This week we spent most of our time working on a new branch outside of
town. We put in a floor and fixed it all up real nice. before it was
just a tin covering and dirt/mud floor. was really hard to keep it
church reverent and everything. Elder Terry is really handy. an old
engineer is always nice to have around and talk cars and guns and put
in wood floors. The branch is newly started and the members very
young so training them is really important. they had a short extra
sacrament meeting after church last week that was no good. so working
on that kinda stuff... The sisters got robbed last week. guy just
grabbed her bag and took off. they arent so careful about being off
the streets before dark and just glad they learned from something less
then it could have been. so theyll be more careful now i hope.
Got some good hard work in with a hammer and got some good sun. those
two days were abnormally dry and hot. I loved it! it felt kinda like
bako! :) now its back to rain. in Labasa its all sugar cane area so
its gonna get hot in the dry season here. being district leader is
going alright. we'll see if by the time I leave the area's are doing
better then they are now. Its a lot harder to do missionary work when
your members are all recent converts and dont know what goes on that
much either.
there are some tough area's out here that are averaging 6 lessons a
week. somethings gotta change so we are working on all that. got zone
conf coming up.
now that im off island again i never get mail so im hoping when
president comes up he brings all the mail with him. hopefully some in
there for me :P
We had a confirmation this week that went really well. we got there
from our other branch we cover walk into the chapel and the Branch
Pres stands up right then and says "now we will have a confirmation by
the Elders" couldnt have been better timing. unless we were there
earlier. but in it Elder Hanke said "we ordain you" instead of
sustain.. no one said anything so i guess its okay haha
The senior couples out here are really making a difference. we need
them so bad. just cause all the leaders here are so young and need
training that we cant give.
and our couples out here are LOADED .. talked to a couple of them
about what they did for career.. one did stuff with HP and then
started a anti virus company thing and is neighbors with Mitt Romney
haha and another one owns 2 buildings (law firms that he owns) on main
street NY .. nice to get some career pointers from these guys. My mtc
branch pres guy has 3 new york times best sellers and co owns a
company.
I dont know why I talked about that just interesting stuff talking to
these senior couples that can make it great financially and
spiritually. I like things simple life like my good friend Elder
Hanke who skips class in HS to go Fly fishing :)
We had a great lesson with the Kumar family and had a member indian
couple come with us to speak to them in Hindi. they dont know english
very well. there are so many indians in fiji i never would have
guessed. I really hope this family gets baptized. it went really well.
I was kinda lost most of the lesson. but its broken Hindi so i could
follow a bit. We are working on getting the bus company to send a bus
out to their place on sundays. they said that they used to but not
since the bus company changed. so it shouldnt be too bad.
the work is great life is wonderful.
We had some cool experiences in trying to find referrals that members
gave to us. turned out after us looking for this lady for 3 hours that
we got the addresses mixed up and that we were looking for the wrong
person in the wrong place. but what was cool about it is when we were
walking with these people to help us look for the person (before we
knew we were asking for the wrong person) we talked to him and asked
if he knew the other referral .. turns out it was his dad!!! and then
we learned we got the places mixed up and everything. little miracles
like that let us know who's work this is and that he is here helping
us :)
missionary life is wonderful .
Hope everyone is doing well. would like to hear from everyone.
Loloma
Elder Estill
Monday, February 20, 2012
January 5, 2012
Well its been a really good week! life is amazing.
Everyone was home this week, we only had one day of not very many
lessons. I think we ended at 16 lessons this week and for our area is
a lot of lessons. all of them were really good lessons too. and
everything usually all works out well right before you get transferred
lol.. so we figured id be transferred. I have been in this area 6
months now. So we got transfers called in sat night and Elder Malani
got his Visa to PNG! no one was expecting that at all. so Im still in
Korovou and am stoked. getting Elder Seila who is another Fijian. My
prayers to learn this language are working , in that im getting help I
mean.. i still cant speak well.
on that topic I went on splits to Burewai and the lesson we had there
was a 26 year old girl who said I have poor fijian and Im fat... lol
that was nice .
here they have avocado's but they call them pears . and we got one
this week that was giant! like a small watermelon. crazy.. didnt taste
very good . im used to only getting little tasty spoon fulls of
avocado but this was a lot and less taste. lol random
all of our investigators are progressing well. besides the ones we
dropped anyway. we had more come to church then ever. samisoni is
staying strong with no smoking. he even paid tithing! holy cow. lol
doing that for awhile now. when we were there Bro Tabua shared about
how the BoM is spoken about in the Bible and we had 3 inv there and
they all kinda got big eyed and were really happy about that lesson.
so Ill be able to be here and baptise the people ive been working so
hard to get there. which isnt very normal to get to be here and do it
myself so im very blessed :) so many small things Heavenly Father
takes care of when we are working hard.
Serema and Lekima are building their house and after its done are
going to get married! so its close. they got the foundation done. (not
too much there all the foundations here are on sticks lol) so we are
going to help them work on it this week.
This mission has changed my life in so many ways that I know could not
have come any other way then serving a mission. I almost missed out on
it all. I know where I would be if I didnt come and its scary to think
about all the things I would have missed out on. If anyone knows a
young man thats not thinking about going on a mission you just tell
him about me and Ill have a little chat with him. lol I have direction
and focus in life. that alone is worth more then money. and so many
other personal things that I cant explain well are from coming on a
mission. The gospel is true. Its the number one reason of everything.
Ive learned to be true to myself and the Lord first and the rest will
fall into place. it takes some soul searching and asking yourself some
questions to know what that means to each of us.
Also something that hit me hard reading David O McKay talk is this
simple thing that we have all heard before but has a lot more meaning
then I ever knew. "Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner." He was talking
about the time when the people brought the lady caught in adultery to
him and tempted him asking what he said should be done. He never said
a word that condoned the sin or excused her from it. He had mercy and
said Go and Sin no more. I think we can all learn from his example
here when we react to the sins of people around us. directly or
indirectly concerning us. The love and ability to Love the person and
not label them with the Sin. They are sons and daughters of our
Heavenly Father with great potential. I can testify of that myself as
being one that appeared to have little potential from having made
great mistakes. And now look where I am from the power and love of the
Atonement. I would be nothing without it. So that is something I
learned about forgiveness. Having a hope and a desire for people to
reach their potential. How we treat others will greatly effect them on
that path. Use loving language. dont shout or label them with things
like, Lazy, stupid, dumb, ect. I did a lot of things that were lazy
stupid and dumb lol but its not who I am. When you label someone like
that they will believe you and thats what they will be. Just something
I liked to help me when Im a parent and also all those around me. to
watch what I say and do. Is it helping that person? if its not dont do
it. cause your only doing it for selfish reasons.
well thats my spill on that haha
hope all those pictures go through okay.
Love you all!
Loloma, Elder Estill
Au talataka sara vakalevu na sere ni viti. E dodonu mo ni ciqoma na
yalodina vua na Kalou.
Everyone was home this week, we only had one day of not very many
lessons. I think we ended at 16 lessons this week and for our area is
a lot of lessons. all of them were really good lessons too. and
everything usually all works out well right before you get transferred
lol.. so we figured id be transferred. I have been in this area 6
months now. So we got transfers called in sat night and Elder Malani
got his Visa to PNG! no one was expecting that at all. so Im still in
Korovou and am stoked. getting Elder Seila who is another Fijian. My
prayers to learn this language are working , in that im getting help I
mean.. i still cant speak well.
on that topic I went on splits to Burewai and the lesson we had there
was a 26 year old girl who said I have poor fijian and Im fat... lol
that was nice .
here they have avocado's but they call them pears . and we got one
this week that was giant! like a small watermelon. crazy.. didnt taste
very good . im used to only getting little tasty spoon fulls of
avocado but this was a lot and less taste. lol random
all of our investigators are progressing well. besides the ones we
dropped anyway. we had more come to church then ever. samisoni is
staying strong with no smoking. he even paid tithing! holy cow. lol
doing that for awhile now. when we were there Bro Tabua shared about
how the BoM is spoken about in the Bible and we had 3 inv there and
they all kinda got big eyed and were really happy about that lesson.
so Ill be able to be here and baptise the people ive been working so
hard to get there. which isnt very normal to get to be here and do it
myself so im very blessed :) so many small things Heavenly Father
takes care of when we are working hard.
Serema and Lekima are building their house and after its done are
going to get married! so its close. they got the foundation done. (not
too much there all the foundations here are on sticks lol) so we are
going to help them work on it this week.
This mission has changed my life in so many ways that I know could not
have come any other way then serving a mission. I almost missed out on
it all. I know where I would be if I didnt come and its scary to think
about all the things I would have missed out on. If anyone knows a
young man thats not thinking about going on a mission you just tell
him about me and Ill have a little chat with him. lol I have direction
and focus in life. that alone is worth more then money. and so many
other personal things that I cant explain well are from coming on a
mission. The gospel is true. Its the number one reason of everything.
Ive learned to be true to myself and the Lord first and the rest will
fall into place. it takes some soul searching and asking yourself some
questions to know what that means to each of us.
Also something that hit me hard reading David O McKay talk is this
simple thing that we have all heard before but has a lot more meaning
then I ever knew. "Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner." He was talking
about the time when the people brought the lady caught in adultery to
him and tempted him asking what he said should be done. He never said
a word that condoned the sin or excused her from it. He had mercy and
said Go and Sin no more. I think we can all learn from his example
here when we react to the sins of people around us. directly or
indirectly concerning us. The love and ability to Love the person and
not label them with the Sin. They are sons and daughters of our
Heavenly Father with great potential. I can testify of that myself as
being one that appeared to have little potential from having made
great mistakes. And now look where I am from the power and love of the
Atonement. I would be nothing without it. So that is something I
learned about forgiveness. Having a hope and a desire for people to
reach their potential. How we treat others will greatly effect them on
that path. Use loving language. dont shout or label them with things
like, Lazy, stupid, dumb, ect. I did a lot of things that were lazy
stupid and dumb lol but its not who I am. When you label someone like
that they will believe you and thats what they will be. Just something
I liked to help me when Im a parent and also all those around me. to
watch what I say and do. Is it helping that person? if its not dont do
it. cause your only doing it for selfish reasons.
well thats my spill on that haha
hope all those pictures go through okay.
Love you all!
Loloma, Elder Estill
Au talataka sara vakalevu na sere ni viti. E dodonu mo ni ciqoma na
yalodina vua na Kalou.
October 23, 2011
Vinaka
Well just a quick note this week.
In town we were gonna hand out some dvds to some people and we were
short on time so we picked one person to hand out one to and it turned
out that this guy just got back from visiting his brother and his
brother told him that he needs to look into the LDS church. the church
is known as LDS here not mormons. and we talked for a little while and
it was just really neat the only guy that we talked to.
We got some really good referrals by finding LA families in the ward
that have kids not yet baptized. so we are gonna go teach them and get
the families active again. Some of them live on the very edge of our
area so it would be better for them to get moved to the other ward.
But just a really good way that I didnt think of before of getting new
inv.
Got to watch conf. and I burned copies and watched the church news
stuff and holy cow thats so awesome whats going on! the church is
really being recognized everywhere all over the world and really being
profound. I love it. All the knew temples. I loved it when President
Monson announced them haha he's so funny. and the new one in provo
sounds sweet!
not much going on this week. had a really good day planned and ALL of
it fell through.. AUGH! was horrible. was the big day for our lessons
and to see people and it all went bad. grr. had members with us and
everything. so we went to town at the end of the day and I got them
Ice cream bars to say thanks lol
well another week ahead to improve and to become better change the
things we didnt do so good last week and try harder. soon we'll have a
perfect week :) someday lol
loloma
Elder Estill
Vinaka
Well just a quick note this week.
In town we were gonna hand out some dvds to some people and we were
short on time so we picked one person to hand out one to and it turned
out that this guy just got back from visiting his brother and his
brother told him that he needs to look into the LDS church. the church
is known as LDS here not mormons. and we talked for a little while and
it was just really neat the only guy that we talked to.
We got some really good referrals by finding LA families in the ward
that have kids not yet baptized. so we are gonna go teach them and get
the families active again. Some of them live on the very edge of our
area so it would be better for them to get moved to the other ward.
But just a really good way that I didnt think of before of getting new
inv.
Got to watch conf. and I burned copies and watched the church news
stuff and holy cow thats so awesome whats going on! the church is
really being recognized everywhere all over the world and really being
profound. I love it. All the knew temples. I loved it when President
Monson announced them haha he's so funny. and the new one in provo
sounds sweet!
not much going on this week. had a really good day planned and ALL of
it fell through.. AUGH! was horrible. was the big day for our lessons
and to see people and it all went bad. grr. had members with us and
everything. so we went to town at the end of the day and I got them
Ice cream bars to say thanks lol
well another week ahead to improve and to become better change the
things we didnt do so good last week and try harder. soon we'll have a
perfect week :) someday lol
loloma
Elder Estill
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