February 24, 2014

"7 months already"

Malolele!!

What a crazy week! I woke up this morning and had the realization that 7 months today I went to the MTC. I cannot believe it's gone by that fast. Everyone said that it goes by fast, I can honestly say I didn't believe it, and here we are today. Haha! Well this week we are going to be having a baptism! It will be in 3rd ward, their first baptism of the year. Her name is Adriana. She is 10 years old and she is freaking smart! Holy cow. She listens to everything that we talk about and she remembers it too. She has been reading the Book of Mormon by herself and she understands what is being said. It was kinda stressful though because we had to teach her Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for her to be ready to be baptized this Friday. She has been interviewed and is all ready to go. We are really excited for her and the family is too. 

Fini is also going really well. We have been teaching her twice a week and we have pretty much taught her all the lessons. We met her at IHOP and had lunch and shared a lesson. It went better than I though it would because we were in a restaurant and I thought that there would be too many distractions. But it turned out to be a really good lesson. She is really excited for her baptism and is ready for it. She is going to be interviewed this week so fingers crossed! 

Samauri is also going great as well. We taught her the Plan of Salvation this past Wednesday and she a lot of questions! Especially about what happens after this life. She is really interested, but lots of questions like I said. We are going to be going over it again on Wednesday to try and answer more of them. She is really solid, but her parents are really Catholic. So that's going to be an interesting situation when we talk about baptism here in the next couple weeks. 

We had Zone Conference this past Tuesday and it was really awesome! President Ames is the man! He is so in-tune with the Spirit that he knows exactly what we need every time! It's so crazy how it works out like that every time too! He talked about how we need to work more with members, get those that are investigating to come to church, and how we need to become expert planners and not schedulers. The last one me and Elder Ramsey are focusing on the most. We are really good at staying busy, but we need to work on preparing to share lessons to those that we plan to go see the next day. It was a really awesome conference! I wish I could be around President more often though. Haha!

So I was able to get my name back this week. Some will ask 'How did I lose it?' Well a member named Tonga Mohetau took us to a pizza place named Joe's. And we were ordering our food (This was the 2nd week that I got here). He said that if I could eat a small Meatlovers pizza, then I would earn his respect. If I didn't finish it, he would call me Elder Meatlovers for the rest of my life. Haha. So I ordered it, but this is not a normal small pizza. It was a New York style pizza, and it was big. Haha! It was like the size of a Little Ceasers pizza, and it was loaded too. Haha! I didn't finish it. So on Saturday, I attempted to take on the challenge again and earn my name back. This time, I was victorious! He was impressed. Haha! I ate it pretty fast too. And I was also able to eat some bread sticks also as well. Which surprised him as well. 

We had an exchange with the Euless 1st ward elders. I went to their ward on Sunday. I have to say, I like the Tongan wards a lot better. And I was really mad that I missed my favorite Tongan hymn. It's only in Tongan and it's the most incredible song I've ever heard! They sing it so loud and....yeah I'm mad that I missed it. But Elder Hansen, the guy I went with is a funny kid! He is majoring in Physics, so he is sorta smart. Haha! He made a mini-cross bow out of small pieces of metal he found on the road and we were shooting it across the apartment. It was awesome!

It was a really good week this week! I love this area and I love the people here! Next week is Transfers, I am pretty sure that I'm safe. Elder Ramsey is a little worried though. So we will have to wait and see. Love you all! Thanks for you emails again!

Love,
Elder O'Brien

February 17, 2014

"Another Day, Another Soul"

Malolele!

This week was awesome! For sure the best week since I've come to Euless. We got a call this week from the Zone Leaders that we are going to go on an exchange on this past Tuesday to Wednesday. I was so excited because I thought I was going to go to their area. They are in South Lake, which is the richest area in the United States, income wise. So I was stoked to go see some big houses. However, my dreams were crushed when I found out I was going to be running the area. Haha. Elder Payne came to our area and we had a blast. We were able to teach the Uhi twins. We played them and their friends to teach them. So we stopped by to share a message about the Book of Mormon. It went really well. They go to a Methodist church right now and they said that they would be interested in coming back to church. We gave them a chapter to read and we set another return appointment. At the end of our exchange, we had Paul Tuipulotu take us to exchange back. Well we had to drive to the airport first to drop off his sister. As we were driving up, I remembered that Elder Payne was going home soon, so I leaned over and told him that this exchange was meant to give you a preview of what's going to happen in a couple weeks. He had a good laugh about it.

So this week we were able to teach a lot. We found a new investigator named Samuari. She is a friend of a member and she is like way interested in the church. Her grandma is mormon and she has come a couple times in the past. She went to the youth activities on Wednesday and we taught her the Restoration right after. We had like 5 youth in there as well that she knew. So she has a lot of really good friends and I can see her joining the church because of their good influence.

We were also able to teach Fini this week. We had an appointment with her on Saturday and we were able to talk about a chapter that we gave her to read. It talked about the Plan of Salvation and she really loved it. We had Stake Conference this week and she came to that. She was like 30 minutes late. We taught her after it was over and found out that her sister, who is a member, was dropping her off and she was basically taking the long way to the church and trying to have her not come. She realized that she wanted to do this for herself and not for anyone else. After she said that, we were able to talk to her about that's what all this is about. We were able to set a baptism date with her for March 8. She is so excited now! She is really starting to come around. Haha!

We were also able to teach a members cousin. She is 10 years old and I believe here sisters are getting baptized on Feb. 28th. So the family wants her and her 2 sisters baptized on the same day. So we have to teach her 3 more times before next Friday. Which should be no problem. We already have all the appointments set up for us to teach her, but it's going to be stressful. Haha!

That was pretty much our week. We were able to set 2 dates, had a good exchange, and we were able to see a lot of less actives. It's good to see that the weather might actually stay the same for this whole week. Our Stake got split on Sunday, but we weren't affected by it though. There were 17 wards before, and now there is only 10. But that was a lot of people. We are going to hopefully set another date with Samuari this week, so the work is moving at a great speed! Thank y'all for your emails this week! have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder O'Brien

Pictures!!!

 Todays letter is after the pictures...