June 30, 2014

"Just Doing the Work and Chasing a Dog"

Malelelei!!!

Man this week was pretty fantastic! To start off, we had quite a scare this week for Elder Fifita. There was another funeral this week in the Tongan community. In fact it was so big that other Tongans from out of state came. Including Elder Fifita's dad. Haha! Everyone was asking if we had seen his dad because he was in town this week. Haha! Elder Fifita just shook his head when someone asked. He wasn't too happy that his dad was in town. But I think we was only here for a day. But we don't know. One more story. So usually, when a missionary talks about a bad experience with a dog, it means he usually got chased or bit right? Well this situation was a little bit different. We saw a members dog running down the street and its the type of dog that likes to run away from people. This is Casey's favorite type of dog right? Well we figured that we would be nice and try to catch the dog for them because it was way far away from home. So we start following this dog and we end up getting a member to help surround it right? Well it freezes looks at me and the member and starts to take off towards Elder Fifita. So Fifita got into his line backer stance and started closing in on the dog and the dog decided to go Reggie Bush back in his glory days at USC and just made him look silly. Haha! It was more of a "had to be there moment", but that's all right.

Now on to the good stuff, we were able to teach an awesome Part Member family this week! We took over a member and he actually grew up with this girl. They went to high school and the lost contact when he went on his mission. But we planned to teach the Restoration to her and then the Spirit directed otherwise. We ended up teaching about prayer and the importance of it. She ended up breaking down in tears and venting to us about how her husband doesn't really care about his relationship with God and she wants one so bad for her family. We promised her blessings as she prays and asks for help from her Heavenly Father. It was a really cool lesson! The member bore his testimony and shared how he ran into women in her position in Guatemala and how prayer helped them get their family back to church. It was an awesome spiritual lesson! She invited us back and we are going to be teaching here tonight. We are really excited to start teaching her and getting her to build that relationship with God.

We were also able to have the youth come out with us this week. We had a set of twins come out with us that are waiting for their mission calls. We split with them. So I went with one twin and Elder Fifita went with the other. We had 2 appointments set up for the both of us to teach and they both canceled. But it was still good because we were able to contact and set up some appointments this upcoming week. The twin that I was with placed his first Book of Mormon. He was pretty excited about it. After our exchange, we met up at the Shop Aloha and we headed over to Braums, or "Sister Braums". Haha! We picked up some Ice Cream with them and it was funny because we were in a mini van and the drivers door window doesn't roll down so we had to order from the sliding door. It was so ghetto, but it was funny.

We were also able to finally come in contact with this Samoan lady who really wants to get baptized. She has been coming to church for a year now and she wants to join. So we thought that she was going to know everything and we were going to set a date on Saturday. But we found out that she doesn't really know anything. So we just need to teach the lessons because her desire to be baptized is already there. So she probably won't get baptized by this Saturday, but for sure she will be baptized next transfer. So we are excited to start teaching her.

So this is week 6 of the transfer and it's probably my last week. I'm so bummed out it's already the end of the transfer. It's gone by too fast and I don't think I'm ready to leave. I wasn't ready to leave Killeen, but I'm for real not ready this time. It should be an explosive week! I so wish that I could light some fireworks this year! I cannot wait til next year when I get to light some off for the 24th! That for sure is going to be one of the first things that I do when I get home! Haha! I love you all and thank you for your emails this week! Happy 4th of July everyone!!

Ofa,

Elder O'Brien