Week #38

Bula Family! Another insane week here in Levuka! All is well and Elder Bond and I are still both alive and breathing! I’m way excited to skype you guys soon! Should be next week on Monday but we haven't received any information on it from our mission president yet so JUST BE READY hahaha! Elder Bond and I worked our hearts out this week. We came back home Sunday night just DRAINED. This week has been full of so much! We went out to Moturiki on Wednesday and that’s always an adventure! We met many new investigators there and Sister Vuki made us this dinner that we had no idea what in the world it was. But we were grateful for it and we ate it hahaha! I could almost swear it was coagulated pig’s blood.....I’m serious. We usually go to Nacabecabe when we go to Moturiki, but this week the tide was low enough for us just to walk all the way to this other Koro we had not yet visited. The village is called Nasavuki and it’s way cool just like Nacabecabe! We were only able to visit one person there because the tide started coming up and we aren't allowed to swim...haha, so we had to get out of there fast! We went to this random house in Nacabecabe and this old man lived there and he invited us in and when we sat down he went like crazy laughing and speaking the fastest fijian I think I have ever heard. We got to know him some more after sitting with him and it turns out his grandson was taking lessons with the missionaries and he's ready to be baptized. He lives in Nacabecabe but he was at school while we were there so next week we'll get to see him and I'm way stoked! After Moturiki, we headed back to Levuka and had an awesome rest of our week there! Elder Bond and I have been blessed big time. Literally, this whole week was led by the Holy ghost. Speaking of which I'd like to share an experience I had this week. So, Elder Bond and I made it a goal to stay out proselyting till 9:00 and sacrifice our hour of dinner which starts at 8:00. We definitely felt the blessings flow from making this goal! Thursday night we were working way hard and it was only 6:00 and we had already seen everyone we had planned to see and we didn't know what to do so we went to sit on the sea wall and decided to say a prayer on what we should do. We sat there for awhile praying and we both received the same answer. But at first the answer didn't seem right to us. We received a strong prompting that we needed to return to our flat for the night. I was pretty confused at this because I wanted to keep working. But we of course listened to the prompting and went back to our flat. Still confused I decided to pray again for understanding. As I prayed I felt like we had made the right decision. I know for certain Heavenly Father didn't want us to be out late on Thursday night. I'll never know why but I do know that we followed His will and we were blessed. It just proved to me again that Heavenly father will do anything to protect us. Saturday we went to Natokalau village to meet with our nine year old investigator, Sisi! She's going to be baptized this Sunday! BULLLAA! she is way funny and all was great and dandy after her lesson until a tribe of Fijian children came and beat up Elder Bond and I! This one little girl in the village is way funny. Her name is Livia! She reminds me of OLIVIA! I sat her down and told her that my sister back home has the same name as her so she asked me if I had a picture of her. Luckily I keep all of my pictures in my side bag so I pulled it out to show her the picture. Olivia don't take this offensively! But when she saw the picture she busted up laughing! She's only like 5 years old so I asked her why she was laughing and she said “titoko kaukamea ena batina!” Which in fijian means “metal on her teeth”. She was making fun of her braces in the picture......I was like RUDE! hahahaha Don't worry Olivia I stuck up for you and told her how pretty you are! After that, we were trying to leave the village and literally 30 fijian kids marched out with us. They were being really loud and I was trying to get them to go away because the village and the chief were having a big meeting. Fijian kids are way funny. There was this group of kids who wanted to speak english so they just copied everything I said so I had some fun with that haha! On Sunday we sat down with Akuila. He is way excited about getting married this week and then baptized next week! He and Sakarai are both planned to be baptized next week so I’m way pumped. We helped pay for a little bit of their marriage so they wanted to feed us lunch on Sunday after church. They made this way good stew with yams and chop suey! He's way excited to be baptized! We'll be going to his wedding this Wednesday! Fiji is way fun. I can't describe the culture here but it’s the best thing ever. I'm sure I’ve shared this before but you literally cannot find a happier group of people in the entire world. Half of them are homeless yet so happy! I LOVE IT! I'm looking forward to seeing some of the people we have been working with for awhile be baptized next week and the week after. The district leader is coming out to do more interviews this week so that should be fun! So one funny story to end this email! Elder Bond and I were doing some finding in Baba village and we came to this house and they invited us in. It was this old fijian lady who was way funny and her whole family of 9! At the end of the lesson she asked us if we were available for marriage after our mission. We were both like umm noooo......hahaha! Some fijian ladies are just too crazy ahh hahah! I just want to end this email with my testimony! This week has been a hard one but a rewarding one! To see how far with the Lord's help Levuka has grown is awesome! I love you all and I miss all of you so much and am looking forward to skype! This church is so true! Au na vosa vei kemudo na macawa mai oqo kei raitha na matamudou! Sa veivakurabuitaki na yaloqu!

Love, Elder Jonati!