3-24-13

March 24, 2013

This week has been pretty bones deluxe.  We've just been keepin it real, lettin' our mustaches hang low and our dream catchers still fastened to our pants.  Like my good friend Jamal once said, "You gotta get jiggy with it."

We had Sione & Aimoana's baptisms this week.  That went really good.  My comp did the baptizing for the both of them.  I was a little bummed cause like nobody showed up even though we made these cute little fliers and handed them out to everyone.  Usually baptisms are mega awesome if you can get a whole bunch of people to come and the investigator always feels good cause there's all these people there to support them.  So we're definitely going to have to figure out how to prank people to come to our baptisms.  Maybe we'll just lie and say there's pizza or something.  That would for sure get a ton of people to show.  Haha, no jk.  We'll figure something out.  

Next week we have another baptism planned as well over in Vavau.  The missionaries that were there got transferred so we've been covering their area for a little while.  Anyways, so we contacted this girl who's been going to church forever but nobody knew that she wasn't baptized.  So we started lessons and we're going to baptize the heck out of her next week.  Her name is Arga--it means family.  The cool thing about Vavau is that there is no baptismal font and the chapel is on the coast so I get to do the baptism in the ocean, which I am for sure stoked about.  

Also, if you look on the map, where I live is a lot more inland--in between the Sopoaga Falls and the Fuipisia Falls marked in red.  But we cover part of Salani, all of Utulaelae, Sapoe, Matatufu, and all of the inland part of Lotofaga and part of the coastal Lotofaga.  And for the time being, we cover Vavau, Aufaga, Vaigalu, and I think most of Lepa.  Just so you can know the area a little bit, I guess.  

We're still working with Faafiti and Toelau to prepare for their baptisms.  We set the date of April 6th for them to be baptized, which also happens to be the day my comp finishes his mission.  I'm not sure if Faafiti will be ready by that date, so we'll have to see what happens.  He says he wants to be baptized, but he hasn't really kept any commitments or been to church.  But his wife, Foelau, and the kids are totally ready.  They have 5 kids, all young.  We've been teaching two of them, but it might end up being that only one of the kids can be baptized cause they think she might be 8, but they're not sure.  So we'll see once they get the birth certificate.  Either way, I'm excited for this family.  I'm just hoping we can work to help Faafiti to be baptized at some time in the near future.

Really not much went down this week.  There isn't a lot to report on actually.  The work continues to progress in the area.  I'm really loving it a lot here.  We've met a lot of cool people and had a lot of cool experiences.  

Like the old Samoan proverb says, "Un mama i oa mama i taloa."   (It leaks from the gunwale to the garboard strake.)

Elder Johansen

PS  Can you send me some batteries and a good portable speaker?