January 29th...FINALLY, we hear from Elder Sterner!

Note from mom...we didn't hear from Justin the last two Sundays, so we were anxious to hear from him today.  Since he is back out to the more remote areas of the island in Western Samoa, the internet connection is often hard to find.  We were so grateful to get his email and read that he has been really busy, and is SO happy.  He loves Satapuala!  And mom is happy because we got three weeks worth of photos! :)

 Lots of fun with the kids

 Just a little hot & sweaty...ha ha

Hi everyone! The past three weeks have been really good!  I have a new companion, we have a new house, we just had two baptisms and we have three more this Saturday!

The work is really good.  Our area is pretty big so we've been busy getting the people we are teaching prepared for their baptismal dates and not much time for tracting.  This week we hope to find a lot of new people to teach.

We're baptizing a couple this weekend and honestly, the first time I met them I never thought they would be interested in our church or getting baptized.  The gospel changes people and the change that takes place is amazing.  The Church is the best!!

I think I've lost weight too which is good...

 sugar cane

 Baptism

 our new house...BEFORE

our new house...AFTER! :)

January 8, 2017 - Satapuala

o le au boiz + Sara

Family Home Evening = FHE

Things are good in Satapuala. We have 4 baptismal dates for the 28th and could be adding a couple this week. This area is kind of a gold mine right now because the past missionaries that served in this area covered two other big wards and weren't able to do much work here.

The ward here is really cool. I think they're especially happy to have missionaries assigned just in their ward. We've been able to faamasani with about all the ward members. 

One thing that I love about kids here in Samoa is that they never know their own birthday but if you ask them who their Savior is, they know it's Jesus.  If you ask them who struck the rock they know it's Moses.  If you ask them who ate the apple, they'll say Adam and Eve.  I love it!

We did a family home evening with a great family. It was really fun and most of them were at church yesterday. That's one thing that we're trying to do here; every Monday night, have a family home evening/FHE with a family in the ward and have them invite a non-member to join us if they want.

The work is super good and we have a young man we go on splits with almost every day.  He's preparing to go on a mission also and he's been super helpful. 

Sorry not so much to share today but will try to get some good stuff for next week.

Alofa atu!

o le au boiz + Sara

Family Home Evening fafaga

Question and answer session from dad:

I’m anxious to hear about your new place.  I’ll ask my questions in simple form so you can answer them quickly:

1.       Is the city in the boonies, or in a populated area?

I cover the airport.  It's pretty populated and we cover a lot of jungle too.

2.       What is the ward like?

The ward is good. We have a kid that we go on splits with a lot.  His family is really cool too.

3.       Are you getting to speak a lot of Samoan?

Yes, more than usual.

4.       How is P90X3 going?

I haven't really been able to do it because of our living situation but we're moving tomorrow to the other house so I should be able to start this week.

Mom's questions of the week:

What is the Samoan translation for "Latter Day Saints"?  We had discussed this on Christmas with Justin and Jeff and I thought it was really cool, so we wanted him to clarify it again.  This was his response:

"o le ekalesia a iesu keriso o le au pa'ia o aso e gata ai"

The "au pa'ia" part is saints, but "au" is team and "pa'ia" is holy, so I like to say it is the Church of Jesus Christ of the holy team of latter days.

faamasani = get familiar with

Happy New Year 2017!

Upolu

Talofa mai Satapuala! This week has been crazy but also really good. 

Even though I got transferred, leaving Tafuna wasn't as hard as usual.  I guess I'm getting used to it and I'm really excited to head back to Upolu.  It was hard to say goodbye to our baptism from last week.  She is so cool.  I gave her my facebook so when I get back, we'll stay in touch.

We flew to Upolu Wednesday and crossed the date line.  I am no longer in American Samoa and it was only a 25 minute flight. Then I stayed with elders in an area for the night and then the next morning we went to the office to get my trainee. We had training meetings with the president and APs. Then we headed to our areas. As we were driving, the APs called and made a fa'afuase'i change. I'm no longer training (after a lot of training) but I am going to be companions with a native from Savai'i. 

When we got to the area, we went and met with the ward members. The ward is awesome. There are a lot of youth we've been able to do splits with who are preparing for missions.

The area we're in currently doesn't have a house that we can live in because before we got here, the other missionaries covered other wards with missionary houses.  Since we've only been assigned this ward, we are currently working on finding a house.  Right now we are living with a family that is outside our area.  There is a small house at the back of the chapel that only has four poles holding it up, so we are really pushing to see if they can get it walled so that we could live there.  It's so much better when we are able to live close to the chapel. 

It's going to be pretty cool to be in this area because there haven't been missionaries here for a while.

We got the bishopric action list yesterday and there are 23 people who aren't baptized in the church computer plus a few others that are in the area book so LOTS of work to do. Super excited.

Fagaloa

 The road in fagaloa that we drove on all the time

December 25 - MANUIA LE KERISIMASI

We got to skype with Justin for about 3 hours on Christmas which was the best!

He's doing great and was waiting to hear if he got transferred to a new area....

Manuia Le Kerisimasi - skype in 6 days!!!!!! :)

MANUIA LE KERISIMASI

Things are going swell here in Tafuna.  This is the last week until transfers so probably at least one of us is going to get transferred.

Our investigator getting baptized this week is so awesome. We did a couple lessons with her this week. One time as we were walking up, she had the Book of Mormon voice over playing throughout the house which was pretty funny.  She has shared so much about her past with us and she's come so far.  She is keeping a journal of everything she has learned and she just loves the gospel so much.  It's so cool to finally see someone so interested here in American Samoa because it's been a while.... 

We had Stake Conference and Elder Haleck of the Seventy presided. He is the Area President here and is from American Samoa.  His wife was taught by our investigator when she was in college and they said they're going to come to our baptism so that'll be pretty cool.

One thing President Hannemann has asked us to do differently when we teach is to really explain the Godhead.  Almost every first visit we have with someone, they'll say, "We all go to different churches but we worship the same God".  Most of the time we would just nod our head and agree. But President has asked that we say, actually we don't.  We worship different Gods.  My God has a body of flesh and bones and they are three separate beings. It's actually been fun doing that and we have had some interesting conversations with people.

Alma giving some food for thought...

44  For behold, it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass, which would point unto them a straight course to the promised land.

 45  And now I say, is there not a type in this thing? For just as surely as this director did bring our fathers, by following its course, to the promised land, shall the words of Christ, if we follow their course, carry us beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise.

 46  O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our fathers; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever.

Hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas!!

Alofa atu 

(mom & dad are assuming this is where Justin lives...???  He didn't give details)

Double blog post from 12/5 & 12/12

First niu I've had in Tutuila

Taaalofa 

This week was really cool. 

Our teaching pool is growing but the progress feels slow sometimes.  I've noticed there are many people from the Philippines in American Samoan.  We did finally get an opportunity to visit the lady from India. It ended up being a pretty solid Bible bash where we just argue back and forth.  Bible bashes are entertaining every now and then. For me, I still see them as an opportunity to share what I know and believe, so I don't mind them sometimes.  I feel the spirit working and bringing scriptures to my rememberance to share.  It makes me want to study and learn more, and it also reminds me of the truthfulness of the gospel!

Wednesday we had our Christmas program for Tutuila.   We started out with a quick devotional thing with the mission president, his wife, the APs, and some sister training leaders. It was really good and we talked a lot about Christ and His life.  After that, we got to do some shopping and I got some cool shirts.  Then we ate at this Chinese food place.  After that we went to the Hospital for a service opportunity.  We sang to people and  I also had the opportunity to give an elderly lady a blessing.  I actually did it in Samoan and it went well! The whole singing thing is not me at all, but it was awesome to be able to exercise the priesthood and to be able to bless someone else. 

Samoa is good and it's only getting hotter.

Alofa atu ia te outou uma lava!!

a little gecko

Hi everyone!

This week was awesome and we have a baptism set for Christmas Eve! 

Her name is L... and she is super cool!  We met her Thursday and she's the most prepared investigator ever!  She loves to talk so the first visit was almost 3 hours long.  She is from San Francisco so we're teaching the lessons in English.  She's already read almost all of 1st Nephi and is searching lds.org all the time.  We did lesson one and when we invited her to be baptized she said, " I'm down!  Let's do this!  I'm down!!"  Pretty funny and I'm super excited for that!

We met another guy who started telling us we're wasting our time and it was super frustrating.  It's amazing how on the mission you can go from super highs and feeling great about things to those types of conversations and feeling a bit down and defeated.  Thankfully, there are way more of the great times.  It's no surprise that we didn't spend a lot of time talking to him.

One of our fafagas took us to McDonalds and on the way home we helped this guy jump his car.  We jumped it with copper wire.  It was so sketchy but it worked!  I'm learning all types of things.....

Good times

Chinese food for Thanksgiving - Nov. 28

Selfie

This week had its ups and downs...

On the bright side we found a lot of new people to teach which is exciting. People from all over the world that settled here - Filipinos, Samoans, and an Indian woman straight from India. They all seem pretty interested. 

On the down side, we lost a couple baptismal dates. The young man we planned to baptize this upcoming week couldn't make it to church so we have to push it back again. Hoping this is something he really wants.  I guess we'll find out this week.

The elders from Manu'a were on the island for a checkup and we got to do a split with them. Elder Reid (from Provo) and Elder Brown (he's from Fagaloa).  It was fun and we found some people to talk to and teach.  At one house as we were walking up, we heard, "GO AWAY PLEASE!!" in a very irritated tone.  Then Elder Brown said, ia! manuia le aso! Alofa atu!!  (have a good day. Love you!). It was pretty funny.

We still have the family committed to get baptized the 14th of January. She leaves to Upolu next month so we continue to visit her.

I read something from a conference talk from a while ago that I really liked.  I can't remember who said it but he said, "One of the aspects that God likes about being God is that He is able to be merciful." 

Heavenly Father wants us to do our best but sometimes we mess up. He is merciful and is eternal and will always help us even when we mess up.  That's comforting to know.

This baby is the child of our investigators. He is 4 months and so chubby.

Such a big baby but so cute and fun.

Our Thanksgiving  meal...a member dropped off some Chinese food.