July 7, 2014

Malolelei!!!

Well my time in Euless is up. I was so sad to get the call this morning. Well actually on Thursday too. Haha! But I got a call on Thursday from President Ames saying I will be Senior Comp again, but he forgot where I was going because he left the transfer notes back in the office. So I had to wait til today to find out where I was going. I will be going back down south to Waco! Almost down to Killeen, but just and hour north of it. My new companion will be Elder Smith. But there are like 4 Elder Smiths in the mission, so I don't know which one it is. But I'm pretty excited for it. I heard that the P days down there are awesome! So P days will be good. But the only downer is that I'm in a bike area. So it's going to be one HOT summer. Haha!

So this week. Man, it's been hard to believe one section in the missionary white handbook on my mission so far. It says that Holidays are the best days to go out and work because everyone is home....well I've been through every big national holiday (Pioneer Day is not celebrated in Texas), and each one have been the worst proselyting days. Yes everyone is home, but no one wants anything to do with you. Haha! So on Friday, both of the wards were having BBQ's at the same park, so we decided to go to those for awhile. Haha! It was pretty awesome! We saw a few less actives and it was a pretty good use of time for us, until the end haha! Elder Fifita has been dying to play rugby ever since he has gotten to this area and we finally got to play. Haha! We got invited to play in the field right next to where we were eating and played some 7 on 7 touch rugby. I have to say, it was a blast! It was fast moving and if I was a little bit bigger, I would try to play back at home. Maybe I'll have a son, and he will love rugby. Haha! But after that, we worked on our apartment in cleaning and updating our records in our Area Book.

This week we were also able to find 2 solid new investigators too. They have been taught in the past and all their family is LDS except them. We were able to talk about building a foundation in what they believe in because they didn't even know what they believed in. So we taught them about praying, reading, and going to church. They told us that they really enjoyed the lesson and we asked a bunch of inspired questions too! It was so cool that we basically taught a lesson off of what they were saying. It was awesome! Totally off the Spirit.

We were also able to have 2 investigators at church this week! That's the most for the 4 transfers I've been here! I was super excited! We were also able to teach them at the church during Sunday School and Priesthood. The first person was who we taught last week, the Samoan Lady. We were able to get a Samoan class put together and had a member teach the Restoration. But she decided to teach the Plan of Salvation instead. We didn't know what was going on during the lesson, but at one point, there was voices raised and you could feel the contention. But at the end of the lesson, it seemed calmer and everyone liked each other again. Turns out, that the Samoan Lady didn't understand the first part of the lesson because she just blew by the lesson and didn't ask questions. But Elder Fifita is taking a return missionary from Samoa on Saturday to teach her the Restoration. Which is a smarter move.

The other lesson we taught went A LOT better! He has been coming to church for awhile too and we get to teach him too. We got to know him and he said that ever since he has been coming to church, things have been going really good at home with his marriage. They got married really young too and it was a rocky marriage from what he said. He wants to get baptized, but he doesn't think that he can be forgiven if he messes up over and over again. So we taught about Repentance with him and shared Mosiah 26: 29-30 with him and if we really are striving to do our best and change, He will always forgive us. You could tell from his face that he felt so much better! We set a baptism date for August 2nd and he said that we can shoot for that. Elder Fifita is way lucky to have that guy to teach!

Man Sunday though, that was so hard to say good bye to everyone. I have really enjoyed this area so much! The people here have been amazing and I will have to come back for sure some time after the mission to visit. I think the people I'm going to miss the most though is the youth, and the especially the ones that are preparing for missions because they have been coming out with us a lot. It was pretty sad to say good bye to them. But I think that I did my good bye right by bearing a short testimony in Tongan to both wards. That's right, in TONGAN! Haha! I tried to attach it to the email, but it was too big. So when my mom gets my SD card, make sure that y'all somehow watch it. Don't laugh too hard! Haha! Well my address for Waco is:

Elder Tyler O'Brien

1700 Breezy #180
Waco, Texas 76712

I don't know if it's Breezy dr, st, or rd. That's the only address they gave me. So I'll let y'all know about that next week. Thanks for all y'alls emails! Next time I'll be it Wacky Waco! Haha!

Ofa,

Elder O'Brien