JANUARY 12, 2014

Talofa lava ia te i outou!

another week here in NZ! it has been great!

the highlights....

-last monday i was challenged by my district leader to invite someone to be baptized by the end of the day. i said i'd do my best... and lo and behold.... we taught our new investigator, Pepa - 18 year old girl - and at the end of the lesson of the restoration i invited her to be baptized, and she said YES! how cool is that! our first lesson with her and she wants to get baptized!?? let me tell you, that is an awesome feeling. :)  sadly... about 4 days later we get text from Pepa saying that her mom said she cant be baptized. now yes she is over 18, but in most Polynesian cultures you still need the parents permission. even if she was 25 or 30 they still, for the most part, respect the wished of the parents.  so we were able to meet with her again yesterday and we taught her the gospel of jesus christ - faith, repentance,baptism, the holy ghost and enduring to the end.  She still has a strong desire to get baptized so we also talked a lot with her about agency, and that in the end it is her choice, not her parents, hers.  she will be doing some praying, reading form the scriptures this week, and we are also going to try and meet with her mom just to establish a friendship/trust, and to explain baptism with her.

-we are finding, with the more and more people we talk with each day, that there are MANY less actives - so many more than i'd every imagine.  white, tongan, samoan, asian... MANY less actives.  its sad to me that they have somehow lost the faith along the way.  i'm learning as i go that it is my job to find those who don't yet have the gospel, but it is also my job to find those who need to RE-find the gospel.  yesterday alone we stumbled across 4 or 5 less actives.

-i spoke in church yesterday. 1/2 and 1/2 samoan/english. it was the missionary sunday so the ward mission leader, the ward missionaries and the missionaries spoke.  i just gave a 5is minute talk about our family's conversion starting with Christine then closed with my testimony telling the ward to be the friend that invites others to church on sundays and to activities.  it is their job to do the social conversion, and our job to help with the spiritual conversion. 

-also yesterday... hahahaha... our fafaga (dinner)... apparently they didn't know they were feeding us until church (we tried to call and confirm the day before, but the number in the ward directory was wrong and no one that we knew had her right number). so we get to fafaga, and we sit on the couch (watching womens rugby because the couch faced the TV....) then the older woman's son comes in with 3 pizza boxes and a thing of chinese take out! ha... i felt so bad... they broke the sabbath to feed us missionaries! ha! not gonna lie, it was a really good dinner. :) hee hee. i'm sure the lord is all good with that, he knows the intentions of their hearts!

-we have only been in our area for just over a week and we went from a handful of potential investigators to having one set for baptism at the end of the month, and 4 other investigators (hopefully set for baptism soon), and MANY potential investigators!  We are striving to have obedience with exactness, and i am seeing the blessings already. we even got a referral yesterday for tonight at 6! we are pumped for that.  it is very hard to stay exactly obedient, but i think that's the point.  the more obedient i am, the happier i am, the less homesick i feel, and most importantly, the more people we meet who are ready to hear the gospel. 

-im still getting frustrated on a daily level with the language. for one thing MOST people we talk with speak english, and they feel bad for me when i cant follow a conversation. mostly i sit there trying my hardest to pick up on key words that i can string together, but even then it is hard with the speed of how they talk. my soa does well understanding the language, but she also struggles with responding sometimes, so that puts us both out of luck many times. thank goodness for sophia(the member who comes with us on a daily basis...seriously SO GRATEFUL for her), she does some translating for us.  what usually happens is we go into a home, small talk for a while, i sit there and laugh when everyone else laughs, try to make coments, but usually don't because i have no idea what the heck is going on. then when there is an awkward silence, i start the spiritual thought because that is all i can do.  it is driving me crazy. and i'm still sorting out how to fix this.  when i try to start a conversation at the door or on the street i usually freeze up and it is as if i didn't even know what samoan was.  bleh!  i know it will get better, and soa says that i have awesome samoan when i give the spiritual thought..... thats great and all, but thats all i do and i want to expand.  we have a goal set this week to spend 2 hours every day speaking ONLY samoan. i am hoping this will help.

-interesting quote from a maori lady this week after we introduced ourselves..."Mormons should be shot." and then she walked away.... that was a new one for me, ha ha! needless to say we will give  her some time before we say hello again. :)

-2 of our new investigators, a brother and sister - sam and rena - we found when they were on their porch. we said hi and it ended up leading to a jam session where they sang a lot of their Assembly of God hymns/songs and then in return asked for us to sing some of our hymns... it was pretty fun! and i'll do whatever it takes to reach out to people! :)

i think that is the majority of the highlights of my week!

 here is some things just FYI:
-mom, i am so sorry to tell you this, my heart dropped when i found out... BUT we cannot skype in this mission.  with all the islanders that are in the mission, many don't have the opportunity or ability to skype home, so they just dont do it here. :(  we will only be telephoning you.... it makes sense... but definitely a huge bummer. atleast we got to skype at christmas when i was in AZ!

-can one of you update my facebook privacy settings so people can actually find me and add me as a friend? you don't need to add any one, but i do want people to be able to find me. please and thank you!

hey how is scripture study going??!  I am loving reading the BOM! 

can i have austin's email address please? wanna see how they all are doing!

well now all i have time left for is pictures! :)

1.me, soa, and sophia
2.view walking down the street
3. i can see auckland in the distance!
4.an ominous sky and lots of wind, but that is what most of the neighbor hoods look like where i'm serving.
5. there is the cool pine tree pic i promised! they are huge!
6. the trio!
7. a picture from one of our spiritual "jam sessions"
8. me and soa at the end of a day. tried to get the cool sunset...
9. me and soa
10. me at the top of a hill... the only reward... the view!

i hope these all went thru! enjoy your week and i'll talk to you all again next week! :)

ou te alofa tele ia te outou, lo'u aiga!

until next week, fa soifua!
Sista Kamaleti

ps, i might get a new badge that says this. how cool! (all the L's and T's throw the samoans off haha)