Beautiful Samoa!

This place is amazing! It is so beautiful and the people are so friendly. It is so dang humid though it has basically been a sweatfest for the past 24 hours. The first breath off the plane felt like I was drinking a glass of water. I was the first missionary to get through customs and when I got out some guy was like "are you lds?" So I said yes and he told me to go with him.  He starts loading my bags in the car and he told me he was going to take me to the mission office and stuff he sounded legit. Then my Mission President comes up and is like "Elder, what are you doing?". It was a taxi guy trying to rip me off. Good first encounter with President though haha. President Hanneman is really cool though, he is really down to the point and doesn't mess around. He has some unique rules for the mission like the first thing we do when we wake up is read the Book of Mormon for an hour. He promised us if we devoted the first hour of everyday to God then he would be with us the next 23 hours. We also do our companion and language study throughout the day instead of in the morning. We spent the first night at the mission house, there was 15 of us Elders because some visa waiters got their visas and came with us. 

The plane ride here was so long. When we were in San Francisco one of the Elders we were traveling with had his aunt who lived there bring us all In n Out. Basically the clutchest thing that has ever happened to me. My last meal in America was 2 double doubles and a shake. I was hyped. I slept most of the plane ride. New Zealand was super cool, when we were up in the air it was such a sight. Then we flew to Samoa and as we could start to see the islands I was getting SO excited. It looked beautiful from up in the air. I feel so blessed to be serving here.

My trainer is from Utah but he is full Samoan. He has been serving for 11 months and knows the language really well. I have only been with him for about 5 hours but he seems pretty cool and hard working. My first area is here in Apia. It is pretty close to the mission office/temple. We get bikes in our area which is super nice, we don't have to walk much. I also placed my first Book of Mormon today so that was cool, I am not sure if the guy understood everything I was saying in my horrible Samoan but he accepted it. We live with members in the ward in this little "house". It is actually super nice compared to most places the missionaries live in this mission. 

Elder Roberts

Auckland Airport

 Samoa

Our Plane

 Welcoming Party in Samoa Airport

 Last time with my Soa

New Group with President at Temple

 Our Room

WE ARE OUTTA HERE

2 Days!!  I AM SO EXCITED TO GO!  Samoa is going to be the absolute best. I am also super excited for the long flight, hopefully I can catch up on all my sleep. This last week has been amazing, lots of spiritual experiences.

Elder Christofferson came to the devotional this week! I was super excited to see another Apostle. The spirit that they bring with them is just so special. He gave an awesome talk on the Book of Mormon and the history of it. It was super interesting. He brought in the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith's mom used, so that was cool. I love hearing the sure witness of Jesus Christ from an Apostle. Today we are blessed to have members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 come to dedicate the new buildings here at the MTC. I am super excited for that.

I am going to miss my companion so much. It is going to be weird having a different companion. Elder Pangai and I have gotten really close. He works really hard and has such a good heart. I know he is going to be a great missionary. Maybe we will be future companions, who knows haha. 

My new P-days I believe will be Wednesdays, so I'll be emailing then from now. I think that would still be Tuesday here in American though. 

LET'S GO!

Elder Roberts

Me in 3 days 

Minnesota Squad, Elder Woodson, Me, Sister Flake 

Elder Christianson, Me, Elder Pangai​​

Cousins!  Elder Damiano and Me

General Conference + Chick Fil A = Hype Week

General Conference was so awesome! My favorite talks were Elder Cook's on Humility and Elder Ellis' on how hard things are good. How about Samoa getting a little shout out! We had some district discussion time on Conference and that was really good. General Conference has never meant so much to me that it has this time, it seemed like every talk had something that pertained to me and what I needed to hear. Also, I got to spend a lot of Conference with one of my friends, Tanner. We grew up together in Minnesota. 

Monday is fast food night and rumor was going around that Chick Fil A was coming and I was getting soooo excited. I had 5 sandwiches. It was the best food we have had here by far, especially because the food here isn't that great. We have 4 Elders in our room and we took back 10 sandwiches for that night. We had them all laid out on the table about to feast and then someone yelled from the hallway "Clarke is coming!" He is our branch president so we HAULED to get those hidden under my companions bed. He walked in like 10 seconds after we got them hid, it totally smelled like chicken though haha. It was close but we still feasted that night.

I leave in about a week and a half and I can't wait! Samoa is going to be so awesome!

Elder Roberts

Me and Tanner 

Chowin Chick Fil A