June 16, 2014

Malolele!!!

Man, what a week for us. It started off with some rain on Monday which kept the beginning of the week fairly cool. But just like that it warmed up by the end of the week. And today is pretty bad out there too. So hopefully it rains again this week.

Well to start off this week, on Tuesday it started off with a Zone meeting that we had. Every Thursday we have a planning session for 3 hours to plan appointments and finding activities for the upcoming 10 days. Well the way that we have been doing it out of the Preach My Gospel takes some time and it's probably the longest 3 hours of my life. But President Ames had a planning session with the AP's and decided that it took too long and that it was too hard to do. So he prayed about it and came up with a different approach to still get the same amount of work done, but just in a lot easier way. And it worked! It was a fast 3 hours on Thursday and I think it's going to help out every area in the mission too. President Ames is amazing!

This week we were also able to have one of the members, Preston, come out with us a couple times. He has his mission call to Hawaii and he leaves in August. We made him contact some guy on the street and he stepped up and did it. It was pretty sweet! Everyone else who comes out with us doesn't really have the confidence to do that. So that was pretty sweet! We also got 3 referrals from him too. I don't know if y'all heard about this last year, but there was a car accident in New Mexico that killed 3 kids. Supposedly it was all over the news and his Brother was in that accident. We was going to go play for Utah next year. The last name is Vaenuku. Well that's Preston's older brother. And we have been contacting some of Prestons friends and also his brothers too. We are actually trying to teach the older brothers girlfriend. They were really close and she had only known that he was Mormon. So we are trying to get in contact with her. But he is going to be coming out with us tomorrow. 

We also got into a house that we have been trying for months now to get in. One of the kids was outside and we were talking with him and we asked if we could come in and he said sure. So when we stepped into the house, we said hello to the mom and she turned to her son and whispered, "You let them in the house?" Haha! Heck yeah he did! So we talked with her for awhile and she eventually warmed up to us. Haha I think I'm calling Elder Fifita the Wild Card from now on. Because some people don't want to talk to us, but once they see that he's Tongan they start asking about his family. Then a connection is made and BOOM! We have another appointment with them! :) And that's what happened with this family. They know his grandpa and we started talking about that and really getting to know them. I then told them when they asked me where I was from and I said I was from Tonga too. That seems to get people laughing. But they seem really awesome!. She's inviting her Sister over to come learn too. Her sister is married to a member who we have been trying to get in contact with too. So we could hopefully kill 2 birds with one stone today! :) That would be awesome!

So the past week we have been trying to set up appointments for this Wednesday for us and President Ames. But we have been really picky because we want to have him come help us with certain people. One of those people happen to be a part member family. Their baby got blessed 2 weeks ago and the husband is a Less Active member. His wife is Catholic and she seems pretty interested. We stopped by with the husbands cousin, and we were able to get in and set up that appointment on Wednesday. It's a dinner appointment, so President should get a little taste of Tonga too! 

This past week there was another funeral again and 2nd ward had their ward camp too. So it was pretty interesting that's for sure. But we taught a lot of lessons on the streets this week when we contacted people. This week we have interviews with President so I'm really excited to talk with President again. That guy is just awesome! Next week I'll tell all y'all about the exchange on Wednesday! Should be awesome! :) Love you guys so much and happy Fathers Day yesterday!

Ofa,

Elder O'Brien