Good work Mojo, and the family for the missionary work! How did church go with your friend? How did she feel about the lesson and everything?! That is so cool that you guys got to be a part of a lesson like that!! Keep up the good work! A good place for you guys to read that may be helpful as you seek to help them come unto Christ would be Preach My Gospel Chpt. 9, under "The Importance of Members". Also, PMG (Preach My Gospel) chapter 13 has lots of great thoughts! You guys rock!!
Well, in response to your question, Do you look different, I would say that the Kids look bigger, and the Parents look smaller! Everyone still looks beautiful and handsome! (What a smart boy!)
Elder Naidu skyped his brother, who lives in Utah, and called his Mom on our phone, using a calling card. She is in American Samoa. I didn't actually get the chance to talk with them, but my companion was very happy to hear their voices. Sounds like his family is doing pretty good! And apparently, Elder Naidu will be going home to American Samoa only shortly, maybe for a week, and will then be going to Utah, to work with his bro to help bring the fam over to the States. He is pretty excited!
This week was actually pretty good for missionary work!
My own heart burned inside me
We had one teaching experience with a part-member fam on Saturday, an experience that I really felt the Spirit. The family is in kinda a similar situation as with Bro C_, wife is active and dad is not a member. Kids and fam all strong in the church, and dad even comes to church fairly often. But dad still hasn't been baptized, after 30 years of being married to an active member. So, we visited with our Elders Quorum pres and a recent convert of about 10 months from Lotu Patipati (literal translation: clapping church; Samoan name for Assembly of God religion). It was a pretty neat teaching experience, because we had the opportunity to hear the recent convert brother share his experience with why he decided to get baptized. That portion of our lesson, I felt the Spirit very strongly.
His testimony is powerful, and it is easy to tell that he will be a strong leader in the future. Very strong! This brother, in Samoan, explained how he had been visited by missionaries for 3+ years, while living in New Zealand, and never made the decision to get baptized, because he never felt that that was what Heavenly Father wanted for him. They then moved here to Sydney. The man's 18-year-old daughter met missionaries at the Library, where they continued to meet with her and eventually she invited the missionaries to their home. The family began to take lessons once again from the missionaries. And the father explained that this time, he sincerely wanted to know, his heart was humbled, because the missionaries were led to his home once again. I didn't fully understand everything that he said, but when he bore testimony of how the Spirit touched his heart, my own heart burned inside me, and I knew that what he was saying was true, without a doubt! The family was all baptized, except the Mom, who was raised in the church, but fell away in her teens. The whole family is very strong now, and have a bright future ahead.
The brother we were teaching appreciated the lesson. We are going over tonight for FHE (Family Home Evening), with the hope to teach the Restoration, and help him feel the importance of the Restored Gospel, as well as the opportunity that we have to know truth, by the Power of the Holy Ghost. Will let you know how we go next week!
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| Sister Makabenta (from the Philippines) had her b-day, so we returned the favor from mine! |
Funny scriptures, that have got us laughing
Something that made me smile this past week: Elder Naidu has been studying the Old Testament to prepare to teach some of our investigators. He has been learning lots of really great things, and he shares them with me, almost always. He also has found some funny scriptures, that have got us laughing, hahahaha! The Old Testament is great, just some parts are a lot of fire and brimstone. It has also been funny hearing him mock (in good nature of course) some of the Samoan ways.
He tells me that some of the Samoans like to challenge your knowledge of the Bible, even with things veryyyyyyy insignificant. For example, he fired these questions at me, in quick succession, to demonstrate what some visits that he has had are like: "Who are Noah's three sons?" "What is the Land that the wife of Abram came from?" "What is the name of the King of Egypt during the time of Abraham?" "What is Abraham's sister-in-law's name?" etc. We had a bit of a laugh about that. Hahahaha. What a trooper! When we teach people that respond like that (normally the older generation that prefer to speak Samoan), he normally has to take the brunt of the attack almost completely alone, because I generally don't understand the nitty gritty details of those questions. Hahahaha.
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| Lunch right after our District Meeting! |
Favorite food of the week
My favorite food of the week..... Hmmm..... That's hard. Lots of Sopasui, taro, chicken soup, lamb.... Hmmmm... We had some hungry jacks! A less-active family fed us hungry jacks, and that was a nice change:). (Hungry Jacks is our burger king).
Ezra: That's so cool that you got to go camping! Make sure that you get enough sleep before you drive any cars! :) My favorite place in Aussie is the Sydney South Mission :).
JJ: Good job on the service project! Keep up the good work! My favorite treat now is Koko Samoa
Mojo:You are an awesome missionary! Keep it up!
Kaysie: You are probably lying to everyone and still have one more year of school!
Cami: Hope all is well in SoCal! I am jealous of the nice weather you are probably having, because it is cold here!
Love you guys heaps! Hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Loseni
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