Area 1, Week 12 - Nasinu, Fiji 5/26/13

Beautiful Sunset

Dear family,

How is everything going? I am so jealous that you are in Lava! I miss it there being with the whole family. But, I will be back there sooner than you know it. Well this week has been really good. It has gone by fast.  The main thing that happened is that we finally had our baptism for Ana and Neitani. It was a good day yesterday.

Well this week we have not had really anything much new besides the baptism yesterday. On Tuesday of last week, we had the privilege to go to the Suva Temple. It was really cool and exciting. It had been a while since I had been to the temple. We woke up at like 5 in the morning to go. We had to ride a bus for a half and hour then walk 15 minutes. It was really cool to go there. Because we went to the temple on Tuesday it interfered with our district meeting. So we had that on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. So this week our schedule was a little bit different. It was really good to go to the temple and have some rest for a little bit, to take away a bit of stress.  I look forward to going there again.

Well this week we found a new investigator. Her name is Joana Moce. She is an older woman from a little island named Matanuku off the coast of Kandavu. She does not speak one bit of English. We met her through an investigator that we are teaching now named Violet. I have already told you about her. When we went over to see Violet she had Joana there and she wanted to hear the gospel. Violet had already taught her most everything! We started the lesson and said a couple sentences and then she just took over after that. I felt kind of weird because we are the missionaries and we should be teaching but our investigator was teaching her! It is all good though!  It was good for her to do that since we are not always going to be with her to teach her friends about the gospel. So it taught her about how to share the gospel!  Violet knows that the church is true and wants to be baptized but she is still waiting on her and her fiance's wedding. They are planning on getting married in October. Going back to Joana, she will be going back to her island this week Tuesday. She is really interested and said that she wants the missionaries to come to her island near Kandavu. She says that she is really good friends with the cheif of the island and she said that the chief would allow it and he would sit in on the lessons and study with them. It would be really cool if me and Elder Ishibashi were the ones that helped get an island converted, to be the first to teach a person and start that plant in their hearts. She said that it is like a 120 dollar boat ride to the island there. So it might be a once a month thing. She said that she really likes us and what we teach. They were able to come to church and stay for the baptism that we had for Ana and Neitani. They really liked it a lot.

Sundays here have been stressful. It seems like everyone wants to talk to us after Sacrament Meeting. We have about four people trying to talk to us at a time and they all need our help.  Our ward mission leader needs to talk to us, we have a person that wants to hear the gospel (which is great), we have someone asking for a white shirt that we have for him, we have kids wanting to shake our hands, we have a baptism to get ready for, Bishop wants to talk to us, and we have to find a key to get into the door!  Man it is so stressful. Also we had a fireside last night. I had to talk in it so that was on my mind all day long also. The fireside went really good and my talk went good also. It was in English because it was a combined English and Fijian Ward fireside.  But then after it was all over, we got a call from Ana and Neitani's parents and they wanted to know where they were at. We had no idea so we were really stressed out and needed to help find out where they were.  We ended up calling one of the members that Ana and Neitani had become friends with, the Vesikula's.  Lukily, they said that they were over there. Man we thought that they were lost or something but they made it home okay and they were safe. Yesterday was maybe the most stressful day that I have had on the mission. It was all good though.

That was pretty much my week. It was really good. I cannot believe how fast these weeks are going by. My training program is done. My mission is going by so fast.

I love you all very much and miss you all. Thanks you for everything you have done.

Love,

Elder Grotepas

Myself, Neitani, Elder Ishibashi and Ana

  Zone Conference May 22, 2013

Sunset

Cool looking flowers!

Area 1 Week 10 - Nasinu, Fiji 05/12/13 Mother's Day

We didn't get a letter this week from Elder Grotepas, but instead we had the privilege of speaking face to face through Skype!  What a blessing this was!   It was so comforting to see a smile on his face and to hear of his love for the people of Fiji!  He is loving life and gets along so well with Elder Ishibashi.  He was most amazed at the growth of his brothers in just 3 short months.

Lori (Elder Grotepas' mom)

Area 1, Week 11 - Nasinu, Fiji 5/19/13

Elder Ishibashi being Elder Ishibashi

Photo taken from Elder Ishibashi's blog titled " Elda Curuenaulunivanua and a few kids in Kilikali"

Dear Family,

Bula. Sa tiko eke! How is everything going? Everything here in little old Fiji is going good. Well, this is my last week of training. It has finally come. I will now not feel like a new missionary, even though I still don't know the language as well as I would like. This week has gone by so fast. It feels like yesterday I was just speaking to you over Skype. 

Well first of all, I want to wish Trevor a Happy Birthday. I wish that I could have emailed him on his birthday but we can't.  So please tell Trevor that I miss him lots and hope that he had a good birthday. Elder Ishibashi's birthday is on the same day as Trevor's so we celebrated with some cake and ice cream. It was good to eat some cake, it reminded me of home. I bet you guys are still making tons of sweets, cakes, and brownies.    A cool thing that happened this week is that we got to eat shark! It tastes really weird and a little bit bitter.  At first I thought it was chicken with no bones. I was so glad to see that there were not bones, since most of what we eat does have bones.   I ate quite a bit of it because I thought it was boneless chicken. But then at the end of the meal, they told us that it was shark. I thought it tasted different than chicken. Also this week we had Sunfish. I did not try any of that, it looked like a big chunk of fat. I should have just to say that I have tried it.

The work this week has been good.  We were able to get one of our investigators to accept a baptismal date. We were able to get both Anna and Neitani their interviews and they are going to be baptized this week on Sunday.   You already know about them because we have been teaching them ever sense I have been here in Fiji.  Anna wants me to baptize her and Neitani wants Elder Ishibashi to baptize him. It is going to be really cool to see them baptized and be a part of the gospel. The District Leader said that they are great investigators and are ready. We have also extended a couple other baptismal invitations. We are waiting on them for when the time is right.

This week was supposed to be the baptism for Molani and Junior. They still are in the process of getting married. I think that within the next couple of weeks, they will have their marriage date set up. Elder Ishibashi is sad because he thinks that there is a chance that he will not be here for that date. They might be having a transfer the first of June and he thinks that he is going to leave. But, we met with them last night and had a good lesson. We taught them about the law of fasting. They accepted it and said they would follow it after they are baptized. After our lesson we stayed a little bit and played some games with the kids. They are ages 4 and 6. We played simple games where you use your hands. I showed them the one that we always did in church. The one where you twist your hands up and tell them to move a certain finger. They really liked it and thought it was very funny. Even Molani and Junior were doing it. They are such a good family.

This week, a new ward mission leader has been called in our ward.  His name is Brother Taukei. After church he wanted to talk to us. Actually, everyone wanted to talk to us. Someone wanted a blessing, we had to show Ana and Neitani the font, we had to talk to bishop, and we had to meet with the WML. He told us that we need to start working hard. He is expecting quite a bit out of us. Brother Taukei is going to be good for us and will help us out a lot with the work. Time in very important to him. He wants three baptisms every month.  For the past 3 months we have not been doing any meeting or any ward council, but now we are going to start and start doing what we are supposed to be doing with our Progress Record. He is going to be a real big help to us.

It is crazy to hear about how everything is changing back home. It is going to be so different. I am running out of time and want to let you know I love you and miss you all!

Talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Grotepas



He also writes to his sister:

Dear Heidi,

How is everything going? Everything here is going great. I miss it back home but here is good. It was really nice to get to talk to you last week. I know that it is hard to talk to me when you miss me so much. I was feeling the same way. I miss all of you so much. This week we have been doing a lot. By the time you know it, I will be home. I am almost already at my 4 month mark. It is going by so fast. If you think about it, 2 years is not a long time. It is only like 730 days. So I will be home here soon, in a year and 8 months. Well as you know, we have new sister missionaries in the area and we are still showing them around. Their names are Sister Jonathan and Sister Su'a.
It is a lot of work because we will be on one side of the area and they need help and they are on the other side, but it is all good.

Well how is everything at home? Has dad fixed everything that has been ruined in my room from the flood? I bet by now he has everything fixed. You know dad and how fast he gets things done around the house. Well it sounds like you had a lot of fun this week. You made a new friend and got to see Gabe. Tell him that it would be cool if he came down to Fiji. I might be able to see him if he comes down. That would be way cool. How has he been doing?

I cannot believe that you are going to be done with your school year already. It seems like you had just started with it. You are getting so qase ( What is that word? :)  I still remember when I was in DARE and in Elementary. I remember we did the drunk goggles also. We had a kid in a motorized wheelchair in our class and he put them on and drove around. It was so funny because he was hitting all of the desks around the room. Everyone said that he was drunk driving. I still remember those days and liked them. Now you are going to be in a bigger school, Junior High School. I cannot believe that.

Thanks for being such a great sister. I love you very much!

Area 1, Week 9 - Nasinu, Fiji 5/5/13

Centipede in our flat

Dear family,

Work here in Fiji is great! This week has gone by fast. It feels like just yesterday I was talking to you. I am going to write this to all of you because I dont have a lot of time left to write each of you individually. 

The cool thing about this week is I got to drive. It is alot different here to drive because you drive on the opposite side of the road and the steering wheel is on the other side also. It is really hard to change your usual thought of driving on the left not the right. After we went driving, the ZL asked me if i think that I am ready to take the test already. I am more in likely going to take my test within the next couple of weeks. It is going to be really cool. I thought that I was going to move this transfer because the ZLs wanted me to get my license so fast, but we are not moving this transfer. One of us will most likely be leaving next transfer, in a month or so.

This week we met with a lady named Violet.  She is the one who is very interested in doing her Fijian geneology. She wants to join the church.  She is planning on getting married in October.  By then both me and Elder Ishibashi will more in likely be gone. But she has a lot of stories to tell us. She thinks that all Americans have microchips in there hands!  She said that we as missionaries need ours, so we need to get to the doctor!  The news here said that it is a new thing now in America. So, I want to ask you if you have gotten the chips implanted into your hands yet or no? HAHA. Other than that she tells us a lot of crazy stories about her life. She is really a good investigator and she really wants to join the church. She is really into the family history work and visits the family history center every week. She really likes that about the church.

Inosi, Ishibashi, myself, Sister Sulu and her daughters

This is a photo taken at Sister Sulu's home.  She was baptized about one month before I arrived here in Fiji.  Inosi is a 17 year old local young man who is planning on submitting his mission papers in October.  He goes on splits with us every Saturday.  He is helpful to us and he is also learning from us. He is always writing things down during the lessons on what we share and scriptural passages.  He will be an awesome missionary.  What is Trevor doing to prepare for his mission?  

Elder Alma Tikoenaivalu, leaving for his mission to Washington

Yesterday, we went to Elder Alma Tikoenaivalu's farewell party at his home. He is going to Washington state. They had a lot of food there. We got done with church at one, he got set apart as an Elder at 2 and his flight left from the airport at 4 o'clock yesterday. It went by so fast. We stayed at their house and ate while he went to be set apart. When they got back, holy crap they went crazy on the food. After they had a final devotional for Alma. Man I felt out of place because everyone was crying, and we were not part of their family.  It was good though, it reminded me of when I left and how mom acted. Just like Mom, his mom had to do the final inspection to make sure he packed everything. It was way funny to see that.  Also, it made me think of the last time that I left the house knowing it would be the last time I would see it in 2 years.

It was a pretty usual week. The weeks go by so fast. The mission is going to go by so fast, so I am going to have to take everything out of it that I can!

Thanks for everything that you have done for me. I did not get the chance to send the package this week, I will for sure this week.

Love, 

Elder Grotepas

Me, (Elder) Alma Tikoenaivalu, Elder Ishibashi

Inosi Kinikini, Elder Ishibashi and myself.

Chubbiest puppy I have ever seen.  Sad because he had bugs all over him.
After taking this photo, he woke up and started following us and crying.

Us and Suzy

Inosi Kinikini, Elder Ishibashi, me

Our zone