Happy Mother's Day!!! We finally hear from Elder Sterner!!! May 14, 2017

Note from mom...So we haven't heard much from Justin in almost 6 weeks, but I was trying to be patient knowing we would get to have our phone conversation for Mother's Day.  It was so wonderful to hear his voice and he sounds so happy and busy!  We all talked with him on the phone for about an hour and a half.  It was great to get an update of what he has been up to and also look ahead a bit to what needs to happen when he gets home.  As much as I miss hearing from him each week, when I heard how busy he's been with the work he's doing, I now totally understand.  I couldn't be prouder of him for how hard he's working and all that he's doing.  Then when I think about him only having 3 months left, I know he feels a sense of urgency to get all the work in until the very end.  He also mentioned that he doesn't have any time to sight-see and explore on his "P"day (personal day) since he has too many things to take care of.  I guess he gets to see  and appreciate all of the beauty around him each and every day.  He and his companion usually have to get up at 3am and drive to the harbor to pick up or drop off missionaries, take care of paperwork, do their laundry,  shop for food, and take care of other things.  He's using that as his excuse as to why we don't hear from him as regularly as we would like.  That just makes me think that we will definitely have to find a time to get back to Samoa with our family and explore it together!  Justin mentioned that he just got his 3rd companion in this area as a zone leader and the focus in this more remote area of Savaii continues to be the Sunday School class on the beach.  He was pretty happy that they had 51 people there last week and usually Justin and his companion are in charge of leading and speaking at these meetings each week.  He says it's pretty stressful, but when he sees how the numbers are growing, he knows they are making a difference.  He said he's taken lots and lots of photos and has been pretty good about keeping a journal.  He also said he's eating healthier which was nice to hear and often it's fish that fishermen pull in right off the shore.  He said it's orange season and there are oranges everywhere and that everyone is always giving them more oranges, so we know he is getting his vitamin C.   We hope he will be getting his travel arrangements for his return in August in the next week or two...so we will keep you posted!!!

And I've put in a request for him to translate the Samoan when he puts it in his blog posts, so hopefully he gets back to us on that!

A little dark for the baptism...

Malo Soifua. Faamalulu atu ona leva ona le toe faia se imeli umi...

 

Life is busy. We had a marriage for our investigator, then her baptism right after.  It all went really well.  The wedding went a little late so that's why it was dark for the baptism.

 

The Sunday School is going well.  My companion and I are still leading it.  I have a new companion too, Elder Tua from Utah.  Mother's Day at church was an interesting Sunday.  We invited 3 men to give talks about mothers...but let's just say it didn't go how I expected and was kind of interesting.  A story for another day.....  The Sunday School is close to becoming a branch and that's pretty exciting.   There were 51 people at church this Sunday so it's so awesome to see the numbers growing.  We are still working to help build our numbers....

 

Life is good and time is going too fast. 

 

alofa atu

-elder sterner

 

 Chillin on the boat

 Sweet kids.  I love the Michael Jackson overalls.

 Teaching

Island Paradise

April 25...3 weeks since last email...but great photos!

Well...we haven't heard from Justin in 3 weeks so we figured the internet connection has been bad or he has been really, really busy.  Today he emailed that he has no time once again and he is headed to Apia for a zone leader conference.  We sure loved getting these really awesome photos though!

 Baby Justin

 vacation

The classic Samoa Apia Mission pic

  Papatisoga i le sami!!!!!! (whatever that means?)

April 4th - Last weeks photos and new email from Tuesday, April 4th

(Mom is pretty proud of herself for figuring out the computer/photo issue.  I was about ready to call in the big guns for help...but with a little prayer and pleading...problem solved!!! :)  So these are the photos from the last few weeks...)

"An elder in my zone carved a Samoan design in my name tag.  Pretty cool!"

"One of the kids in our Sunday school on the sand"

 "Teaching"

"Samoan sunset"

Email from Tuesday, April 4th...

This week was good. Pretty busy.

Sunday at church went really great. Almost 50 people were there. The Stake Presidency was also there and the stake president challenged the Sunday School to have 6 worthy Melchizedek Priesthood holders and then they can become their own branch and stand by themselves. After church they made food and first came out with the ice cream followed by a massive fish head. Another elder has a picture of it so I need to get it. So big.

It's annoying when missionaries who don't want to work take away time from those who do. One thing I've learned being a zone leader is that the more responsibilities, the more time you'll be spending helping others. Also, as a regular missionary you spend almost all your time working with investigators and helping them, but as a zone leader you spend a lot of time working with missionaries which has been fun.

So we got a referral Thursday for a girl named P***we went to try and find P**** but we accidently got her name mixed up and were asking for the wrong person... Sunday after church we went to go visit a companionship in our zone to pick up baptismal papers and then I remembered there was a fireside happening in our area and for some reason I felt like we should really go but I didn't know why. We showed up and one of our recent converts was bearing her testimony and then P*****, the lady we've been looking for, bore her testimony and said that we'll probably be seeing her face more often cause she wants to come to our church. It was pretty sweet. After, we talked and set an appointment for this Friday. We're hoping to set her for the 15th to get baptized.

Oh and we get to watch general conference this week so I'm excited for that!

 The district before my companion got transferred

Faiaai

March 14, March 21, & March 28 - bits & pieces and technical difficulites with the photos...

Last week from Justin was brief except for wishing Morgan and Luke a happy birthday. 

Here is what we got on 3/14... I have no time to email today and had to get back to the wharf to catch the 4pm boat to go to Apia for a zone leader meeting.  The week was good, we had a baptism & marriages, but since we've been super busy, we haven't had any time to teach people.  One baptism is scheduled for this week and one next...but things are really good.  Oh and we started a Sunday school at the village of the photo I sent last week of the sand and the ocean.  That is where we have our Sunday school right on the beach!  It's less people than a branch but 31 people came.  The only thing we need is worthy priesthood and we're close.  I presided and my companion conducted...pretty cool!  But I have to go....

(We are having some technical issues with getting the photos posted on the blog for some reason, so hopefully we can get that fixed.)

3/21/17

So this week was good. 

We didn't have our baptism because someone he's related to passed away Saturday morning so we rescheduled it for this Saturday. When someone dies in Samoa it consumes everyone's time for a whole week.  In Samoan a funeral is called a Fa'alavelave which translates to a disturbance or interruption.

We have another investigator getting baptized this Saturday and our whole zone will have a total of 7 which is pretty good for our part of the mission.

The Sunday School we're doing is going well. There aren't a whole lot of people who come but it's a really awesome experience.  My companion and I spoke. I gave about a 15 minute talk on repentance in Samoan and I prepared it the night before and it went pretty well.  The people down there are super nice.  My companion conducted again and I presided. This Sunday I think it's my turn to conduct.  I think we can get it to a branch before my mission is done if I finish here which I would really like to do.

Sunday and Monday we did a split with the new AP's  - Elder Tai Lesa and Elder Reid.  We spent time visiting the missionaries in our zone and doing visits.  We found some new people that we hope to baptize in the next month.

Next week is General Conference but we probably won't get it until the week after...

Things are going great here backside Savaii.  Alofa atu ia te outou uma!!

3/28/17 - no email, only a couple photos but we can't figure out how to get them on the blog...still working on it!!!

(We are really hoping we get a little more information from his emails in April!)

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

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

TUESDAY - February 21, Surprise...emailing one day early this week!

 Beautiful Savai'i

Emailing early this week because we have to go to Apia later today and the boat leaves at 4pm.

This week was good.

Thursday was pretty funny. Our fafaga was an older couple, probably late 60s. We sat down and the wife is half blind, and she says, "That's a good looking white guy in front of me." My companion and I couldn't stop laughing.

Friday we did two baptismal interviews for missionaries. We got home around 8pm. The culture here in Savai'i is very strong and each night they have 30 minutes where you're supposed to sing a hymn and say a family prayer.  No one is allowed to be out on the streets. A bunch of elderly men in the village come out on the street and patrol.  Cars are not allowed to pull in or out of anywhere and they have to keep going straight or stop and pull off to the side and then wait for it to be over.  So we pulled into the chapel without realizing it was the "sa" (the prayer time). We got in trouble, but thankfully he just let us off with a warning.

Another example of the culture in Savai'i happens on Sundays. In one village, if you aren't at church you get fined $10. Even if you're on the chapel grounds but not inside the chapel, you get fined. Pretty different, but I'm sure that would help us at home.

Tomorrow we have a meeting with all the zone leaders in the mission in Apia so that should be interesting...

My laundry