2-5-12

Sup all you people,
Yeah it's me.  Yep, yeah cool.  So this week was dope I guess.  It was mostly just a ton of meetings.  Monday we had p-day.  We went into Pia and bought some stuff.  I finally had the chance to buy stuff and I probably won't be able to again for a long time, so that's why I pulled out a bunch of cash.  Also there's nowhere to withdraw money in Savaii, so I pulled some out to save for later.  But it's all good.  

But yeah, then on Tuesday we had a training meeting for all the new missionaries.  It was dope though cause I got to see all my boys from the MTC so that was sick.  

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you in my letter from last week--So last week when I was sick, we broke into this closet and watched all these church movies.  And you'd better believe it--we watched the heck out of cypher in the snow.  And the one with the lady that only writes with her feet--it was very inspiring.  On VHS even too.  So I guess being stuck at the office wasn't all that bad.  

So yeah, then we had zone meeting pretty much all day on Thursday.  Thursdays kinda suck cause we can't really proselyte at all cause our zone takes up a sizeable portion of the island, so we spend a lot of the time in the ZL's van picking up missionaries from their areas.  It's like a 1 1/2 hour drive from my house to the furthest house in the zone.  And then we have to drive all the way back to falelima where we have zone meeting.  So it's kind of a drag.  I try to read or do something productive, but it just makes me sick.  But it's alright though, the guys in my zone are pretty cool.  There's only eight of us in Savaii South.    There's actually only three zones on the island, 28 missionaries all together.  

On Friday we had island conference.  That was pretty sweet.  It's dope to see all the elders every once in awhile.  The prez had a training--it went for most of the day.  I still don't understand 100% Samoan, so I don't think I gleaned as much from it as everyone else did.  But that was cool, I guess.  

So yeah, on Saturday we got a call from the family next door saying that they have a referral for us.  SO we went over there and like fifteen minutes later we taught the first lesson.  It went really good.  That's the lesson I'm best at doing in Samoan.  It was to a girl named Taulosa, she's like eleven.  She lives in a village that just barely opened up for the missionaries to go proselyte in. That's the second village that has opened since I've been here, which is really quite a miracle, cause that rarely ever happens.  We've been working real hard to open up these villages--my companion has hookups with a lot of the important chiefs, so we've been working with them a lot.  But yeah, there's been four villages in our area that have opened in the last six months since Elder Nansen has been here.  He's a dope missionary.  I'm really learning a lot from him.  We get along super good--this guy's the man.  He's always really helpful with everything and he's teaching me how to speak good Samoan too.  

So things are going really good.  Everything's starting to come together a lot more.  The language is coming crazy fast.  I attribute that to reading from the Book of Mormon.  Once I started reading from the Book of Mormon in Samoan, my language got a ton better.  SO that's sick, it's all good.  I'm loving it here, things are really picking up.  The work is amazing.  It's really starting to get good.  We're working hard.  You can really see the benefits of your labors.  So yeah, it's all dope.  

So lately the water has been broken at our house, so we've had to shower out of a bucket for like the last week.  It's cool though.  It's all the same.  The other day it was raining really hard so we just waited til it got dark and then we showered out in the rain.  But we wore ie lavalavas--that's how all the Samoans do it.  But that was cool.  We had a wild time.  

Not much else has been going on this week.  Saturday we had to go to the ZL's baptism cause my comp is the District Leader so he does the baptismal interview for the ZL's baptisms.  But other than that, the DL doesn't do anything.  It's sort of just a title, I guess.  So yeah, we went to their baptism and stuff, it was good.  And then on Sunday we just had meetings all day.  My comp and some other elders from the zone taught this fireside in the evening.  But it was good.  Oh yeah, so the more I talk with my companion, the more I'm surprised about him.  He got $15,000 when he was 15 to sign on to play rugby.  I guess he's like super good, it's crazy.  He got private tutoring from Sid Going even, which is really crazy as he was making a ton of money, but then he decided to go on a mission.  SO this guy's the man--he gave up a professional rugby career to come on a mission.  And I found out he's a chief too.  He's a Tulafale, which is the highest of the chief titles.  Some guys go their whole lives and don't even get a chief title, so it's pretty crazy.  That's why a lot of people in the village really respect him cause he's a talking chief and he's young.  So it's tight, my comp's the man.  He knows how to work with the people really well.  

But yeah, so that's what we did this week.  Today I'm on a split for p-day with Elder Bailey from my MTC group.  I slept over at his house last night in Asau--it's more north of our area.  This morning we got up and biked up the mountain.  It was freakin' awesome.  Elder Nansen's freakin' dope--I love him to death--but he's not very adventurous.  So today was like the best thing that ever happened to me.  I was freakin' stoked as heck.  It started raining super hard and we were just plowing through the jungle, it was so sick.  We found this old abandoned mill or something and we were messing around there.  It was sweet.  We found this old abandoned airport we played around at for awhile.  Today was a good day though.  Me and Bailey just went and explored the jungle all morning.  And the cool thing about Samoa is that you can go to the beach, you just can't swim.  So we might go down to the beach later--we've still got a few hours of p-day left.  It cool cause you'll never see bikini clad girls or anything--it goes against the Samoan culture to be immodest.  Girls can't even wear pants or shorts--they have to wear an ie lavalava.  SO it's good.  The Samoan culture goes hand in hand with a lot of the teachings of the Church.   So it's dope. We got a lot of cool pictures today.  Tonight we're going out to do some visits--that's gonna be crazy.  Haha, we'll have to see how it goes.  Neither of us speak very good Samoan.  Bailey struggles with it a lot.  But we'll just hit it up anyway.  I'm sure it'll be good.  I can say enough to get by.  Every time you go to a house, you have to recite these certain speeches for different things--like to get in the house, and then when you sit down and when you're done eating, and then when you're going to leave as well.  BUt I've got all the speeches down so we should be good. 

Oh yeah, thanks for the package.  I really appreciate it. I don't want to be like a financial burden or anything.  But I was stoked on all that stuff.  I don't really have access to buying stuff so I appreciate it.  Whenever you decide to send me another package, I need rechargeable AA and AAA batteries and a charger cause my camera, my cd player and my speakers all use batteris and the batteries here are super expensive.  So it would be nice to just have  rechargeable ones if it's possible.  Also Ibuprofen--I gave all mine away, but I get headaches and it sucks when I can't do anything about it.  But yeah, just whenever.  It's not pressing so no worries.  

So yeah, again mother you asked about fifty questions in your letter.  I think you're under the impression that if you ask a lot of questions that I'll actually answer them.  Ha ha jokes.  But really.  

Q:  Are things back to normal missionary work?
A:  Yes
Q:  Did Ulia get baptized?
A:  Yes
Q:  Any new investigators?
A:  Yes, the work is good.
Q:  Did you get to go into the village where they had not allowed missionaries to go?
A:  Yes
Q:  Do you own a ukulele?
A:  I purchased one.  I'm just waiting for the elders in American Samoa to send it over.
Q:  Do you have a 3 hour block and do they have manuals for teaching classes like Primary and Sunday School?
A:  Yes, they sure do. The church is the same everywhere.
Q:  What are church meetings like?
A:  They're dope.
Q:  How often do you give a talk or teach a class?
A:  Not really very often.  I get asked to bear my testimony sometimes.
Q:  If people don't have electricity, how do they know what time it is and when it's time to go to work or to church?
A:  I don't know where you get these ideas.  Everyone has electricity.  You shouldn't make stuff up.  Also, nobody has jobs.  They all have their own plantations that they to to every day to get food.  They're all self sufficient.  Everything they eat is something they grew or shot or caught in the ocean, for the most part at least.  Sometimes they have rice or corned beef that they buy at a little shop somewhere.
Q:  How do they light their homes at night?
A:  Magic.
Q:  How close are the houses to each other?
A:  Not a valid question.
Q:  What do they do about privacy or stuff getting stolen with open walls?
A:  They deal with it.
Q:  How many people have cars?
A:  There is one moped given by the government to each island and then they do a big raffle to see which family gets the moped for that month.
Q:  Do women and children work at the plantations too?
A:  Yep.
Q:  Do they have gas stations nearby?
A:  They have like 3 on Savaii--it's like 1 hour away.
Q:  Do you get a bike and how far are you riding it?
A:  We have bikes but we don't use them cause it's more efficient to walk so you can talk to people.
Q:  Are you getting sunburned or rashes?
A:  Nope.
Q:  Did the Deet work against the mosquitoes?
A:  Deet is cool.
Q:  Are you out?
A:  Out where?
Q:  How do you dry your clothes?
A:  We hang them up out back.
Q:  Do they have laundry soap?
A:  Yes, they sure do.
Q:  I noticed you are wearing glasses?  Do you not wear your contacts?
A:  I wear contacts now.  I gave my glasses away after like the first week to this old dude who needed them.  I've got another pair though--no worries.
Q:  How is the language coming?
A:  Ava le fesili valea.  Ou ke fiu a lou fesili.  Ou ke oulelei
Q:  How long do you think you'll be in this area?
A: 18 months for sure.
Q:  What shoes do you wear mostly?
A:  I wear the sandals every day.
Q:  What do you do on pee days?
A:  We play volleyball mostly.  My comp doesn't like adventurous stuff.  It's cool though.  I'm down with whatever.
Q:  Have you gotten to see any other areas?
A:  Yep.  I've driven around the whole island of Savaii!

Also, mama, this "love ya mucho mucho mucho" garbage is not gonna fly.  Just say Alofa atu or figure something out.  Spanish is for wimps--forget that nonsense.  Soamoan is where it's at.  

Keep it steezy,
Alofa aku kele,
--Alil Elder Johansen
PS:  I was stoked on all those emails from the cousins and  and Austin too--hit me up with those again if you ever get the chance.  Also, Kethy, send me Kevin's too.  I was stoked on reading those.