Elder Grotepas : Area 1, Week 23 - Nasinu, Fiji 8/11/13

Ni sa bula vinaka matavuvale,

How is everything going this week? Down here in Fiji, everything is going great! Well the only thing that is not that great is that I have gotten a pretty big boil and it is in probably on of the worst spots that you can probably get one! It is on the outside of my ear. I have no clue how this happened but one morning when I woke up, there was a big bump on the side of my ear. I thought that it was just a little bit of swelling or something. But to my surprise a couple days later, it turned out to be one of my worst fears, a boil! This was the thing that I was dreading the most about here! Every missionary that has served here says that everyone gets at least one. But I've got to admit that these really suck. They are not fun to have.

Well on the positive side of things, we had a pretty good week this week. It was a pretty slow week this week because we had to take a couple of days out of our schedule to help one of the senior missionaries. As you know, we had the baptism for Samu. He is one of the friends of the guy that we baptized a couple of weeks ago, Kaminieli. The baptism went great and we had a good time. We were also able to have a ward baptism at the same service. I had the opportunity to baptize a young girl that had just turned 8 and Elder Moulton got to baptize Samu. The baptisms went great. Samu was so happy after his baptsim. He has also told us that he is wanting to serve a mission just like his friend Kaminieli. I know that these two will stay really active in the church! We are going to have him confirmed next week.

Also this week, I had the chance to leave Nasinu for the day and move over to Suva 2nd. We had splits with the ZL's on Wednesday. It was really cool because I got to see what it is like to be a ZL. We did lots of driving. Also on that day, there was a lot of things that went wrong. Suva 4th lost the keys to their flat, so we had to run up to the mission office to grab a lock. Once we ran it over there, it was too small so we had to drive back up to the mission office and grab a bigger one. That took about an hour and a half. We also had to go pick up a sister missionary that was about to go home. We had to run her up to the mission office. Then we had to drive back down to Nasinu and switch out the sisters' propane tank because they were out of propane. So that day we did alot of driving and I got to drive for most of it. Also, I am more than likely going to take my driving test to get my Fiji drivers license here this Thursday.

Well this week has been really good. But something that happened really cool was with our lesson with Losana this week. She has a baptismal date for the middle of September. So after we were done with the lesson, I was talking and was about to end the lesson. Then Elder Moulton asked me to ask her if she had anything to share. Her response was "I know that the church is true, and I know that the Plan of Salvation is true. I want someday for me and my family to live in the Celestial Kingdom with our Father in Heaven. I know some day that my husband will see the importance of this and eventually join the church." It was really cool to hear this response. She knows that this church is true. I really showed to me that the spirit talks to everyone and can let them know that the church is true. I learned that we as missionaries need to listen to the spirit also. Elder Moulton had to ask me to ask her that. I know that the church is true and can help anyone with any problem. Christ is our Savior. He prepared a plan and wants us to live with Him after this life.

Well that is pretty much all of my stories for the week. I did not have really much to talk about this week.

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

Vinaka valevu na nogu matavuvale. Au na vosa vei kemudou ena macawa mai oqa. Moce mada kei sota tale.

:-)

Love,

Elder Grotepas