Area 1, Week 2 - Nasinu Suva 3/17/13

Bula!

It is going really good here in Fiji. I do miss America!  I have sent a photo of the curry that we eat.  It is basically Ramen noodles with chopped up chicken served over rice.  We have dinner appointments each night, so we are not going hungry.

Me in my flat eating Curry and Rice

We eat a lot of curry!

Elder Ishibashi with a baby kitten

My companion and I are getting along very well. Elder Ishibashi is a great Elder. It is really cool to hear all of the stories about him and his family in Hawaii. We have not had a disagreement on anything! His teaching is really good. He teaches so simply and clearly. If the people do not understand, he will help them until they do understand.

We don't really have much time to look for new investigators. We have so many appointments in a day there is not that much time left over. We cover probably a 6 mile by 6 mile area. Most of our current investigators are within mile 2 or 3. I have a machete now. We use it every service day (Thursday).  It is really cool. The roads here are like home. Roads. The only thing is they are not smooth. They are really bumpy. We don’t really walk in the bush because we are in the city. The only time we use our machete’s is when we take cross cuts going through the little villages.  Last service day we helped some families with their taitai (farm) and we cleaned up around their homes. It was really cool.

The rain here is weird. It will look beautiful in the morning, then a couple hours it will pour and then get bright and sunny again. We carry our umbrellas with us everyday so we don't get wet. The first day I got all my books soaked but now they are all dried out. It is way different here than back in Utah. I really do miss it back home.. 

We have a young Fijian man in our ward that is going to Washington on his mission here in a couple of days. He always wants to go around with us. His name is Alma. He says that the language is so easy and I will be fluent within 6 months. He is a really good guy and will be a great Elder. He is really cool to get to know. Most of the people here speak English. I think they learn it in school. The nice thing is if you are stuck on a word they are able to help you and tell you what the word is in Fijian. It is really nice for me because it helps me to learn it also.

Me outside an Sister Sulu's home (new convert)

Well, this week has gone by pretty good. This week I asked four of our investigators if they would be baptized. They all said yes!  We have only set up one of those with an actual date. This week we are going to give the other three a target date so they can prepare themselves to be baptized. One of our investigators names is Eta. She was so happy when we asked her and she started to cry. She said that she has known for a while and she has just been waiting. She was so happy and excited!  She is a golden investigator. She is engaged to a member of the church and is ready to get baptized. I was not the one that started teaching her but my companion says that she took very in-depth notes of the Book of Mormon. One day they went back and she had read and taken really good notes of everything, just like the Jaredites did. I can tell that she is amazing just from the two visits that we have had with her.  It really strengthened my testimony that the spirit can testify to investigators that this church is true. It was way wananavu (awesome).

The hardest thing for our investigators here is to keep their commitment of attending church and to avoid drinking Grog. Two of the people that we have a baptismal date for is Anna and Natani.  On Saturday, we asked them if they would come to church, they said yes. The next day at church, they were not there. It is really frustrating.

The other problem is Grog. In Fiji, the term "grog" refers to a drink made by pounding sun-dried kava root into a fine powder and mixing it with cold water. Traditionally, grog is drunk from the shorn half-shell of a coconut, called a "bilo."  We will be walking down the street and you can hear lots of people smashing the root into the powder. Everyone says that it tastes like dirt and is disgusting. President has said that they have a big problem with this. They say that if there is any member drinking it, they need to stop.

Well, this week I carried on Dad’s tradition of the Jimmy Club. I showed it to the two kids of Anna and Naitani. They really loved the game.  They were like everyone else where they did not get it at first so we had to make it obvious for them. Afterwards I taught them that to understand the game,  they have to really LISTEN, because this is how the Holy Ghost works.  I taught it just like how Dad taught it. Here they cannot say Jimmy so I changed it to the “Joni Club.”  My companion really likes the game too and he said that he is going to start using it. It is going to be cool because I will be the first person to start the Joni Club here in Fiji. I will be interested to see how long this game will stay in Fiji or how many Elders will hear about it. It seems like that it would be a really good game to teach about the Holy Ghost because the kids here love games and love hearing jokes and riddles. They really like just about anything. It is funny in one of the towns we are in, there is always kids playing with old tires and rolling them down the street. It is really different than back in America with what all the kids do in their spare time.

We don’t see many kids during the day. They are all in school. When they see us they say Bula or Hi because they know that I am American.  All of the kids in the ward will call you “Elda” and slap your hand. Yesterday there was one kid that was maybe five years old and he slapped my hand maybe 10 times. It is really funny. Also I love seeing all the little kids in their little sulus and white shirt and ties.

I just want to let you all know that I love the Lord very much and I love and miss you all. I cannot wait to hear back from you again. I am having a really good time here.

Love your missionary,

Elder Grotepas