28 days to Samoa. Can't wait.
Everyone says the days are long but the weeks go fast and
it's true. Every day is the same so they're starting to all mesh into one long
day it feels like. It's crazy to think I've already been here for about 10 days.
Each day consists of 12 hours of studying the language and other stuff with
breaks thrown in every few hours for food and we get 45 minutes for gym time.
The language is very slowly coming along. On Monday, we have
to teach a lesson to an "investigator" (our teacher) IN SAMOAN WITH
NO NOTES. I'm freaking out because I can't even put a sentence together let
alone a 10 minute lesson. So I've been studying like crazy knowing if I do my
part to the best of my ability, the Lord will do the rest.
The first couple days with the language I was struggling and
was extremely frustrated. So one night I just got on my knees and prayed the
hardest I've ever prayed that I could understand what's going on in class trying
and trying to learn the language. After I
finsished the prayer, I felt a calmness come over me and I knew that everything
would be okay. That next day in class I understood more than I had the
past few days combined and I know it was an answer to my prayers.
We have to do service around the MTC on Tuesdays and Lucky
Justin got stuck with cleaning toilets! Safe to say, I dry- heaved a couple
times.
One thing I'm learning is to have an eternal perspective. My being
frustrated and annoyed with not being able to understand the language is such a
small road bump if I think with an eternal perspective.
At our devotional on Tuesday, for our closing hymn we sang
the Army of Helaman song and changed the lyrics from "we will be the
Lord's missionaries" to "We are now the Lord's missionaries." It was such a great feeling singing with 2,000 other missionaries and
it just gets me more and more excited to get out in the field and serve the
people of Samoa. I love and miss everyone and think about you guys all the time.
Love, Elder Sitana (Sterner in Samoan)
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