Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Elder Christofferson & service project on Manono Tai

Hello everyone!!

This week was one of the best on my mission so far.

On Tuesday we had a mission conference with Elder Christofferson. All of Upolu and Savai'i came but poor Tutuila missed out. It was really good seeing some of the Elders who have been serving in Savai'i from my MTC group.  Elder Christofferson was amazing. We got to shake his hand which was sweet. He talked for almost two hours with no notes. Just straight revelation. He gave the opportunity to us to ask questions and one elder asked a pretty funny question. Everyone has heard those stories about when an Apostle visits a mission he maybe gets a feeling or something about a certain missionary so this missionary asked if Elder Christofferson felt anything specific about him. Everyone was laughing and he said he didn't feel anything specific but he said to study the doctrine of the priesthood. Everyone was still laughing and stuff but then it hit me that what he said was direct revelation. He could've said anything but he said to study the Doctrine of the priesthood so I thought that was cool.

When he bore his testimony at the end it was so simple but so powerful. It always gives me the chills when they say they "witness that Jesus is the Christ." One day I hope to bear the same witness that Jesus is the Christ.  For now, I will continue to testify in faith.

It was something that I'll never forget. I learned so much and I'm trying to apply what I learned to each day.

We had a lot of good visits this week with our investigators. It was funny after one visit, we were leaving and my companion turned to me and he was saying how I understood everything and was able to answer their questions and teach them according to their needs. When he said that it kind of hit me that I was able to speak and understand. I give ALL the credit to the Lord and His help in learning the language.  It really is a miracle and a blessing.

Training my companion these past few weeks I've noticed my language skills are growing a lot. When I was getting trained and I didn't understand something I would tune out because I knew my companion could answer. But now I'm the only person to turn to. So it has forced me to really listen and mostly rely on the Spirit to help me understand them.

On Friday I went on an exchange with the zone leaders. I went to the zone leaders area and my companion stayed in Faleasi'u. I did a baptismal interview for the zone leaders and we got a couple visits in. In one of the visits this lady sucked down two cigarettes right in front of us and we weren't there for longer than 10 minutes. It was pretty funny.  It was really fun getting to be in a different area and meet new people.

Saturday we had to be up at 4:00am to head over to the wharf to take a little boat over to Manono Tai to do the service project. When we got there, there was only enough paint stuff for the ward members to paint so all the missionaries went around the island picking up trash. I was totally okay with that because I wanted to walk around and see the whole island. On the island it's against the village rules to have cars, bikes, or dogs. It only takes a little over an hour to walk around the whole island. It's so beautiful. I don't think the kids there had ever seen a white kid before so they were especially fun to talk to.

Hope everyone is doing well back on the mainland. In Samoa they call America the Malo tele which means giant kingdom.

Alofa atu outou!

-elder tana


On Manono Tai. There are four little islands between Upolu and Savai'i. Manono Tai is one of them and then you can see Savai'i in the background.




On the little boat on the way back with our zone

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