Week #14

Bula Sacas! I’ve never worked so hard in my entire life. Last week I told you all that Elder Barnaby and I have decided to be completely consecrated! Well this week we did our absolute best. For the past 7 days we've been out working from 6:30 to 9:30 every single day. We go to bed right at 10:30 and we wake up right at 6:30. I’ve been studying the language like crazy and Elder Barnaby said my Fijian Sky rocketed this week. Heavenly Father literally helps me every second of the day....I've been in charge of planning out our days this past week. Mainly where we are gonna go and who we are going to see and what we are going to teach! It's A LOT OF HARD WORK. On Tuesday we missed a bus back to Matei and Elder Barnaby told me I had to re-plan the entire day hahaha. During my personal study I prayed for inspiration on who the Lord needed us to see. After my study I wrote down the plans that came to my head. That night we went out and not 1 person that I had planned to see was unavailable! They were all there! If that's not proof that Heavenly Father exists and is involved in missionary work....I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE IS! We spent a lot of our efforts this week in Matei. I prayed for our members everyday like non-stop. It feels so good to work as hard as we can every hour of every day. I've seen miracles this week because of exact obedience to even the tiniest of things! I have been loving my personal study this week. I've been reading in 3 Nephi and MANNN! To be able to read the words of our Savior is powerful! To be able to read the words he spoke when he came to the Americas and called his 12 apostles is AMAZING! I'm finding that a lot of what Jesus said to those disciples are the exact things I need to hear as a missionary! On Wednesday we took this American couple (who have a vacation home in Fiji and live here every six months to help out with the church) to go see this less active family named the Tings. We were going to drive up there to see them but the road was too sketchy for driving. So we took the 40 minute hike to the top of the mountain hahaha. It was so hot!  And Brother Ting was a way crazy old man who was hard of hearing. I don't think he heard one word of our lesson but it was great we were able to see him and get him affiliated with the senior couple, The Czieps!  After that he diced up this huge pineapple and gave it to us. Brother Ting owns a pineapple farm of like 1000 pineapples. Guys....IT WAS THE BEST TASTING PINEAPPLE EVER! After them we went to go do more visits and found a new investigator named Rosi! We took one of our members to our first lesson with her and it went great! We worked till 9:30 that night and it was insane! On Thursday we did service for some members. We went and had breakfast at Sister Taylor’s house. It was like the first legit breakfast I’ve had since being in Fiji! It was so Good! She fed us lemon tea (herbal of course;)) and scones with peanut butter and jelly, fried kasava, and fresh fijian bananas...OH IT WAS SO GOOD. After breakfast we did service...they gave us sele's (Fijian swords) and we werewere (Slicing with a sword) their farm. We weeded their garden in the jungle with sele's for about 3 hours! I got a lot of blisters on my hands from it but it was way fun. Not a lot of people in this world can say they worked on someone’s farm on an island in the middle of the pacific ocean using an old fijian cultural sword HAHAHA! The next day was DEWALI! I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Dewali but it's like the biggest Hindi Holiday! They celebrate their gods and shoot fireworks and decorate their houses like christmas and make an offer of these sweets to their gods. It was a crazy night. We got invited to like 5 parties and had to say no:( hahaha. But our landlord is Hindi and she said she'd bring us dewali sweets. That night we were working way hard and were way far away from our flat. Fireworks were going off everywhere and the island was like lit up. We made it home really late and it was bad. But in our defense we were working non stop that day and needed to see all the people we saw. On friday we made it down into Qeleni! We Worked our tails off there this week. We got Brother ULULAKEBA to come to church! He was the one who got mad at us when we were teaching him and his hands were scaly because he's always drinking grog. He showed up at church and I WAS SO HAPPY! He was like smiling and it was great. In sacrament meeting the branch president asked me to get up and give a talk....wasn’t prepared for that...That was fun hahaha. Today I found out 30 members came to church in Matei this sunday!!! We weren't able to see because we had to go to church in Qeleni this week. But a member came up to us and told us. I almost cried I was so happy. BEING CONSECRATED AND WORKING TILL YOU’RE DEAD EVERY NIGHT MAKES MIRACLES HAPPEN! I have been so blessed this week to see miracles and I can feel Matei and Qeleni growing FINALLY! Next week is zone conference so it’s going to be insane. But we are going to be consecrated again! We got 20 lessons this week which is way good. Numbers don’t matter but we were able to help 20 of God's children come closer to Jesus Christ this week and that does matter! I miss all of you so much. Just know that God's work is real! My ponderizing scripture this week was 3 Nephi 19:26- And Jesus said unto them pray on; Nevertheless they did not cease to pray. I've been praying non-stop everyday! Every second almost. Jesus commanded his disciples to never cease to pray. If you follow this and always have a prayer constantly in your heart. You will see why Jesus Christ told his disciples to do this. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you next week!

Love, Elder Jonuti

Marika (boy) wouldn't let go of my hand for like an hour

We Went pretty deep into the jungle to find this Family. NEVER FOUND THEM

After a rainy day

A member gave us this for dinner. 

Some Jungle...

This is Marika! He's a way funny kid from a recent convert family in Qeleni

Stormy Seas In VureVure

Some native fijian children. Creyekeez!

Fijian Rooster...Bak

Classic Poison Frogs of Fiji! These things cover the lawn in front of our house at night. Like Hundreds of them!

Dewali Celebration! This was a member playing with Dewali Fireworks! I'm learning how to use my camera pretty good:))

Livin Like A True Native

The Hike coming down from visiting The Tings

I thought I looked cool with this flower behind my ear HAHAHA

PERTY FLOWER in Fijian = senikau totoka

This place is across the street from our flat. I think it's funny because I'm in Fiji and just like back home I still live across the street from SUN CITY

Looks like I'm standing next to a pool but it's the OCEAN - in fijian ocean is WAI TUI