Elder Love's Samoan Adventures

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 actual...

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...