February 19, 2012

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