Elder Love's Samoan Adventures

Malo le Soifua! It pleased me greatly to hear that all of you had the best Christmas of all time... cuz I know that this was the best Christmas I have ever had in my entire life out here in Samoa. We didn't do much besides visit members but it was a glorious day nonetheless. We even had a big mac and fries for dinner which was icing on the cake. This email is gonna be short cuz it's been pretty slow due to the Christmas season but check back next week we will have like 13 baptism dates no doubt. Me and Elder Masuisui are ready to pick it up after the holidays. This has been such a good past few months and I have learned so much and I have never been so happy but I know I could be doing a lot more than I am doing now. good thing its the new year.. I can really recommit myself to this work. This is THE work. I am so blessed to be devoted to it for 2 years. GUYS if you haven't been reading the Book of Mormon I would invite you to do so. In all sincerity of my heart that book

Malo le soifua! Dang Rip Elder Visesio and Elder Lavaka. My first two companions are both on planes right now going to New Zealand and Tonga..that's weird that both my dads are already dead. My new companion is sooo dope though. As I said before Elder Masuisui was in my intake and we sat right next to each other in the MTC, now we are back together here in Tutuila its pretty sick. We are both so ready to get this area back up man we spent like all last Sunday like making goals and just getting ready for this transfer. We know we are gonna see some miracles happen here as we keep being obedient and doing our part of this work. We are trying to speak to each other in Samoan as much as possible so we can boost our language abilities this transfer. We also even made a workout program cuz there are some weights in the house that we stay at so we plan on both being yoked as in about a month haha. we both split a carton of eggs every morning and we eat a ton of canned tuna haha gainzzz br

Malo Soifua! Transfer 2 down (each transfer is 6 weeks long) and I am still kicking it here in my birth place malaeimi. I love the members here they are dope! It's awesome to see my relationships getting closer with them as I am learning more and more to speak their language and understand them. SOO brooo Elder Visesio is bouta finish his mission next week and we got the transfer call but we were told that we were both gonna stay in Malaeimi but we were getting third missionary to be in our trio.. that lucky missionary is none other than Elder Masuisui! he was in my intake and we know each other super well so I am so hyped!! can't wait to get back at it in this area and find some people who are ready to hear the gospel! So its been raining a ton hear so one day we had to walk like 50 yards in rain waiter up past our knees it was sick! peep the pics. We had a super cool but super sad experience yesterday where we were going to a house that we got a referral from and this

Malo! The work is really moving here in Malaeimi now! we have 4 baptismal dates and we have been finding more people to teach. We found this one guy and he asked why angel Moroni is on the temple and not Jesus Christ. So i said I have no idea and after my companion straight faasoa'd me and told me never to say I don't know. I was like broooo why not? Like I am trying to be upfront and honest with people and honestly I didn't know the answer to that question. It took some humility to take the advice and he helped me understand that people here take, "i don't know" like way hard and like evidence that we aren't telling the truth. so he helped me understand what to say when I don't know an answer to question that is still being honest.. by telling people you don't know everthing and that you will do all that you can to find the answer but then testify of what you do know. that was just a small little thing in the work but It's just a good reminder

Malo Lava Soifua lo'u uso e ma tuafafine, These past few weeks have been hard man as we have been trying really hard to find new people to teach. We have a good group of people we are teaching from one of the wards but the other ward is pretty dried up. But I do want to talk about one of the guys we met the other day. We walked down this road I had never been down before and I was like "yo lets knock on this door" so we did and this short guy answers the door and was like "yo come in" so we went in and started talking to him. He told us his name was Ayo and he was from the Philippines. we had a good talk and he told us how he is living here by himself to work and provide for his family back in the Philippines. man this dude was so humble. then we talked to him about the Book of Mormon and I explained to him how it works with the bible and is another testament of Jesus Christ and how it was the foundation of our unique message and stuff. Then we read the intro to

Malo! Hey hows everyone doing back in palagi land?! bro alot has changed here since the last time i wrote! My companion elder lavaka got transferred back to upolu to finish his mission there and he got replaced by my new companion, Elder Visesio! He is this skux lookin dude from New Zealand and he is way chill. he finishes in like 4 weeks. I am still kicking in malaeimi and the work is good but there are some challenges. We had this one lady we were talking to and she was like golden man she was eating everything up and we taught her the first lesson. we came back the next day and told us that her faife au (her church leader from a different church) had come over to her house and told her that she couldn't let us back in her house. broooo likeee broo. that's what really kinda sucks about this mission. everyone believes in god here which is amazing but also there are a ton of people hard core in other churches. and the thing that is sad is that a whole community (family) can go

Malo!! Sorry I didn't write last week! this week was dope we had a zone conference and we learned how to better find and teach our friends! I am still out here in malaeimi, American Samoa. great place and even better people. starting to understand better but its still rough. like I can understand every single word someone says but still not know if they are asking a question, saying a statement etc.. but its getting better and better. Right now my comp and I are trying to find more people to teach and we have a lot of recent converts that we are teaching their lessons again so we have a lot of work to do. Random Stuff: It's interesting when we go over to peoples houses to eat the head of the family is the only one who eats with us. the rest of the family still talks to us but they sit on the couch until we are done eating. it's just part of the culture out here as a sign of respect to the elders. I feel bad every time tho cuz by the time we are done to food is all

Talofa! 6 weeks already?! as another elder from my intake said 'We've got some stripes under out belts now'.. haha I am no longer the greenest greenie!! but don't get it wrong yo I am still greener than green hahaha. but the work is going super well. We have 6 baptisms on saturday! a guy named tana and his kids muti and mary.. two sisters named tofaga and gase.. and another homie named byrone. If my cousin jaiden is reading this email byrone reminds me of you like to the T bro.. its kinda weird. anyway right now we are just trying to help them all out prepare for their baptisms on saturday! So no I am not training! yet... my comps permit to live in american samoa ends on november 16th which is in the middle of the transfer. so he is going back to Upolu to finish his mission and you can bet ya boy is gonna be training right here in my birthplace, Malaeimi. Anyway the language man! soooollllee... its rough bro! I think of it like this.. the language is like a puzzle

Talofa Lava! The galuega faafaifeautalai is going incredibly well out here in samoa! we have so many people that the Lord has prepared us to teach. on Saturday a kid named Siaki is getting baptized and then next week we have 7 more people being baptized!  A super cool experience happened the other day! we went to teach an older guy named Salevaiolo who we had been talking to a little bit and we finally got the chance to sit down with him and teach a lesson. anyway I was super  tired that day so trying to understand the entire conversation was near impossible but I picked up some stuff here and there. when I had the chance to share my testimony I told him in rough Samoan that Heavenly Father loved him and he prepared a way for him to receive peace and happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. I told him that way was through accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be baptized. he was actually nodding along as I was speaking! that was so cool to actually have s

Tolofa Lava! O a mai outou? this week has been very interesting for sure! So as I said before Elder Lavaka got a tama'i lima straight to the mata and he was even tafetoto from his eye so we had to take him to the fale ma'i (hospital) last aso gafua(Monday). the foma'i told him that he had to stay inside and away from the sun for a week. so we took to our matua fa'aleagaga(spiritual parents) and he chilled there all week while I proselyted with zone leaders! what an honor let me tell you. I got to drive in the van every day and I pretty much got a tour of the whole island! It was sick. The best part though was that I got to learn so much from so many different missionaries! Because I was with the ZLs we visited like half the missionaries in our zone and I had the chance to proselyte with both ZLs-- Elder Johnson and Elder Tiatia. I learned something very important.. There isn't one right way to do missionary work. Everyone has their own style but there is only o

Talofa! K long story short people cuz my time is about gone: -Elder Lavaka got poked in his eye during basketball, went to the hospital, he can't leave the house for a week because his eye needs to heal. -Now I get to go on splits with one of the Zone Leaders every day named Elder Johnson and he is a palagi (i.e. white guy) and I learned sooooo much just yesterday on Tuesday. -We are baptizing Emi on Saturday! she is a literal gem! Got 6 more baptism dates by November 3rd! -Quickly realizing language is just one part of the work... I really stink at teaching-- especially simply -- so gotta be working on that diligently. preach my gospel is a gem. -sorry I don't have more time ill get pics next week with better stuff. Ou te iloa e moni le tusi a mamona. Ou te iloa o lena tusi o le afioga a le atua. e moni le ekalesia! Love you all, Elder Alofa ---------------------------------------------

Talofa! This week I had the opportunity to baptize Tasi!! funny story he is like 6'5 350 pounds with long hair so baptizing him was nothing short of a challenge. I had to like shove his hair down and then his shoulders were still poking out of the water so I had to shove those down so it looked pretty awkward haha. people told me after that he almost baptized me hahah. It was good tho I did the prayer faasamoa.. But this week wasn't short of challenges either! Man you know the saying "just get lost in the work"? ya right now I definitely feel lost but not in the work hahah. It feels as if I am on the outside looking in to the work because most of the days I sit in lessons, struggle through my part, and then just try and listen and understand. The language barrier is killing me man its hard to "get lost in the work" when you can't really do the work in the language that everyone speaks. but I making small steps every day.. I understood perfectly a qu

Malo Lava! First week in Samoa man. the mission ain't no joke. still don't know what people are saying for the most part.. don't have enough vocab down and the way people speak is much different than the written language. Good thing though the people are all saints. super nice and super respectful. We will be walking down the road and people will come up to us with a bag of food they just bought for us or they will just hand us cash. We are teaching this sweet old lady right now named Emi.. she is committed to be baptized in a couple weeks. This week we are baptizing a massive dude named Tasi.. I have been there for a couple of his lessons and I am able to give a simple testimony and one sentence explanations of some principles but that's about it. However, I am learning and I'm not gonna give up. "I will go and I will do".. the Lord didn't call me to Samoa to fail. he called me to teach his people and bring them the gospel. In order to do that I n

Malo Soifua! o a mai outou? I am here! I am literally in samoa and let me tell you it is absolutely beautiful. I thought lake powell was the prettiest place on earth but this place competes for sure. soo it has been a pretty busy past few days so let me fill you in. we left the MTC on sunday morning and flew to san fran and had a 7 hour layover and then flew to new zealand where we had a 3 hour layover and then we finally made it to Apia, Samoa. we spent the first night in the mission home and we had some delicious samoan food for dinner. we had training that night and the next morning and then we were all assigned to our areas. I got assigned to American Samoa! so me, Elder's Esplin, Irvine, Te'o, Zembal, and Manu hopped on this tiny plane and flew 20 minutes over the pacific to tutuila (american samoa). My companion's name is elder Lavaka and he is from Tonga. He is a buff rugby player and it pretty decent at english but it is pretty hard for me to understan him because h

Talofa! This is my last week on the continent for two years!!  The MTC has been such an amazing experience and I have had so much fun and learned so much! I can't wait to get out to Samoa and really learn the language!  This week has been fun! highlights/events include: -While playing basketball, I stuffed Elder Palepoi sooo hard at gym time It felt amazing. -Elder Faamausili got temporarily reassigned to Oakland, Cali because he is on visa wait. Apparently he didn't know that he had to do visa stuff before he got here and he didn't fill out any of the forms soooo.. he is gonna be in Cali for a couple transfers. -I made a master grammar sheet with all of the sentence structures and everything on it/front and back and laminated it. I know that sounds boring but it is one of the best things I have ever done in my life.  -I also made a scripture box/case out of cardboard and tape for my triple combo in Samoan and it is amazing. I don't want my

Talofa! This week was a party! Highlights include: - My comp and I taught two lessons on sunday, one for district meeting and one for priesthood. - My 20 minute lesson in samoan was a success! I have another one tonight should be good. - I was eating chips and salsa and I forgot to screw the lid back on and an Elder Read took the salsa to shake it up and it exploded everywhere.  - Elder Erickson and Elder Anderson from the Tongan districts are doing 500 pushups a day. Psycho. Elder Ericksen is gonna break the record of 121 in a row. -Every week we get $6 dollars on our mtc cards and it carries over from week to week. I have 18 bucks now! I am saving up for some sick sweats in the store that say MTC on them.  - I got a haircut at the MTC barber and it actually wasn't horrible. - This may not make any sense.but the more samoan I learn, the less foreign it sounds. It sounds normal because I understand it. - apparently I look like Brock Lesnar now,

TALOFA! Guys I don't have a ton of time today but I will rattle off a few little things from this week: -Elder Esplin calls me his dad for some reason and he calls My companion his son so I guess Fa'amausili is my grandson. Also, "sole" is the samoan word for dude and we have all started calling fa'amausili "sole" as a nickname and when esplin says it I die laughing. He pronounces it "ttttsssssoollee". I realize that sounds so stupid but it is hilarious. -Every time Elder Hansen from the Tongan district sees me he calls me "officer" or "Sargent" because apparently I look like a cop. So ya that's interesting haha. -Elder Wallentine from my district threw 152 goldfish into his own mouth consecutively without missing a single one. He is pretty much a living legend around here.  -My comp and I have to give a 20 minute lesson to an "investigator" tonight at 6:15. If it comes to it I'll probabl

Talofa! This week has gone by so fast. I actually love it here because we always have something to do and there's never a dull moment. Especially with my district and the other samoan district. We have only been around eachother for a week and 20 of us already feel like brothers. Everyone in both of the samoan districts are going to samoa Except elder Wallentine and Elder Sauder (australia) and I hope I get to see some of these elders out in the field. So I can say a basic prayer in samoan and ask "whats up" but thats pretty much it hahaha. O a mai oe?! atleast I didn't scrape the bottom of the bucket like Elder Read and say the F word while trying to say goodbye lolooollol.  Excercise time has been a party man. We play king of the court basketball and it gets pretty intense. I am getting to the point where I think I might come back and play college ball we'll see. The food is good here! I eat double portions every meal so hopefully I'll get some gainz