6-18-12

Sup Baby Girl,
How's your bones?  It's a dognar party up in here.  The steeze couldn't be easy, but it's always worth it when you got your dankbones makin' noise.  It's steeze magnets though.  Hardly even naggin the gnar at any points, just when you get weiched. 

Things are sick in the area.  It's all mega good--all good, all good.  Saturday was our baptisms for Dalepa and Pato.  They were mega dankness.  We had Palepa's wedding at 1:00 and then right after we did the baptism.  My son did the baptisms.  He did really good.  It was mega sick.  I was stoked to see Palepa's progression from how she was when me and Nansen started teaching her and how she is now.  It's tight.  And then after we went to Palepa's house and drank coke and ate cookies.  It was sweet.  Technically, I think it was their honeymoon, so I guess I can say that I've "honeymooned."  It was pretty cool.  I guess I can see what all the hoopla is about.  Her husband, Samai, serenaded us with romantic songs on the guitar and we all just chilled for awhile.  But unfortunately, me and my companion had to cut the honeymoon short to go do our baptism for Pato, which was mega dope too.  Pato is tight.  She's real smart and remembers everything that we've taught, so I'm stoked on her. She'll be good for sure.  My comp did the baptism too.  It was way good.  We've been working real hard.  Now we're starting to see some of the fruits of our labors.  We just go out every day and try our best, and somehow it always works out.  It's pretty good.  My comp's humble enough to try out any ideas I have, so we do really good.  He's dope, we get along good.  We pretty much just try our best and put the rest in the Lord's hands, which ends up working out really good, so it's cool. 

We've been fasting a lot too, which has helped out a ton.  I think my testimony of the power of fasting has like quadrupled since I came out on a mission.  Fasting is real good, along with prayer.  It helps me the most out of anything.

But yeah, so then on Sunday I got to do the confirmation for both Pato and Palepa.  It was good--double bones good down here.  I'm real stoked on Pato cause she's the first investigator I've taught on my own.  All the other times mostly my trainer would teach and I would sort of just chill and then bear testimony.  Now it's pretty much teaching everything, so it's kind of a big change.  But I give my boy the opportunity to teach as much as he can.  It's a gnar party no matter what.

Not much else really happened this week. We started teaching Tamoalii--that's been good.  She's gonna be baptized this Saturday, which  should be sweet.  She's only 11, so teaching her is the best cause it's really simple.  Her baptism is gonna be this Saturday, so that should be really good.  We're planning to have Faasinoala married and baptized on Saturday as well, so that should be really good.  She's totally good.  She knows her stuff.  We just gotta get them married and we'll be set.  But I think it'll go down, so I'll let you know next week how it goes down. 

So yeah, not much else really happened this week.  Just the same mold, same mold.  My son's doin real good--he's a real good young chap.  I'm pretty used to fathering young ones, so training is nothing new to me.  I'm sort of the "Dad" to my group of friends back home.  They all loved to call me "Cool-Dad", and looked to me as somewhat of a father figure.  I remember the first time I taught Chase to play catch--boy he sure was excited.  It's really important for a dad to bond with his boy--that's something I learned early on.  It seems like it was just yesterday I put Austin on his first "two-wheeler."  He rode right into old man Wilson's prized rose bushes!  Boy he sure gave us a hollerin' for that one--you bet your eye he did.  And I could never forget that stormy day when that little Stringham boy came running to the house, crying his eyes out because some bullies at school had stolen his favorite set of marbles and then made him eat a grasshopper.  That poor little orphan boy never really had many friends.  But since that day, I took it upon myself to raise that boy as one of my own.  He always wore the same tattered, smelly jacket, with no shirt on underneath.  But his wide, toothy grin was enough to warm any heart.  Boy he sure did aggravate old Grandma Perkins though.  She was getting old and her diabetes make her cranky and irritable.  We've sure had some good times.  It wasn't easy being a father to such a rogue bunch, but I'm as proud as any dad could be.

So it's safe to say that taking my baby boy over here under my wing is nothing new.  And Jackson is much more well behaved than any of my other children, especially stupid Wyatt.  I know you're not supposed to pick your favorites, but Jackson is mine.  But kids will be kids.  Pretty soon he'll be old enough to date--that's just gonna be another handful.  So we'll take em as they come. 

Anyways, it's all good down here.  This week was good.  It's dopegnar.  There's one thing I need to ask you though.  I need you to send me some roller blades.  There's this new thing in our mission designed to get missionaries more motivated about the work.  It's called "Blades for Baptisms."  The idea is that we can have a better mode of transportation to get us to each appointment quicker, but still having that confidence and style that only comes from strapping on those blades.  I think it'll be a great motivation to all the missionaries.  We're all really excited for the new changes.  So yeah, if you could, send my new roller blades as soon as possible.  I'm really gonna need them soon.  Things are really moving fast.  I just don't want to get left behind.

Keep on shreddin' the gnar bones,
The Fresh Prince of Samoa
(He drew a picture at this point of a sunset scene at the beach with palm trees and a hut and a self portrait of him wearing a necktie with an amphibious looking face.  That's the best I can describe it.)