Transcription: 5 March 2012

This week was awesome! (haha) We had a blast. Initially it started off kind of slow. We had a lot of stuff fall through, and then other things take up more time than they probably needed to, but we have been soo busy (haha). It's so much fun. We have been helping a lot of people, and a lot of people are really starting to progress, and to move forward and do better. It's so much fun to see the happiness that is coming into their lives because of the gospel.

We had a baptism on Saturday, and he was confirmed this Sunday. It went really well, and everything was really good. He is seventeen. He was so excited to be baptized. He had made a lot of changes – like he had stopped smoking, and then we taught him about the Word of Wisdom (haha), and how our Heavenly Father doesn't want us to smoke because he wants us to keep our bodies healthy and strong so we can be sensitive to the Spirit and become more like him. We had taught him that, he had actually stopped smoking before (haha), so he was right on target. He is such a good kid.

We have another person who is going to be baptized on April 7^th. So we are excited for them too. The Lord has just been blessing us with people who are ready to hear the gospel. I think it's partly because of the faith of the people in the ward. It seems like it's nothing we do. It is just a testimony builder to me that this isn't my work, this isn't anything that I'm doing, this is the Lord that is preparing all these people. Since we are ready to teach them, he is bringing them to us, and we are able to help them out and introduce the gospel into their lives so they can make those covenants and ordinances that are necessary for us to return to live with our Heavenly Father.

I am thankful for our Heavenly Father's mercy and how the gates of heaven are open to all. While there are certain things we need to do to return to live with our Heavenly Father, the opportunity is going to provided for everyone who's ever lived or who will ever live. I don't see how it could be any other way. I love the gospel, and it has made such a difference in my life.

It makes me so happy to be out here. Initially it's kind of stressful being on a mission because you're learning everything new. When you start to get the hang of things, things start to turn out really well. And, I am with an awesome companion who just loves to work hard. So we are able to get out and do a lot of good work and help a lot of people. I am thankful for that – probably more than anything (haha). Ah! I have changed so much this last transfer, these last few weeks. I think I have become a whole lot more humble and patient and calm and just overall happy too (haha). I just love serving with all these missionaries. This is starting to become the funnest thing I've ever done (haha). I am really thankful for this opportunity I have.

Oh, I learned a new song in Samoan. It's called (something in Samoan).

Elder Record Singing a Samoan Song (Length: 00:00:31)

Yeah, it's so much fun when you sing it with like, the whole ward (haha), because they all sing really loud. They love to harmonize, so it sounds really good. We have our ward conference coming up. We are going to be singing it with the priesthood. At the baptism we sang “Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy.” Me, Elder Thorne and Brother Siana (the ward mission leader) all harmonized, and I sang the base part. That was really fun (haha).

There was a ward party on Friday. We got to go and meet a lot of people there. We ate some good dinner. Taro and fish is the BEST combination it tastes soo good (haha). It was funny. I was asking Elder Collins and this lady from the Diamond Ward what happens if you eat taro raw? Elder Collins just laughs, and he's like “you don't do that, you're mouth will get all itchy” – like he thought that was just the funniest thing ever (haha). The only place I know you can buy taro, they actually precook it. There isn't any risk of anybody doing that. I love boiled banana, it's fun to eat too. There is a lot of good food up here, and they treat us soo well.

We also had the opportunity to meet with this less active family. His wife, actually I think she's his girlfriend, we got to meet with them. She is not a member, and she wants to start learning more about the gospel. So we are excited to teach her and see how much the Lord can bless her life and the life of her family.

There is a whole lot more that is going to happen this week, and there is a lot more to talk about, but it's so much fun to go out and do and see the progress of everything that is going on – and how much I'm learning and how much more confident I'm becoming. It becomes easier and easier. It was hard, but after the first little bit of my mission, it wasn't as much of a problem anymore. Things would be hard, but it is like any other kind of hard – like to win at a soccer game. We are always so busy keeping up with the demands of everything. But now that I know kind of what's going on (haha), it's hard, but it's easy for me to do it because it's so much fun to do it because we're helping people.

I know the gospel is true. I am thankful for it and how much it's blessed my life. I am thankful for the wonderful opportunities our Heavenly Father is blessing us with to help even more people. Actually, just yesterday it was so neat, we were going to visit some people after church and it seemed like every where we were stopping and helping people out (haha). There a couple of guys who were trying to push a car off to the side of the road, because it was dug into a little ice rut. So we jumped out and pushed the car out. They were like, “oh, thank you so much” (haha). That was fun. After that we went over to the house of less active members, and they were like, “just in time!!” We said, “what?!” She said, “I just asked my daughter if she knew your number because we have a baby who is sick that we had to take to the hospital and needs a blessing.” Apparently, right as she asked her daughter about seeing if she could call the missionaries, she said, “oh, no, that's okay they are right there,” as she pointed to us out the window. So we got there when they needed us.

The other lady I was talking about who is the girlfriend of the less active member, wants to start learning more about the gospel. We had actually met with her about a month ago when I was with Elder Leota. She had been sick for about a week or two, she just had a bad fever. We were having dinner at the less active man's father's house. They asked if we could give her a blessing. We said, “absolutely.” We gave her a blessing and after we had left the dinner, she said she immediately felt better, and she was just crying and laughing. I think that really made a difference and helped her to see those witnesses our Heavenly Father gives us that he is there, and that he loves us, and that he has a plan for us.

I know that is true. I'm thankful for the gospel. I know the priesthood is real, and that we have that authority once again established on the earth like we had in Christ's time. I know it was restored through the prophet, Joseph Smith, and has been handed down to the prophet, Thomas S. Monson, today. I love the Lord, and I am thankful to serve him.

I love my family. If I ever have a rough day or a rough week, it's always wonderful and nice to hear from all of you to kind of brighten up my day and get me smiling again so I can go about my week a lot stronger. It always nice to hear from everybody to find out what's new and what's going on and things I didn't know about. It always brightens up my day. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know the gospel is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Transcription: 9 January 2012

NOTE: Sorry, the Samoan words below are my best guess on how to spell them.

Good morning. Today is Monday the 9^th, and this week was very good.

We had a lesson with one of our investigators. We went to the lesson kind of thinking about what we wanted to do. We got there and Elder Leota leans over to me, and he's like, “let's watch the long movie first” – talking about Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration. I was like, “yeah, let's do that, I was thinking about that too.” So we do it and watch the movie, and she's crying and I'm crying because it's a good movie (haha). We teach the first lesson to her after that, and the Spirit was there very strong. She told us later that because we watched the movie first she wanted to listen to us because she was intimidated a little at first because of how young we were. She wondered if we had anything we could offer her. But, she said after the movie she felt open and ready to listen to us, and it went very well. She hopefully will be baptized. She's pretty cool (haha) – that was a very good lesson.

We were also able to get a little bit of training from President Beesley this week. That was fun. I always love getting training and things like that.

We've had a really good week. We have been able to teach a lot of people. A lot of new things are happening in the ward. We were able to go to dinners with a lot more people than we were before. Sometimes they either don't have time because they are working or they feel like they can't provide good enough food so they send us somewhere to eat or something like that. We are starting to get to eat with more families, which is good because we want to talk with them and we want to help strengthen them and get referrals from that. The work is really starting to grow in this area. I'm having a great time with Elder Leota (haha). He's fun. Yeah, that's pretty much everything that happened this week – a very fun week. Hopefully we have another one like it next week. In fact I think it is probably even going to be a little bit better because we have a lot of lessons that will be scheduled. It's very fun. I love it. I am excited to email today and play some sports and kind of relax and get ready for the week ahead.

I was able to bear my testimony in Samoan yesterday because the New Year's Sunday ended up not being a fast Sunday. I wasn't able to memorize it yet, but I wrote it down on a card. Let me read it.

Testimony in Samoan, Length 00:01:58

So I said it a little bit slower, because in Samoan when you say something slower, it puts more emphasis and feeling into it. It went really well, and people commented on how good it was. Apparently I was able to make a difference for some people. They love to hear palagi's (white guys) speak their language, because it means a lot to them. In Samoan when you speak the language because of the culture they have like talking chiefs who will do a lot of negotiations. So when they talk they like to use proverbs, scriptures and things like that to put into things they say. So at the beginning [of his testimony in Samoan] I have a proverb – I don't remember what it is. Then I introduce myself, and then I begin my testimony. You can probably tell what I said. “Ekalesia” is the Church, the Church is true. “Soifua Jesu Kriso mialofa” that one is I know Jesus Christ lives and loves us – I believe. “Josefa Somita” is Joseph Smith. I also said I'm thankful for my family, and I'm thankful to be serving the Lord. I said, “I know the Book of Mormon is true, and I'm thankful for the Gospel.” No, no – it's “I know the Gospel blesses families” is the last one. Then to close in Samoan, just because of how nice they are (haha), every time after they speak they say like, “if there is anything wrong I said, forgive me,” like I know a lot but at the same time I don't know everything. So, “if I say anything that was wrong, forgive me.” So I said something like that in the testimony and then in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. So it was very good. I had the Ward Mission Leader help me with this. So a lot of people were very impressed by it, and they felt the Spirit when they listened to the words. Hopefully I will be able to do that again and start praying in Samoan. I want to start doing that too.

I know the Church is true (haha). I am thankful for the Gospel, and I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love, Elder Record

Transcription: 21 November 2011

I love you mom, and everyone else =)

I found a pretty good system for my email. What I do is, I do the audio update Sunday night before bed, and right when I get on emails, I write my weekly letter to President Beesley. I then have time to read and send emails home. It works =). I got the package with the vitamins mom. By the way our new last name is Fa'amaumauga (Fah ah mau mau nga). That will be on my name tag soon.

Malo Soifua – That is the respectful way to say “hello” in Samoan. It's Sunday the 20th and I'm going to sing a song in Samoan for you; two verses and you will probably recognize the tune.

God Be With You Til We Meet Again, #152, Length 00:01:33

Elders Johnson and Collins

On Wednesday we had Elder Collins with us. He's from Samoa, and actually in missionary lingo he's my brother because Elder Johnson trained both of us. Funny enough, Elder Collins also took me out on my greeny tract and even funnier, when on my greeny tract – which is when they take you out on your first day tracting – we tracted in the Northern Lights Samoan ward, which is where I am now (haha). So, even when I first got here, I was only in two areas. But anyway, we had Elder Collins with us on Wednesday, and we went and visited a lot of people. After we shared a scripture and visited with them, they were less active people, we sang this song. Elder Collins learned how to play the Ukulele, so he played the Uke while he and I would sing. It was very neat. It brought the Spirit very quickly to the homes of the Samoan people. One family we visited even started crying and were very touched by the song. Oh, and FYI I learned how to play the Uke – or at least I can play a song on the Uke. I can strum and play notes, but I'm working right now on singing while playing and getting the rhythm down. I can play “Come Thou Fount” fairly decent and sing along with it. I'll have to do that some other time. One of the missionaries gave me their old Uke because they wanted to get a new one, so I know have a Ukulele. So I'm going to learn how to play that song and we'll go after we done visiting people we can sing that song and really invite the Spirit. They really like it.

Elder Record strumming the Ukulele, Length 00:02:29

If you say “malo soifua” that is a very respectful way of saying “hello.” If you say “tofa soifua” is a respectful way of saying good bye. It's pretty cool, we're learning a lot.

This week I was thinking a lot about temples and family history just because … I don't know it seems like a lot of what people say and what's being mentioned everywhere seems to be about Zion, about the Second Coming, about preparing for the Second Coming, about the Temples and getting temple work done, and family history. It seems very déjà vu'ish (haha). It's kind of neat by the fact that I am pretty decent at family history, so I'm curious to see what happens.

I was thinking about my service in Whitehorse in Canada and what stuck out for me the most and what I remember the most. It was when I helped Brother Rick Hudson with his family history and saw how he was able to do a complete 180. I mean I had never seen him in Church before and all of the sudden he is coming to Church every week, and he was on fire, he was sharing the gospel with everybody, talking about family history, excited about the temple. He was even crying on the phone with Brother Hirsch, they were both crying back and forth, about the gospel and stuff. That was what stuck out to me the most about my entire time in Whitehorse, was him – Rick Hudson. Even though that was only the last week while I was there. Just being able to see his life begin to change, it meant a lot to me, and made everything worth it.

In my study journal on the 19^th I was thinking about all this, and I wrote:

“Many of our ancestors lived hard and bitter lives, and died feeling that God had forgotten them. When their names are spoken in the temple, they will know that God has not forgotten them. Their hope is in our hands.”

So I was just thinking about that and temple work, and how wonderful a blessing it is that we have the temples, and that God is merciful enough to extend the opportunity to every person that has ever lived. Those who didn't get the opportunity to hear the gospel in this life, will get the opportunity to hear it in the next. We get to do the temple work for them. What a service! I cannot think of any better thing you can do for your family than your family history, providing those welding links and blessing them with that peace and hope that their Father in Heaven hasn't forgotten them, that He knows them and is mindful of them. We as members of the Church can provide the way for them to have the gospel.

When we first got here, we really didn't have any investigators. We had some, but they were really flaky, but this week we were able to find a former investigator. We went through all our former investigators, our area books were really disorganized, so we had to reorganize it so missionaries could use it. But we found this former investigator, and he was awesome. He already knew the Book of Mormon was true and that he really felt the Spirit when he read it, but for some reason he had started going to another Church. But we are going to start teaching him again, and for whatever reason he really likes us and enjoyed our company, so it was really neat to visit with him. He was from Samoa.

We visited a lot of less active people. Today we visited Ane, Jr. We visited Junior before and he was like, “ah, I don't what you guys to waste your time, I'll call you.” But that is like it's never going to happen. They don't call us. So we stopped by again today and gave him a video, “Finding Faith in Christ,” and set up a time to meet with him. He was very open about it. It just seems like the way is being opened to us to find new investigators.

We had lunch today with Brother Fa'amumu and his family. His granddaughter was there and she is from Samoa. She just got here in October. He said (haha) in a very Samoan way, because they all do this, “she's a non-member.” So we were like, “okay.” So we told her “we could teach you more about the Church. Would you like to learn more?” She said, “yeah, I think I would like that.” So we made plans to visit with her on Saturday.

In the Samoan ward, you can tract, but it's mostly just to help out other missionaries, because chances are you are not going to tract into a Samoan person. So usually we do our finding work through referrals. So it's important to really get to know the members and help them out. It just seems like things are really starting to pick up. The Samoan people are very nice and very friendly. They feed us a lot. At the Fa'amumu's we had a Taro. It is like a super dry potato, but it is not a potato. Then we had raw salmon, which was oka – the name of the dish we had. Oh!, we had coco Samoa – that is sooo good. That's their hot chocolate. It's better, and it not as sugary (haha).

They had a party on Saturday, a Thanksgiving party, and it was a party party (haha). Whenever they have an activity or anything like that, they have a dance. It's so funny to watch them dance, because they love it. I mean they don't care what people thing about them, they will just go out and dance, go crazy, and have fun (haha). When we were at Brother Siena's last Sunday for dinner, he's the Ward Mission Leader, he asked if we had any ideas for some kind of spiritual thing we could do at the beginning of the Thanksgiving party. I told him about how we started for Thanksgiving saying something we were thankful for at the beginning. He said he thought that was a good idea. We told him we would try to think of more things to do. When we got to the party, he said, “I decided to go with your idea.” He asked a couple of other people and myself if we would say some things we were thankful for. That was a neat opportunity. I got to go up in front of everybody – and there was a mix of people from our ward, the Diamond ward, and the Lake Otis ward, which are the three Samoan wards. I was able to say some things I was thankful for. Mostly I said I was thankful for my family, thankful for the gospel, thankful to be a missionary, thankful for these wonderful people who love me and treat me like family while I'm away from my family. They seemed to appreciate that a lot – I mean I certainly did. I was neat to be able to do that.

It's fun to be a missionary. It's not easy. You have to work on staying focused a lot. But, when you get those little moments like with Brother Hudson, when you see their lives begin to change, it makes all the annoying grief and heartache, it makes you so you don't remember it. It kind of outweighs that. It's so annoying sometimes (haha) how fickle people will be sometimes. Like the members love us, everybody is always very friendly, except for the occasional person who hates our guts at the door (haha). For the most part people are really friendly to us, but sometimes we are completely ignored as missionaries. Like they think we just do our thing and whatever. So it's hard to get people to make and keep commitments and appointments. But when they do keep want to make and keep those commitments on their own, it's wonderful to see because they become happier. It's wonderful to see them seek after those good things for themselves, and not needing us to push them to get them to do things to be happy, because they don't see that as “oh, that is going to make me happy.” They don't see it until after they do it. But they have a hard time getting around to doing it.

I know the Church is true. I am thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ and what He's done for us. I am thankful for family history and the opportunity we have to go to the temple to do the work for our ancestors. I am thankful for President Beesley, my mission president. He's a cool guy and is definitely guided by our Heavenly Father to know what we need to do in the mission. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that Church was restored through him. I know that we have the priesthood on the earth again. I am thankful for the opportunity to be serving a mission and serving the Samoan people right now. I am thankful for the wonderful growth and the new experiences I get. I'm excited to see what happens in the coming months because I've only been out for three months. I know the Church is true, and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love, Elder Record

Transcription/Audio: 3 October 2011

Hello Everybody,

I'm doing my weekly update for the week of the 26^th of September. It's kind of different, our weeks end on Sunday and the new week starts on Monday. So it's the week of the 26^th for us. We think in transfers, which are six weeks, so our weeks start on Mondays. Months have no meaning to me anymore, I mean we do monthly goals, but at the same time it's really like transfers. A transfer is like one planner, it has six weeks in a planner.

This week's been awesome. On Monday we did a little bit because it was P-day. We had dinner with the McCraken's and they make really good food. Brother McCracken is in the branch presidency and Sister McCraken – yea, she makes really good food. On Tuesday we did exchanges, and I was kind of nervous about it. I mean I did exchanges before, but this time my schedule was completely open. I had to really plan everything because I was in our area and in charge. Elder Bowes was coming into my area. I was able to pray for help and get what I needed. We were able to go visit some people.

We found a new investigator, his name is Brad. His house is in a trailer park and of all the houses there, his is the most unique. It's awesome. You go up the front door and when you turn to your left there are stairs that spiral up and go to the roof of the trailer. It has a railing and a pirate flag and makes the whole trailer look like a pirate ship. It's awesome! I wanted to knock on his door just to say, “you've got an awesome house!” So we did that, and he let us go up and see it. We got a tour of the house there, the pirate ship, haha. He's a young guy, and after that I started talking to him about the restoration and briefly shared about how the Church has been restored and that we have modern prophets today. I told him that we were going to have General Conference, and he was really interested, but he wasn't able to make it to conference because he had to work. It was very legitimate – it's not like he was trying to avoid us or anything. He did remember a few days later that he wanted to come to conference on Sunday at 1:00pm and was going to meet with us at 11:00am. Just by the fact that he remembered that shows he makes and keeps commitments, which is awesome for missionaries. So we met with him again on Sunday, October 2^nd and shared with him the first three principles of the first lesson, which ends on prophets. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and he's excited to hear more, and we are going to bring him over to the Church to watch some conference and talk more about the restoration and the gospel. I asked Brad what caught his interest and made him want to listen to us. He said it was because we were so friendly initially and that we didn't immediately just start preaching to him, but that we cared to talk to him a little first and get to know him. That really made a difference, and I told him that's exactly how it should be because our Heavenly Father loves us, and loves us individually. He cares about us and hears and answers our prayers. I told him that we cared about him, and we share this message with him because we want him to be happy. So we are excited to meet with Brad some more.

Then on Wednesday we visited a bunch of people and got to do some service for the Church. We had a little barbecue there and kind of cleaned up the outside of the Church. Friday we were able to go and do some more service for Brother Hursh. We helped him out at his place chopping wood. It was awesome, and we were way fast. He was impressed with how fast we worked. That was very fun, haha.

General Conference was amazing! I loved it. It was like drinking from a fire hose. It was all very good and very applicable – especially to missionary work. The part I loved the most was when they announced the temples, and especially the new Provo Temple. I was just thinking about temples the whole time and what they do for us. I was so thankful that my dad has taught me a lot about temples, because he's a temple worker, and just the importance of them and family history work. Even though I don't understand everything about the temple, I do know that it's important and that it has ordinances that are essential for salvation. I was just so filled with love, I was like – bawling. The Spirit was very strong when the temple was announced and all the other temples. I was just thinking about all the temples across the world.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I know that temples are the House of God. I know that this Church is true. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know that this is God's work. I am so thankful for the chance to be a missionary. I've said this before, but I see myself growing – it's incredible. It's something that I've never experienced before. Your siblings will grow and get bigger and you don't even realize it, but when you look at a picture of them later you are amazed at how much they've grown and never realized it because it happens so gradually. But on your mission, you grow so fast that you see yourself growing and progressing. It's incredible. You see the Lord changing you into a better person, more capable of things and listening to the Spirit. This has been, honestly, the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life, but also I am so thankful for the opportunity to do it. I have grown so much and learned so much. I wouldn't trade this opportunity for anything else. It's definitely been a push in the right direction. I am so thankful for the Gospel and all it's done for me. But, I just feel overwhelmed with love for my Savior and for other people. I know that He hears and answers our prayers. He's merciful and He's mighty to save, and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Audio: 18 September 2011

We received several audio journal files from Elder Record. He describes a very exciting event, their first scheduled baptism for October 8th. He starts out sounding very tired -- he recorded it late at night after a long day. However, notice the change in his voice when he starts talking about Bobby 7 seconds into the audio. I love the enthusiasm!

This is a shout out from Elder Johnson to the Record family, but the shout out applies to his own family too. So here it is.