August 15th - why I'm in Fagaloa

 The photo is with Fa'ainu, the kid we do splits with.  He leaves for the MTC next week

Oh, and I made the can of refried beans you sent. So good!!!   I think Heavenly Father was watching out for me when he called me here to Samoa and not somewhere in Mexico because I would be so fat! :0

Taaaalofa

We got a baptismal date! His name is Luama'a (two rocks) and he's from Uafato. He's probably over 50 years old but so ready to be baptized. We taught him lesson one about the restoration. It was a weird lesson. Before we started the lesson I asked him if he had any questions. He didn't have any but as we started he stopped us a lot to ask questions about stuff. So it didn't flow very well but it was good that he asked us his questions. He wants to get baptized quickly so this week we're going to focus on the importance of baptism. It's not just a one time thing but a life-long covenant. 

The whole time I've been in Fagaloa I've kinda wondered why I'm here. It's an area with not a whole lot of people to teach, the church is really strong, and the few people who aren't baptized REALLY don't want to listen to what we have to say. I've been thinking we're gonna find this big family and baptize them or something major like that. But I've come to the realization that that's not what's going to happen. This week we had a cool little experience with a less-active member of the church. 

My comp and I have been wanting to visit a specific house for a while now and we finally had an opportunity to do so. We sat down and started talking with the woman. Then my comp said in Samoan, "Sorry my Samoan is so bad" and then she responded in perfect English, "don't worry about it".   She went on to tell us (all in English) that she is half Tongan and was born in Tutuila (American Samoa). She was baptized in Tutuila with her husband then they moved here 5 years ago. She speaks English, Tongan, Samoan, and Spanish fluently. She was a really interesting lady. She talked a lot about her family. She said she plans on going back to Tutuila at the end of the month.  At the end, I attempted to testify to her in English about eternal families and it felt flippin' weird trying to communicate in English!

I asked her in the beginning if missionaries had visited her since she's been here and she said no. Not a single time in 5 years. And Fagaloa is very small with hardly any people. After we left my comp and I were still kinda in shock about how the visit went. I thought about it later that day as a reason that I was transfered here. I have faith that the little visit we had resparked her faith and maybe when she goes back to Tutuila she'll go back to church. 

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