Week #12

Bula Matavuvale! What a week! Finally a week in the clear! No sicknesses! It was just a normal missionary week! After I e-mailed you guys we spent the night again in the somosomo flat. That night Elder Noble decided he wanted to go on exchanges with me to vuna till thursday! Let’s just say it was crazy! Tuesday night was a rough sleep. Well, for Elder Barnaby it was...HAHAHA. He woke up in the middle of the night screaming like a girl running around the flat because a rat was running around in his shirt haha. SO GROSS. I felt bad for him but it was way funny! Wednesday morning me and Elder Noble headed to Vuna. It was a 3 hour bus ride.... We drove all the way to this village called Navakawau where only 1 member ended up being there for us to teach them. When we went inside their shack they were eating octopus. Elder Noble gave me this evil smile and looked at me and said, Elder Jonutz hasn't eaten Octopus yet...they started dishing me a nice plate of tentacles after that haha yayy.....bluh They still had the suction cups on them! They soak it in this coconut milk and it tasted like flavored rubber... But I ate all of it bluhhh! After that we missed our bus and had to walk four hours to get to our next destination for our dinner appt. Hardest walk of my life because we had taken a 40 minute run earlier that morning...My legs got huge knots in them and it stunk pretty bad. But I got to know Elder Noble a lot better and that was way cool. It was a good exchange because transfers are this Wednesday and he's gonna be leaving this island so I got to know him better before he's going to leave. After that I met up with Elder Barnaby and we took a ride in a truck to Qeleni. This American couple named the Cheeps drove us there. GUYS.....THEIR CAR WAS AIR CONDITIONED!!! It was like heaven!! It felt like coming home in America after a hot day of school!! I literally had to drag myself out of the car when we got to the Qeleni flat! When we got there we immediately went out teaching and we went to go see our chief friend...named Sai:) He fed us herb tea and pancakes They were gooooood! We shared a message on the book of mormon with him and he told us all about the trinity and how there is only one:( It always leads to this! Oh well, we are going to continue working with him. I have faith he will become a member one day! After that I had probably my best lesson yet so far in Fiji! We sat down with this mother named Mata. We were also talking about the book of mormon but with her I felt prompted to tell her my story on how I know the book of mormon is true. The words in fijian literally just rolled out of my mouth. I almost started crying I felt the spirit so strongly. I hope she felt it. I said things in Fijian that I never have said before. THE GIFT OF TOUNGES IS REAL! au kila ni dina na kosipeli i jisu karisto. kevaka muri na yalo tabu ena noda bula, kenda rawa ni vakila marau. Nodoa ivakabula o Jisu Karisto e a mate ena vukuda. I lomani nogu ivakabula sara ga! kevaka muri na vakraitaki i jisu. Keda rawa ni kunea nodo sala lesu tale mai vua na kalou! The next day we went to Qeleni Koro. All of our lessons fell through except for one. We saw a less active member named sister tabaiwalu. We extended a calling to her and she said she really wanted one. We were inspired to go there and it was truly led by the Lord because she was leaving the next day to Suva until Christmas so we never would have been able to see her! After that we started to go get our lunch! It's tradition for Elder Barnaby and me (while on our hike to vurevure every saturday) to go to the village store and grab a can of tuna, a drink, and an 80 cent loaf of bread. Then we take it and eat it along this river on the hike to vurevure. Except for this day.....they had no bread. So we got this small thing of like crackers and just tuna:'( Let’s just say it was not filling at all. After that we walked to vurevure and again all the lessons fell through but we saw one guy named Mika! We needed to see him. He was so excited as we taught him lesson one he was amazed about modern day prophets! Pray for him to have an open heart and desire! He is a way cool guy!! After that we had no more lessons. The whole day of like nonstop walking only had two lessons. But i realized the people we saw were the ones the Lord truly needed us to see. And if we hadn’t been there at their homes at the exact time we did they both would have been gone. Heavenly Father directed us in his plan for us for the day. In my eyes it became a way successful day! It was way awesome! SO ABOUT THAT CHEESEBURGER YOU SAW ME EATING! Way funny story! I ordered a cheeseburger. 40 minutes later the chef comes out with my 'cheese burger" HA! It was literally what I had asked for. A bun with lettuce tomato and onions and 2 slices of cheese with no patty.....I asked the chef if she had forgotten my meat patty. She said you asked for a cheeseburger....HAHAHA It was way stink but way funny and she went back and cooked me a beef patty. Everyone in my district was dying! It’s been a crazy week. I took alot of pictures and so I’ll try to send them all! I love you all and miss you a lot! I missed Halloween! Lucky guys get candy! On fast Sunday I had dinner at 8:00 haha. It was a long day.... But a lot of good stuff I was fasting for so it was all worth it. We are working on Qeleni and Matei and slowly but surely the work will progress. I have faith! I was able to watch general conference sunday morning session! My ponderizing scripture for this week is Helaman 3:35. It's a way good scripture. I hope I can become more consecrated as a missionary! We hiked to tagi mocia today. It was a 4 wheel drive up the mountain and when we got there it was foggy and pouring rain! We had a guide who had a sele (sword) and he led us literally through a rain forest to the flower I was telling you guys about that is super rare. He had to cut vines and it was way muddy and crazy windy and rainy. I can now say I have hiked in the jungle. The thick, muddy jungle! I couldn’t bring my camera because it was raining way hard but it was way cool and an amazing story I’ll be able to tell one day! I miss all of you! A LOT! I love you guys!

Love, Elder Jonuti