Week #82

Dear Tamara Vinaka (good people), It has been another good week out here in the bush. Lots of things have happened as always! On Wednesday we dropped Elder Payne off at the mission office. He's in Tuvalu now. Lucky kid hahaha! On the bright side, while dropping him off we found a mexican food restaurant. I could hardly believe it was real. I didn't know those existed out here and I was quite surprised. I tried to bridle my inner man but I ended up giving in and getting nachos and a burrito and ISSSAAAAA LEEIII! It was pretty dang good. It was a blessing hahah! On a more serious note, we found tons of new investigators this past week. Since we can't really tract in the villages we have decided to hit up all the houses that are on the outskirts of the villages and some have been pretty good contacts! Just the other day we sat down with this family who had so many kids. They seemed like a pretty happy family so we began by sharing with them about the sealing power. We told them how we could help them to receive an answer to know if the power to seal their family together is in this church. They told us if they found out that it was true they would all be baptized. So I'm way pumped for them because they are definitely going to receive an answer because it is true. And plus......who doesn't want to be sealed to their family for eternity! I'm excited to get to share with them. Petaia and his family (Vanua levu family) have been doing amazing. We've been teaching them for awhile and Petaia and Sereana and a few of their sons have come to church a few times now. Lately we just haven't been sure who all really wants to be baptized so we decided last friday to sit down with them and figure all that out. After some pretty cool impressions of the spirit, all 6 of them have decided they want to be baptized by the end of this month. They are one of the coolest families I've ever met. When we teach them they are all so intently listening and humble. They literally follow any commitment we give them. They really have full purpose of heart in trying to follow Jesus Christ and that makes me so happy! Lately I've been learning a lot about prayer. I've been trying harder to have prayers throughout the day that are in correspondence with the goals I am working on. I've seen some cool changes. I have a testimony that if we set goals with Heavenly father and work on them with Him throughout the day then they can become a reality. He really does answer our prayers. Our unit member, Brother Vounijese, recently had his mother die. We went to visit him the other day and we shared with him about all the temple work he can do for his mom. He is really grateful that he can help his mom still get to the celestial kingdom. Just seeing this made me realize how loving God's plan is for us. He wants us ALL to come back to Him and he does so many things to make that possible. I love sharing the gospel. The atonement has the power to transform you and when you let it and set goals you can become more like Him and it's pretty awesome. I look forward to sharing more with all you guys next week!

Love, Elder Jonutz