Week 5 - American Samoa

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 one way to conversion and that is through the spirit.. so that was awesome to pick up the different styles and teaching ideas from different missionaries that I can use in my own teaching!

I baptized Emi on Saturday!! she is literally the sweetest lady in the whole entire world. she was hard of hearing so teaching her was a struggle for me cuz i am trash at Samoan but she was so fun to teach because she was just so receptive and so sweet in all of her answers. 

I still feel very unprepared to be honest! like Its bad haha I still have so many things to learn and get good at it.. But i know I will get there! everything I try to do is to make myself a more capable instrument in gods hands to bless peoples lives. I had an amazing experience yesterday. and it happened all in English haha. So Emi, the lomatua (older lady) I baptized on Saturday has a daughter named Emi that was baptized before I got in the area. I have grown to love her too as we have visited her mom. Anyway we went over to their house yesterday to go back over Emi senior's lessons and Emi jr was there. After she prepared us some papaya, which is straight heaven btw I love papaya now, Emi jr kind of just opened up to us about how grateful she was for the gospel (in English) and how far she has come because of the gospel. she also told us about how it has comforted her through the death of her child only like 4 months ago. she pretty much bore her testimony about the gospel and how grateful she was for it and then it pretty much just turned into a testimony meeting after that haha. like the spirit was so strong. I told Emi jr that I was so grateful for what she shared and how happy I was that she was happy through the gospel. and then I said that's why I came out here is to bring people that joy. I shared my mission scripture, 1 Nephi 8:15 that talks about how the fruit of the tree of life is most desirable above all and how happy i was to be bringing that to others. Emi jr expressed her gratitude to us for helping her mom receive the gospel and be baptized and she told us that we were such a blessing in their lives. Such a good experience man. I am out here for such a good cause and the gospel truly brings happiness to people's lives. How lucky am i to be apart of that!

Also! Bore my testimony on fast Sunday!! so scary bro. but it was awesome after I sat back down a member that I have gotten to know a little bit named seumanu leaned over and said, "dang man your Samoan is getting so much better! you're gonna be one of those guys who gets fluent for sure". that was a huge spirit booster man!

anyway God is blessing me with all of these tender mercies as I am trying to get through these tough first couple months. The gospel is THE way to lasting happiness. 

I love you all!! 

<3 Elder Alofa

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Emi before her baptism...