June 9, 2014

Malolelei!!!!

This week was for sure one to remember for this reason. I went on an exchange with a deaf kid. Haha! He's our District Leader and he is fully deaf in his right ear and is like 75% in the other ear. But when he has his hearing aid on, he can usually hear pretty good. As we were going about doing the work, I did find myself repeating myself all day, but also that was on a Friday and we only got into 2 houses all day. Quick back story. So on Sunday there was another death in the Tongan community. But this one was a lot bigger than the one a couple weeks ago. Everybody knew this guy and it hurt our week pretty bad. Especially the weekend. We usually see a bunch of people during the weekend, but the Funeral services were on Friday and the burial was on a Saturday. Not including the various eatings throughout the week for the family. It was way sad because I knew the guy too and I shook his hand at church on Sunday and he died like 4 hours later. It was so sad. But back to Friday, every house that we went to was either preparing for the putu (funeral) or they were already at the funeral. And for those watching the weather, it was a wicked hot and humid day. Haha! So that was an interesting exchange. He's pretty cool though! Just got to speak up when we talk to him.

However, that was the bad news I guess. We were able to have some great lessons this week! We were able to find a new person to teach. She is Hawaiian/Samoan. She is 24 and is really curious. We contacted her on Wednesday and found out that the Sister Missionaries were teaching here already. So we were going to let her be. But then she called us on Thursday and asked if we could come over and teach her! Haha! Some say that is stealing, but she requested us. Haha! We were able to set up and appointment on Saturday and it went awesome! She didn't understand about what the Book of Mormon is and why we need it. So we talked about the Great Apostasy and how it testifies of the fulness of the Gospel and how it doesn't take anything away from the Bible, just completes the Bible. She really enjoyed the lesson and felt the Spirit for sure! But we had an exchange with us and he almost blew it for us. He started asking questions like "do you believe in God?" "Do you believe that Heavenly Father and Christ are all separate?" Questions that we already know she knows because we talked to her about that on Wednesday. And then he asked this not inspired question,  "Do you believe the Jesus had a Brother?" She was like what?? And we quickly did our best to get the conversation away from that question. Man he thought that was such a good question too and told us in the car too. Haha. It kinda killed the Spirit. But she said she would come to church tomorrow! :)

Yesterday we had our Mission Presidents Fireside. President Ames set this up where we can bring our investigators and also our less active members to listen to him give a talk on one of the lessons we share. And holy cow! It was fantastic last night! He talked about Christ and how we need to have Faith in Him. Not just Faith alone. He then talked about Baptism and the Holy Ghost. Man, he just talked about it so perfectly and how we need the Holy Ghost to have Faith in Jesus Christ. If you were to look around the chapel at all the people who came to visit, there was so many people that looked like they completely understood everything. It was so awesome! :) We invited our Ward Mission Leaders brother and they went to Six Flags instead. But our Ward Mission leader came and also a member of the Bishopric came. They both loved it and said next month they are going to let the whole ward know and make sure people bring non members to it. So next month should be packed full! Super excited for that! I also got to see Elder Vaoga last night again. I love seeing that guy!

Speaking of our Ward Mission Leaders brother and his family, they are doing pretty good. They are FINALLY reading the Book of Mormon! We were so happy when they said they read the chapter we gave them. We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Chirst and it started off kinda slow, but the Spirit totally helped us out when we started talking about baptism! The He totally understood why we needed to be baptized by the Priesthood, but his wife we are still trying to help her understand. But we are finally starting to make some good progress with them. :)

With all of our other investigators, we are still trying to get in contact with them and set up a time to come teach them. We just really need a car to get to their houses because they don't like answering their phones or calling back when we call. Haha! But we are going to keep trying! We also found out yesterday that next week President Ames wants to come out with us after interviews! I almost threw up when I heard that. Not really, but I was pretty excited but nervous at the same time. So I'll have to let all y'all know about that one in a couple weeks. This week as of right now, we have nothing conflicting with the work, and we hope it stays that way. Thanks for all the emails this week! Love you guys!

Ofa,

Elder O'Brien