Malo, This is Elder Fa'amaumauga or Elder Record (haha) and today is the 27th and apparently it's my “click day.” I entered the MTC on the 27th and so apparently that's how missionaries measure the months that they have been out. I didn't even think about that – Elder Curtin reminded me (haha). It's been what … four months. So, yeah, I've been out for four months on my mission. It's been real! (haha)
Last P-day was really fun. We got to go
to the mission home and kind of hang out with President and Sister
Beesley. We played a little ping pong, we played some games, and I
got to talking with Sister Beesley about languages and learning stuff
in Samoan. She put us in charge of translating some things in all the
mission languages. She gave us a script we are going to go through
and get all the written forms of these different languages. We are
not going to do Russian because we don't have a Russian area yet.
President and Sister Beelsey are really the only ones that do
anything with Russian. We are also going to be in charge of making a
movie of it next year, just after December I think – in January. We
are going to be making a DVD of all the people saying the different
phrases from the script in their native languages. So we've got Mong,
Samoan, Tongan, Spanish, English (I don't know if they are going to
do that one). So anyway, you get the picture. It's going to be pretty
cool. I'm excited to do it. It will be fun.
Some of the things that happened this
week. We are having more lessons with people than we have before. We
started meeting with the Ma'asuolis and they want us over for dinner
on Tuesdays. They even showed up for Church today, which was awesome.
We had dinner with the Atifali family. He is the Young
Men's president and they love to sing. They are really good, and
he's learning how to play the base (haha). He said, “oh I just
picked it up and started playing some chords.”
We had an awesome chance to go to a
ward council and offer our service to the bishop. We let him know
what is happening in their ward. We are really starting to gain the
trust of the members, and earning their referrals. Hopefully we will
be able to teach even more people soon.
Apparently there is some kind of
Polynesian family history thing that I will be looking into for the
future. I may be doing a little bit more with that in the future.
This week has been fun. It has been an average week. Although, this
week during my study, I feel like I have really been able to more
deeply ponder a lot of different things.
I was thinking about how you can
cultivate a desire, and how you can get a desire when you don't have
one. If you don't have a desire to do something, but I guess you
would have to have a desire to have that desire (haha). If you want
to change, you need to have a mighty change of heart. I was reading
specifically about Enos
in the Book
of Mormon. His is a great example. He starts praying for a
forgiveness of his sins. He was wrestling or struggling with the Lord
and really wanting to be forgiven for all the things he had done
wrong. Because of that, he receives a remission of his sins. The Lord
tells him that he is forgiven, and he is sooo happy (see Enos
1:4-6). He says that he began to be desirous to have his
brethren, the Nephites, to feel that remission of sins, and to
experience the same joy that he did. That desire and love then
extends to his enemies. I was thinking about that. He tasted of the
love of our Heavenly Father and of Christ. Because of that, he was
filled with so much happiness and joy, that he wanted to share that
with others. I think that is how it happens with a lot of us in the
Church. We go on missions. We want to help other people because it
feels good, and we want them to feel that same thing. So I was
thinking about Lehi's dream (see 1
Nephi 8:4-33). He says that when he partakes of the fruit of the
tree, his soul was filled with joy, and then he becomes desirous to
share that with his family. We learn in 1 Nephi 11 when Nephi gets
the interpretation of it that the tree is the love of God. It
represents the love of God (see 1
Nephi 11:21-23). So Lehi was partaking of the love of God, and
that is the same thing that happened to Enos. He felt that remission
of sins, and he felt the love of God for him. But also, if you go to
Mormon chapter 1 I think, in the first few verses it says that
Mormon, talking about himself when he was younger, he said he tasted
and knew of the goodness of Christ (see Mormon
1:15). I don't know if that's an exact quote. He felt the love of
God, so he is filled with that love and he wanted to help other
people. He felt that desire to do better and to share that with
others. I guess confidence then extends from that.
Anyway, that is what I was thinking
about in my study – I was also thinking about Nephi and genealogy
(haha). Lehi gets the brass plates and he starts to talk about his
genealogy and how he finds out that he is a descendant of Joseph and
of Jacob. I like how Nephi says after his brothers tried to kill him
when they start to ask him for forgiveness, he says he frankly
forgave them for all that they had done, and they just tried to kill
him (see 1
Nephi 7:19-21). I think that shows a lot about Nephi, and it
reminds me of the same meekness Joseph Smith had. In learning about
him and how he was so quick to forgive – and then about how Christ
was. I was very impressed with Nephi. I mean he's a young guy and
early on he says his brothers were murmuring because they had to
leave into the wilderness and give up everything and go. Nephi's
brothers get angry at that, and they murmur and mumble the whole way.
They go, but they murmur the whole way and get worse and worse. It's
not easy for Nephi, but he turns to the Lord. He prays to know that
if this is what he is supposed to be doing, he's comforted and it's
basically a turning point for him (see 1
Nephi 2:16). It says basically he was frustrated about it before,
but now he is okay, because he had prayed about it. The Lord had told
him it was good and that was what He wants them to do. He then goes
and tells his brothers, and Sam is really the only one that listens
to him. His older brothers kind of ignore him, and I think they even
get angry at him (see 1
Nephi 2:16-18). Anyway, I just really like Nephi and his example.
I know the Church is true. I'm thankful for the Gospel. I am thankful
to be serving with wonderful people.
Happy birthday, Eric! I sent my SD card
back in the mail, and a little happy birthday note for Eric. You're getting ooold. You're an old
man (haha). Holy cow! And Chris, Chris is getting
pretty old too. I wonder if he is getting tall. He will probably get
taller than me pretty soon. I
will have to teach you a little Samoan sometime. I'll have to get my
notes and read something for you. I guess … I'll give you this one.
If you say Manuia le po, that means have a good night. Yeah, Good night. I'll
talk to you all next week.
Elder Record
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