March 6...Will hit my 6 month mark this week

Malo lava le soifua maua ma le lagi mama!

This week was awesome. I can't believe it's been six months this week. It's going so fast.

Tuesday night was the best lesson I've had on my mission so far. It was with one of our investigators named Junior. He is the uncle of Matthew and Sharon the kids we baptized a couple weeks ago. We had visited with him last week and he wasn't sure about things. He didn't feel ready. I was pretty bummed but we just invited him to pray and promised him he would receive an answer. I had been praying for him every day and I had a good feeling as we went to visit with him on Tuesday. We started the lesson and we just asked him if he had prayed. He said he did but he didn't really elaborate much. We were there with our ward mission leader. The three of us bore testimony of the gospel and prayer specifically. The spirit was so strong. Then my companion asked how he felt as he prayed. I couldn't believe his answer.  

He shared that he prayed all night about the church and baptism. He couldn't sleep because he was thinking so much about it and praying all night. He said after praying for a while Heavenly Father's answer came to him and he received an answer that went something like, "You're ready. I've done my part. What are you waiting for? Get baptized." He went on to say that he's ready to get baptized and he will do whatever he needs to do.

I'll be honest. I shed a tear. Sorry, the spirit was too strong. It was funny, I looked to our ward mission leader cause I couldn't believe what he said. He looked at me and said he didn't know what to say either. So we just kinda sat in silence for a bit just trying to comprehend what just happened. We set his baptism for this weekend and invited him to continue to pray for guidance and help.

Then this morning as we were planning to teach him, I remembered Enos in the Book of Mormon and how he prayed for forgiveness of his sins. Enos's experience is the same as Junior's and I can't wait to share it with him tonight.

We have a total of six baptisms this week. I'm so excited. Prayers have been answered and everything is working out. It's just more and more obvious that the hand of the Lord is in this work and the fact that He's doing most of it.  I must admit that it's very humbling to play a part in it.

On Thursday we helped build a Faleo'o which is those Samoan houses with the poles and the roof is made out of leaves. It was really fun being able to help. I learned how to weave the roof. They finished the house in a single day. When I was weaving the leaves for the roof, I felt like Elf when he was in the North Pole making the etch-a-sketches. Everyone else would have 3 or 4 done and  I would still be working on my first one. I got the hang of it after a while, but I was still really slow.

This week is gonna be really busy just preparing all of our investigators for baptism this Saturday. Can't wait.

alofa atu outou

-elder tana

This is my handiwork for the roof.  I was really slow, but it was a lot of fun.

Here we are working on the Faleo'o.  How do you like my companion representing Dana Hills Baseball?  I got him the shirt for his birthday and he loves it and wears it a lot.