of asking questions and trying to figure out why and how they use the grammar the way they do. The members are really our only language learning resource. Slowly, slowly.

It is still hotter than crap...but it has rained a lot the past couple of days, which cools things down. I think that about sums up this last week. All is well and I love and pray for you all.

Good luck TJ and Merrill family with the surgery. Get well soon Dad. Nick, I am praying for you as well. Stay strong.

Love,
Elder Wall