Serving the Lord in Samoa: Less Actives are Clutch

Last week we had the opportunity to watch President Monsons Funeral live here in Samoa. The Stake Center was airing it and since we live like 2 minutes from the stake center we went to go watch it. It was really inspiring and motivating. President Monson was a good Prophet. That is exciting news about the new First Presidency as well. The church has a bright future always.

Our area is really starting to progress. At first we had some setbacks, both our baptisms this week aren't happening. One is a woman and we are waiting 2 more weeks to do it mainly because she has a 10 year old son coming back home and they will get baptized together on the 3rd. Tupu had to take a last minute trip to different village and has been gone most of this week and we didn't want to not meet with her the week she was getting baptized so that got pushed to next week. Looks like she might marry her boyfriend which is exciting but then she might get baptized in his ward which is not as exciting. Either way she is getting baptized so that is awesome. We have been working really hard to find kids that are 9 or over and not baptized. We have been finding ways to help with the less actives, and brought some to church. That was huge. The bishops love us for working with less actives, and most of the families have kids over the age of 9 that are not baptized. We have just been finding ways to serve these families, one day we went over and helped them make cocoa. I had no idea how cocoa was made and I was so surprised. We have already set a date with one of the kids for next week, and another we are starting lessons with tomorrow, and if things go as planned will hopefully get on date this week. If everything works out and it is the Lord's timing we should have 5 baptisms in the next 3 weeks, but none this week. We also have found like 7 new investigators the past 2 days which is huge, we have been blessed immensely here. The work is progressing always.

SKOL VIKINGS. I opened up my email and basically all I heard about was the vikings game. Stefon Diggs is a beast. I will be sleeping well on my Vikings Pillowcase here in Samoa tonight. I always thought growing up that the Vikings were going to win the Superbowl my first year on the mission, and I won't be able to watch any of it. Might happen.

I got sunburned for my first time here. The sun has just been so intense this last week and we are out all day and I finally got burnt so that is not what I want. The youth in the ward took a trip to the beach and they even got burnt which I honestly didn't know that natives could get burnt.

Yesterday we just knocked on this guys door and I was the one kind of leading it, which I have done many times before. But for some reason I got up there and just choked so hard. It was so embarrassing. He was sitting in his house expecting like a speech because that is what you do here and I have no speech memorized. So I just asked him how his day was and he started going off in Samoan and I didn't understand anything of it. Let's just say it was a very humbling experience. Kind of fun but horrible and the same time. Not what I wanted.

I went to the bathroom when we were visiting Tupu and Penny, and I come back and they were all like oh my gosh you are getting transferred!?!? I was like what the heck and my Companion was giving me the look to just go along with it, so we took all these pictures and everything and they were so sad and I felt horrible for lying to them. I went along with it for the pictures, because here they tell you like 30 minutes before you get transferred. So whenever I do get transferred I now have a picture of them, which is down below.

Elder Roberts