Nepal

This week was super busy. Unfortunately, Paselio's baptism didn't go through, but we should be an all go for this week. We have 3 baptisms this week with Paselio, Sachin, and Junior. Sachin is this really interesting guy from Nepal, he doesn't know any Samoan but married a samoan girl, he lives on the backside of the island but comes to the english ward. We went to go pick him up for church on Sunday and It was probably one of the weirdest things that has happened on my mission. He got kicked out of his house in Nepal because he became a Christian, came to Samoa for whatever reason and now lives with a Samoan family. When we went to pick him up, him and his wife were having serious problems, we didn't know what to do. We were with the other elders in that area as well, we said a prayer together and decided to take him to church. That was no doubt the best decision, everybody calmed down and they got it figured out. It was a crazy 20 minutes though.

Junior is this kid that has been living with a strong member family for 4 years and has talked to missionaries for over 2 years, and has never been baptized. When I first got transferred here and talked to him I asked how long he has been talking to missionaries and he said 2 years. I just straight up asked him "how have you not been baptized yet?" He comes to church every week and goes to institute and loves the church. He just said I don't know. We read a chapter from the Book of Mormon together, invited him to baptism, he said yes and chose July 28th. So now he is getting baptized on Saturday, the family is so shocked. Miracles!

We had Zone Conference on Monday, it was super good, the first one with the new President. It is crazy how different he is from President Hannemann but he is so awesome. Also, we were doing a lesson last night and a alcaloa (6 inch centipede super poisonous) crawled right by my foot, I jumped hard.

Hopefully I go to Savaii someday

 Splits

 Alcaloa is a  6 inch centipede that is super poisonous

Soa.  Check me out driving the van.

Ni Hao

Ni Hao means hello in Chinese, I have been brushing up on my Chinese this past week. We did a FHE with Coman and Sister Zhu. Sister Zhu is a senior missionary from China, she also brought 2 other Chinese people that are not members, they all came to church also! The FHE was basically all of them speaking some Chinese language for 10 minutes and then just look at me. Of the 3 of them, 2 of them know a little English and 1 knows absolutely NO English. The only thing he told me in English was "I am a leader of the Chinese Communist Party". Nice. We talked about God and Eternal Family's. It has been such a humbling experience teaching them. They are so loving and want to learn as much about God as they can. It is weird because EVERYBODY in Samoa loves Jesus and God, but these people don't know anything about them. 

Anyways, we had 2 baptisms last Saturday with Beauty and Konaferenisi. My Companion and I filled the font then went to go do the baptismal interviews and totally forgot that the water was running. So ya we flooded the bathroom and part of the primary room. We didn't tell anybody so after we did the opening exercises in the chapel we all go to the font and bishop just looks at me "did you flood the font?". That was awkward.

We have a miracle baptism this Saturday! There has been this boy that is 19 years old coming to church every week but he works from 7 am to 1 am the next day every single day every week! And we are busy on Sundays so it has been really hard to get a hold of him or even set up a baptismal date. We went to visit a different investigator on Saturday that lives at his house and he was there! He told us he had this whole week off so we just went ahead and set his date for this Saturday and are going to do all of his lessons this week. The Lord always provides a way!

Squad 

Baptism for Beauty and Konaferenisi 

Squad at Pesepesega 

FHE with Chinese Friends

China

This last week was another really good one. Lisa got baptized which is always a good thing. Life has been super busy doing random things also. Which is also a good things at times. I think I got driving the stick down, it is just the left side of the road which is hard, I am always going to far and hitting the end of the road, it's seriously so weird. Other than that life is great!

Soooo a couple weeks ago we were in the gospel doctrine class of the English ward and there was a new Chinese guy there. He introduced himself and then I asked if he was baptized and he said no. He literally just showed up to church, miracle. So we talked with him more and he is straight from China, his English isn't the best but he can get by. He grew up with school teachers telling him there is not God or Jesus. He is a fisherman here in Samoa. His name is Coman and he is 25 years old. He is a super nice guy. So he doesn't really believe in a God or Jesus but he wants to learn a lot more. We took him to the Visitors Center and he said he believes Baptism is really important and accepted a baptismal date! It was such a miracle. This is seriously the first time I have worked with someone that doesn't believe in God or Jesus, every Samoan is Christian. It is super cool though and just seeing the spirit work with him. He has a long ways to go but I am super super excited for him!

Other than that not a whole lot going on, I am loving my new area and my new companion as well! Our new President is awesome also. I am absolutely loving life here in Samoa, the mission is just filled with so many miracles! The church is true! I hope everyone has a good week!

Saying bye to President and Sister Hannemann 

 Elder Liana, Toutai, and Mauigoa

Lisa's Bapitsm

New President!

This last week has been absolutely insane! Last Friday we got a call from the Zone Leaders and told us to say a prayer, I was like are you kidding me transfers. So ya I GOT TRANSFERRED. 8 and a half months in my first area and I left, its crazy. BUT, I only got transferred across the street. Like literally my new house is a 3 min walk away. Its nice because I see people from my first area all the time but have all new investigators and members to work with. We cover 6 wards! And we cover the one English Ward on this island, so technically our area is the whole island haha. My new companion is Elder Mauigoa, he is a native from Savaii and finishes next month.  He barely knows English so it is all Samoan in my life now...again. Elder Mauigoa and I are the Zone Leaders for this zone which means we also have a CAR. It is a 15 person van and its a stick with everything opposite from America. It has been such a struggle to learn. My companion is just yelling at me in Samoan the whole time and I am not gonna lie it is frustrating sometimes, it is such a huge van. It's fun though.

We got a new President! President Ho Ching came in on Monday, me and my companion dropped by the office Monday night to drop off some Baptism Papers, and low key try to say bye to President Hannemann, we showed up and President and Sister Hannemann and President and Sister Ho Ching were all in the office talking, they saw us and invited us in. We quick said by to the Hannemann's and took a picture with them, They were so good I am going to miss them so much. We met the Ho Ching's and they are awesome also. All the Zone Leaders had a meeting with Ho Ching this morning for a little get to know you which was pretty cool. So ya new president I think we will have some changes in the future but we will see.

Just real quick about the area, its awesome! When I was in Lotopa we were teaching this girl named Rachel who was absoluetly golden, but then we had to refer her to the Zone Leaders because she wanted to go to the English ward, well I got transferred to cover that ward the day before her baptism, so I was able to do the baptism for her! It was super cool. She also wanted me to do a baby blessing for her baby in sacrament meeting the next day. So I did my first baby blessing also for Koriana Pele, at least it was in English cuz English ward.

All is good and things are changing here in Samoa. Missionary work truly is the Lords work! Jesus is the Christ! I hope everyone has a good week!

The squad before the Transfers, my new companion Elder Mauigoa on the Left 

Rachel's Baptism 

Rachel and her daughter Koriana