4/15/13

Sup Family!

Sorry, I don't have a lot of time to write this week.  This week was alright, but sort of hard--with ups and downs.  I finally got my new companion.  His name is Elder Levave.  He's brand new on the mission.  I got released as ZL and now I'm training again, which is fine with me.  Now I can just focus on the area and I don't have to worry about the other missionaries anymore.  So it's good.  I'm stoked to be training again.  My first son is training too for the second time right now.  So, I guess we breed good ones.  But it's good.  Elder Levave is actually from my last area in Lepale, but he went to church in a different ward, so I'm not too familiar with him.  But I know his mom and I've eaten dinner at his house a few times as well.

This week was a real bummer for the work.  There is a village in our area called Matatufu where my last comp, Elder Faitau, and I spent most of our time.  Well, we just found out this week that all the chiefs in the village got together and held a council to punish all the people in the village who have converted to the Mormon church.  So anyways, all the recent converts and even our investigator family got slammed with these harsh punishments from the village.  Each family had to pay 30 mature pigs and they were forbidden to go back to church.  I don't know anything about livestock, but I assume 30 pigs has to be at least a thousand dollars, if not more.  So anyway, that was a huge bummer.  Uila, the Tongan lady that Faitau and I helped bring back to church got punished too.  It was the day of General Conference--when she came back to her house, they had killed her pigs and taken them.  

But despite everything, these people have made the decision to continue to go to church.  Uila is way strong now and she said she's taking her family to church no matter what.  So I'm stoked for them.  And the other recent convert families all came to church on Sunday--they're strong.  I was crazy stoked that these people are so faithful.  It's guaranteed they're going to be punished again by the village, but they're going to go to church anyway.  

I'm really bummed for our investigator family, however--they were affected by this as well.  Faafiti and To'o are too scared to come back to church cause they're afraid of the chiefs.  They were scheduled to be baptized at the end of the month, but now it looks like it's not going to happen.  We'll keep praying and working with them.  Really we're hoping for a miracle with this one.  Satan has taken a huge slowdown in the work--no one in the village wants to listen to us.  And, definitely, no one will want to be baptized.  However, God always wins, so I'm just trying to figure out what to do.

But  it's good.  Now we cover another ward too--Vavau.  I'm not familiar with that area, so it will be tough for sure at first.  We haven't even been in Vavau yet cause it's super far and the new ZL's forgot to give us helmets for our bikes and you're not allowed to ride without a helmet.  But it's good.  I'm actually kind of glad that we're walking now because I'm starting to get a glorious stomach after 8 months of driving the van.  So it's good.

Anyways, the ZL's are here.  Keep it steezy,

Elder Johansen