Thursday, March 9, 2017

March 7th - an awesome week & a baby named Justin Sterner




Where we proselyted on Friday

This week was really awesome. We met a lot of new people who seem to be pretty interested in what we're teaching, so that's exciting. We called the bishop in a ward we haven't been able to meet with yet and he told us there are three people who want to take the lessons and learn about the gospel... so we'll be on the look out for them tomorrow.



Tonight we have a dinner/meeting with President Hannemann, his wife, the APs and the two stake presidents in our zone - so that should be really cool.



Our investigator "P" who is going to get baptized next weekend, well...his wife just gave birth to a baby boy.  His name??  Justin Sterner Pika. They wanted to name him after me because he sees this as a turning point in his life.  I've heard of people naming their kids after missionaries but I never thought it would happen to me - haha. I'll just have to make sure I live a life that makes him happy he shares my name.




Justin Sterner Pika......



We have three marriages this Saturday for people we are teaching.  It's really cool. 



We have high goals for the zone this month and we're all working hard to achieve them.  I'm having the best time. 



Have a great week. Alofa atu!



 sunset


 
This is our chapel. It's probably one of the nicest in all of Samoa.  As you can see, it's beautiful

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Tuesday, February 28 - Q & A with Dad...



 The Zone Leaders of Savaii...heading to our meeting...



  This week Justin decided to take the easy way out and just respond to some random questions from his dad.....
·         How is the work going there?  The work is good in Savaii.  It's a little slower just cause of the culture.  In one village we cover, it is against the rules to proselytize and in other villages, we can't build a church so people have to walk pretty far. 

·         How do you cover 5 wards?   We're currently covering 6 wards out of 8 in the stake.  We use the car to get some places and then walk around mostly. 

·         Are the wards pretty good sized?  What are the ward buildings like?  The average attendance at church is under 100 and the chapels are sooo nice here.  I'll take a picture of ours and send it next week, but it's super nice. 

·         Are you spending a lot of time with administrative stuff as a ZL or do you still have a lot of time to teach?  We have a baptism this Saturday, one set for the 18th and we should be able to get a couple more this month if everything goes smoothly.   We do alright.  Today we had to get up at three am to get to the 6 o'clock boat to drop off baptismal papers...

·         Do they drive on the left-hand side of the road?  We have to drive on the other side of the road so I'm trying to learn to drive stick with the wrong hand.  In Tutuila, it's like America and I drove the car for one day and it was a struggle to drive stick. 

·         When you talk about a “village”, how big is that?  Is it more like a really big extended family, or is it like a small town?   It's a pretty small town but mostly everyone is related somehow...



The kids are great!!!

A baptism....

View from our house