Week #11

Bula Vinaka! This week was a lot better. It didn’t start off that way though hahaha! On Tuesday I got another really bad fever but I was able to get to medicine fast so it was gone by the end of the day and I’ve been fine the rest of the week so HALLELUJAH! Guess WHAT?! We actually got to go outside into the outside world and teach this week. BULLLAAA! Bote! To this sickness! Bote means like “in your face” kind of thing in Fijian hahaha! I'm definitely learning a lot of patience on my mission so far. Wednesday morning I felt sick again but I have had it with being sick so I just decided to get up and work out and we went out and taught and it was hard but I MURDERED THE SICKNESS!

So I had a funny experience this week with a rookie mistake during a lesson. It was embarrassing! We were teaching this woman named Lidia who is less active but all we need her to do is get an interview from president to make sure she's worthy and get her a calling. We didn’t want to just come out and say you need an interview to see if you are worthy so we gave her a lesson on the temple and I asked her if being sealed to her family is something she wants and she was like YES. And then she talked about how her husband’s brother died and he never got his endowments done. So being a rookie greenie I was like Lidia, if you get a temple recommend and go to the temple you could do the endowment for him. I told her this feeling all excited for her and then my companion was like ummmm...no she can't and then I realized what I had said and we all just laughed. IT WAS EMBARRASSING! After that we went to go see our our golden investigators Taubale and Paulnia! The ones who are like perfect and gave us a ride when we prayed. YEAHHHHHH...... about them. They kind of broke mine and elder barnaby's hearts this week. We started the 2nd lesson with them and we were so excited! We opened up the book of mormon and started reading it with them and then it got to a verse that said something about the holy ghost being separate from heavenly father and Jesus Christ. They started telling us all about how they are all one. They told us all this stuff and read us all these scriptures on it and then gave us all these pamphlets from their pentacostal church and told us they'd teach us more when we came back. That was our last lesson of the night and Elder Barnaby and I walked home kind of depressed. I still see hope in them though and I’m praying for them to have a change of heart. This all took place in Matei area which needless to say is dying... Last church attendance was 8 people! It breaks my heart. We talk to all the members and pray way hard and nothing happens and no one comes...so please pray for Matei! After that we drove to Qeleni on thursday night and we just got back Sunday night.

Qeleni was an adventure. We decided to go explore this village we've never been in before and right when we got there we were invited into the chief’s house. They were amazed with us and how we spoke fijian and the chief is like this little old guy who reminds me of grandpa jonutz and he laughs and has no teeth but he's like my favorite person I’ve met in Fiji so far. There was him, his wife and two of their children in the room. We shared a message with them and the chief just ate it up! He said, “Eldas...this is your second home from now on. We will listen to you talk about Jesus whenever you want.” Even better...he's the Pentocostal Preacher of Taveuini so if we get him, we convert the village, and all the Pentocostals heeheeheeheee! HAHA....Very unlikely :( but he's way cool. He gave us some drau ni moli, which is tea but just like herbal tea with a lemon leaf in it haha.

The next day on Saturday we walked to Vurevure and it took about 2 hours and all of our lessons that were planned there for that day were all gone! So we did some finding and found like this guy and then we had to walk all the way back. It was about a 2hr walk back and we went to Qeleni koro. All I have to say is this place is creepy......People huddled in groups laughing and drinking grog and we saw this dog eating something. Turned out it was it's baby...I almost cried. Plus the dog was an albino dog so it had red eyes so it made it even worse.....On sunday Elder Barnaby got sick again....We just keep switching off. I don’t understand why this is happening. The Lord is just teaching us. Since we were all the way in Qeleni there isn’t really a store anywhere close by so we had no medicine so I gave him a blessing. At church our investigator, Sikeli, was supposed to show up for his baptism and he didn’t... These are some of the things that keep falling through. We keep getting sick. I want you all to know it’s not tearing me down. It was at first I’ll admit. It’s hard to be sick and then go out and work and nothing productive happens. But I’m learning a lot out here. Heavenly Father is strengthening me so much these past few weeks. My language has gotten a ton better. I can pretty much teach lessons now and understand what’s being said in the lesson. Heavenly Father is blessing me. I hope by the time I leave my area I will be proud to say we turned Qeleni and Matei back into a living church of strong members. That’s my goal! I want it so bad. I’m sick of seeing less and less members show up to church and it’s like my desire to fire the members back up with the spirit! I think tha’ts why all this stuff keeps happening. Last night the district leaders called me and Elder barnaby and said they needed us up at somosomo by the night... We weren't planning on going up until the next morning and we had already missed the bus. The walk from Qeleni to Somosomo is about a 10 hr walk haha.... Me and Elder Barnaby said a prayer...packed up, (not to mention he was still sick), and we just started walking. We just had faith we'd get rides. Well heavenly father is real because we were able to hitchhike all the way there using 4 different cars. I rode in the back of a truck with 10 kids in the back. It was way fun. We got a ride from another truck, a party van (that was weird...), and a huge semi truck picked us up too. We made it to somosmo in an hr... When we stepped off the last car we immediately said a prayer thanking Heavenly Father! We were truly blessed last night and I will never forget hitchhiking at night hahaha. It was an adventure. This is a new week. I am going to give it my all and try my best to fire up Qeleni and Matei the best I can. Missionary work is real! I was able to watch two talks from conference last night on a portable dvd player. I saw the “ponderizing” one and loved it!!! I also saw Elder Bednar’s on why we have elderly leaders in the church and I thought it was sooo gooood! I love you all. I miss you all. I miss all my family and friends! It's hard sometimes not going to lie.... But, being out here I see why the Lord needs me and I pray I can give Him my all. Thank you for all your prayers. They Help!!!

Much Love, Elder Jonuti