Lomani Family,
How is everything going back there at home? Everything is going great down here with me in Fiji. The new area Waila is going along great. We are starting to find some people for us to teach. Most of this week we have been contacting. Lots of contacting and lots of visiting new people. I think this is where I will get most of my stories from. I think it is pretty fun meeting a lot of people and getting to see lots of different things. For the most part in Fiji, everyone will let you into their homes. You will hardly ever go up to a house and have them tell you that they do not want to hear a message. It is kind of hard for us because we have to kind of decide if they really want to hear something about the gospel or if they are just doing it because it is Fijian culture to let us in to share something. Usually we can tell if they are really interested and really want to hear some more.
But this week we had a couple really cool things happen to us. Well first of all, I am training so we have an extra 5 hours of companion study a week. It is really good for Elder Banks because he gets to learn more about how to be a good missionary. This week in my letter from President, it said something along the lines, I am glad to hear about how well Elder Banks in progressing, keep him studying the language every day and follow the training program. This really meant a lot to me because I know how important it is for me to train him properly. This is going to set his pace on his mission. If I am slack with him, he is going to be slack the rest of his mission or it is going to be harder for him to get back to being focused. So it is putting lots of pressure on me to train him the way my Father in Heaven wants me to train him. President also told me that he has lots of trust in me to train him and teach him the right way. Also Heavenly Father has lots of trust in me also. So this makes me feel pretty good about training and knowing that I will be able to do it. It is all part of His plan.
Like I said, this week we have done a lot of contacting. I think that we went up to about 50 to 70 houses. Some were not there and some, just a couple, rejected us and told us that they did not want to hear a message. Most of the time it is really hard to tell if they really want it but we can usually tell. We have had some really cool stories about contacting. One story is about a little old Hindu lady. This one is kind of sad for me because it was the hardest thing that I have had to do. We knocked on her door and she came out. I started out in Hindi and she seemed happy that we knew some Hindi. Elder Banks started to talk and after he was finished, she started speaking Hindi and said something in Hindi and I knew what she said. She said she did not know English. Se we were just standing there and I did not know what to do. All I could do was just point back to the road and walk away. It was really hard. After we walked away, I felt really bad and told Elder Banks that that was the hardest thing that I have had to do. It was a little bit embarrassing also. I felt really bad.
Another pretty cool story is that we were walking up to this house on a dirt road. The house was quite a ways up the road. As we were walking up to the house, a dog was following us up to the house also. Once we got up to the house, one of the dogs that lived up there started coming at us. This dog was all messed up. The leg was all broken and going every direction. I think that it had broken it's leg and it had healed weird. It was going the opposite direction. But the dog that followed us up there was a stranger so the other dog wanted to attack it so it was coming right at us because the other dog was behind us. It was pretty scary because I though that it was going to come right at us and eat us. But we had God on our side. It ran past us and when it was coming back it was barking at us. So I picked up a rock and it ran away. It was a really crazy experience. I think that lots of missionaries have lots of stories about dogs. An elder in our zone just got bit by a dog yesterday. Lots of crazy dogs here. I miss good looking dogs and dogs that you can hold, just like Bella.
But this week, I think that we have contacted a lady that will be really good. She is form the Seventh Day Adventist church and she has always wondered about our church. She has always wanted the missionaries to come and talk to her but they have never come up to talk to her. She said that she has some questions for us and we are going to see her this week on Wednesday to answer some more of her questions. Next week I will let you know more about her. But I think this is really the only really good investigator that we have gotten this whole week. We can go contacting all week and sometimes we will get only one or two investigators out of it. It is going to take a little bit of time for us to build up our investigator pool.
I want to let you all know that I love you all and miss you tons. Today is my 8 month mark. One third of my mission is done. Time is flying by.
Thanks for everything you do and I love you all.
Love,
Elder Grotepas
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