April 14, 2014

Malolele!

Transfers are this week and Elder Ramsey has drawn the short straw. He will be going up to Denton to continue to wait on his Visa to Kenya. So I will be getting my 4th companion on Wednesday and I am batting .500 on Polynesian companions. His name is Elder Fifita! He is Tongan, but he doesn't really speak it. He grew up in Colorado and has only been to Tonga a couple times. But I bet that a lot more people are going to be talking to us just because he in Tongan. Haha! We actually requested that someone who is either Tongan or Samoan come serve here, and we also requested a car. We got the Tongan and.....no car. But that's okay!

This week we got to go on an exchange with the Zone Leaders. I went over to serve in Keller for the day. Half there area is really rich, and the other half if middle class. But I had some fun looking at some monster houses they have over there! The dinner that we had over there, they had this big ole house and there was only 4 people living there. I was thinking to myself the whole time, I wonder what a Tongan family would do to live in a big house. Haha! So me and the District Leader, Elder Atchinson, got this thing going where every time we go on an exchange, who ever leaves, gets to Jello something of the missionary that your replacing. So yes I Jello'd this little action figure that one of our Zone Leaders has. It turned out pretty good actually.

We were able to teach a Kenyan lady this week. She is a stay at home nurse at one of the members houses. She has a Book of Mormon and she has been reading it. We shared the Restoration with her and she really loved it! She has 3 kids and the youngest is 22. She loves her family a lot, so much that she is like forcing them to live with her still. She told us why and it's because the part of Kenya she used to live in wasn't the greatest part of Kenya. So she is real protective. We know that the gospel can bless we family and she realized how it could after out lesson this week.

Yesterday we got to go to a President's Fireside for those that had just been baptized or were thinking about getting baptized. So we brought Fini with us. It was so sweet! I was able to see Elder Vaoga there! He is serving in Ft. Worth right now and is loving it. I was also able to see 2 of the kids that were in the MTC with me. I was going to get pictures, but my camera died on me. So I was pretty sad. President Ames talked about the Plan of Salvation and how baptism is key to the plan. It was really good. He talked about the life of Christ and how we are all striving to become like him. Fini loved it and is doing awesome too!

We weren't able to teach the 15 year old this week. She wasn't home either time we stopped by this week. So we are going to try to shoot for this week. This morning we ran with the Assistants and President Ames. We ran 3 miles and I felt pretty good running it. But I forgot to stretch before. So once I finished, I went and sat down for like 5 minutes and I went to stand up, and my calves just cramped up so bad! I still can't walk right. It's just like the repeat of the football games down in Killeen around Christmas time. Haha! But it was a good run. 

It's weird to think that this next transfer, I'll hit my 10 month mark. I can't believe it's going by this fast! This transfer we are going to be working on finding new people to teach and we are going to continue to teach them. A lot of the time we teach them once and disappear. So we are going to work on that. Also I now have a side bag now. I bought one at staple for my "laptop." Haha! Yeah Camel Backs kinda got banned. We can only use them if we are biking. And since we walk everywhere, I had to get it. So I never thought I would have to get one of those, but I stand corrected. Haha!  Thank's for the emails this week! I will let y'all know how Elder Fifita is next week! I'm excited to work with him! Love you all!

Love,

Elder O'Brien