Week #56

Bula Vinaka Noqu Itokani kei Matavuvale! What a week! I can say with more surety than I ever have that Heavenly Father is involved in missionary work 24/7 with each individual missionary all over the world. I don't even know where to begin. Elder Payne and I have both just felt so awesome about this past week. Elder Payne is literally the perfect companion and the Lord knew we would be a good team for the Naulu area. We are witnesses to miracles this week.... Honestly no words can describe the work of the Lord. I testify that if we just trust in the Lord then there doesn't need to be any doubt that He will show us exactly what we need to do. I think it was Tuesday night where I just felt all of my anxiety go away and I just felt comforted. I realized that I don't have to know exactly every thing that I need to do because the Lord already has all of that planned out! My job is just to be obedient to Him in exactness and be willing to work as hard as I can. I can't describe it in words but Elder Payne and I were literally led where to go and what to say every single day this week. Neither of us really knew much of anything about the area but He led us to people who were ready.... He's guiding me as a trainer and leading us to those who are ready. We made a goal as a district this month to receive 6 saints. I'm not aware of every way we are going to achieve this goal but I know that Heavenly Father is. As missionaries we are His disciples. The work is definitely not easy but it is the most rewarding. So just to begin explaining about this week...let's see...we found one of my friends from Taveuni!!!! Her name is Ela. My trainer and I were teaching her back in my very first area and now she is baptized and her husband is not yet a member and he stopped us on the street and said we could come over and teach him. I am way excited to be teaching him! On Tuesday night we were just walking around knocking on doors and talking with everyone we could. We felt prompted to go to this house where we met Jovesa! He's this 20 year old man who is way cool! He immediately welcomed us into his house and we began to share with him why we were there. At the end of the lesson he was thanking us profusely and it was so humbling to see someone so grateful for our message. Later last week we went to visit him and shared with him about the Book of Mormon and he was so interested in the middle of the lesson when we asked him if he would read the book he said, OF COURSE! GO AND GET ME THAT BOOK OF MORMON PLEASE! Earlier we had sat down with his nephew, Alifreti, and we had asked him to pray about if he should read the Book of Mormon. We had to run back to the flat to grab Jovesa a Book of Mormon because we had run out of them that day. When we returned to his house to give him the Book of Mormon he looked way excited and as we were walking away his nephew walked up behind us and grabbed my shoulder and said, "Hey, I prayed like you guys said and I would like to read that book too!" HOORAH FOR ISRAEL! It was awesome to see Elder Payne so excited about missionary work. We are way pumped. Last night we visited Jovesa and we invited him to be baptized when he knows the Book of Mormon is true and he said yes! HOORAH FOR ISRAEL AGAIN ;)! On top of that we've been meeting with a young boy (in this village called Wainibuku) named Sela! He had taken most of the lessons before with the past elders it had just been awhile since they had last seen him so we reviewed the lessons and he said he wanted to be baptized this Saturday. We were hesitant to ask his mom in fear that she might say no but she said yes! I don't understand every way the Lord works but I can testify that all my companion and I have been doing is striving to be exact in our obedience and working till our feet bleed. I love this work. I'm finding our brothers and sisters who I didn't even know were ready to accept the gospel. This next week is Zone conference and we're way excited for that. I love you all. The work of the Lord is hastening in every land.

Much love, Elder Jonati