Elder Grotepas : Area 2, Week 17 - Waila, Fiji 12/29/13

Ni sa bula vinaka na nogu matavuvale!!!!,

How is everyone doing today? How has everyone's week been the past week? I know for me, it was a great week! I have got to admit that it was great being able to talk to you all via skype and see and hear all of your voices again. It was a great day for me and a great Christmas present. I have to admit that it did not really feel like Christmas here. When I think of Christmas, I usually think of snow, cold, trees, and Christmas music everywhere. It was not really like that here. Far from that.

Well for me and Brother Maleli this week, we had a really good week. Nothing really too big happened. We were able to find a couple more people for us to teach this week. We had a couple of our members give us a couple of referrals that we were able to see, and they accepted another date for us to come back and teach them more about the Church. We were also able to set up a date to go see a girl that is a friend of a member. She has been coming to church ever sense the last General Conference on and off. She really likes the church but her parents are from a really strong Catholic family. We set up a date to go and see her about 2 and a half months ago and right before we were about to see her, she cancelled with us and said that her parents got mad and does not want us to come over. But on Sunday, she came up to us and asked us if we could come over on Thursday this week. She said that we can go over there now and see her. So we are going to be taking one of her friends that is a member with us to the lesson. She is really interested in the Church and wants to learn more.

I know that the past couple of weeks have been hard with finding investigators and I know that this week, Heavenly Father did help us find a couple interested investigators that are ready and willing to hear the Gospel.

Also this week we had some really good news. First of all, on Saturday night, we got a text message that said that I am going to be training another elder that is coming to Fiji while he is waiting for his visa to go somewhere else. So I am now going to have another son! Man my family is just a growing! I am having lots of kids and then they leave. I don't know how long I will be with him but we are going to have a great time here in Waila finding, teaching, and baptizing. Also the other good news that we found out earlier today is that Brother Maleli is going to be serving in the Ogden City Utah mission. He is going to be leaving on April 15th and is going to serve in my home town. The first thing I thought of when he got is call there is wow, that is where I am from. He gets to go to where I am from and I get to be where he is from. I am going to miss him when he leaves, he has taught me so much in these past couple of weeks. I know that he is going to be a great missionary in Utah. It is going to be cool seeing him around when I get home. We will speak Fijian and no one will know what we are saying. Pretty sweet.

This week for us was also a little bit tough. We did not really get many lessons this week. We were able to get 6 lessons and most of them were less active members. This time of the year is a little bit hard to get lessons and new investigators. Everyone wants to be with their family and want to relax because it is a holiday for them. So it is going to be a little bit tough these next couple weeks. I still am going back to that story with the crawdads, Patience, patience is where the the treasure lies. I know that if I follow this rule, I will be blessed. I know that everything is in the Lord's timing and that it happens on His time. All we have to do is be obedient and trust in Him. Do everything we can to have to spirit with us and then once we have shown that faith/diligence to him, He will then in turn give us his children that are ready to hear about the gospel and better their lives.

This week also, I learned a big lesson. We were walking through a village the other day and then it started to rain really hard. As we were waling down the road, we passed some workers that were working on the road. Also on the other side of the road was a lady that was siting on her porch watching the workers. When we passed them, it was raining really hard and the lady on the porch said to come up and sit on the porch out of the rain. We thought that she was talking to us so we looked up at her. Once our eyes met her eyes, she said to us, "not you guys, them." Even though it was raining really hard, she did not want to be kind and let us wait until it stopped. This taught me that not everyone in Fiji is as nice as I thought they are. This was a hard thing for me to see. Even though there are people like this, we still need to love all. They are all our brothers and sisters and we need to love them all, no matter what they do and who they are. After that experience, I learned that I need to love everyone. I know that I can work on that and it is one hard thing to work on. But It is important to do.

Well everything is going good with me here in Fiji. I was so glad that I got to talk with you all. You all need to stop getting older and changing, mainly the boys. I know that the church is true and that I am doing the Lord's work. I love you all very much and I miss you all.

Have a great week and Happy New Years and also tell Holly Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary.

Love,

Elder Grotepas