Wednesday, July 10, 2013

5-19-13

May 19, 2013

Yoyoyoyoyo brothers,

Not much time this week.  Happy Mother's Day Mom!  I think I again forgot to mention it when we talked last last week.  But it's cool.  This week was dope pants.  We had a lot of success and picked up some promising investigators and stuff.

One man name Pule that we have been teaching had a cool experience this week.  After we taught him and committed him to pray whether the Church was true, he said he prayed that evening and that night he had a dream where he met Joseph Smith and the Angel Moroni and they told him he needs to quit smoking and to join the Church.  It was crazy when he was explaining it.  I was way stoked.  Pule is preparing to be baptized this upcoming week.  We also gave him a blessing so he can overcome his smoking, but he said he rarely smoked anymore so it won't be too hard for him to quit.  This man has been way prepared.  He's been going to church forever but was never baptized cause he said he was baptized in another church and didn't see the need to be re-baptized.  But now he's totally down, so I'm stoked to the days.

Also, we picked up a few new investigators who we committed to be married and baptized the first week of June.  So, hopefully, that goes down.  So the work is excellent.  I'm really hoping I get to stay in the area.  The transfer is next week.  However, I still have 2 companions, so something is for sure to change.  I think I may get transferred, actually.  But I'll let you know next week.

Also this week we went and talked to the Pulenu'u in Matatufu, a village in our area.  The Pulenu'u is kind of like a mayor, I guess, or the guy who oversees the village, like on of the important chiefs in the village.  He's not a member and isn't super happy with the church either.  We went to talk to him cause like a month ago the village put a fine on all the people who have converted to the Mormon Church and banned them from the Church.  So we went to go talk to him about changing the rule or trying to work something out.  Honestly, I was pretty 'skeered' cause when you talk to an important chief, there is like a whole different language that you use, with different words than people use just talking colloquially.  Even my comp, Elder Levave, doesn't know any of the chief language and he's from Samoa.  

So we get to the house and the guy was sitting there looking all angry-like.  And then he asks us, very rudely, what we were doing there and what our purpose was.  But then we "soothed his soul" and he let us in the house.  We ended up talking for like two hours and he really softened up to us.  I had to do most of the talking cause my comps aren't super confident with talking to people yet, especially not orators and high chiefs and stuff.  

We didn't really get a definite answer about changing the rule, but the man ended up feeding us and asking us to come back, so I take that as a victory.  Perhaps someday the village will be open to the church and then our investigator family can come back to the church and be baptized.

But it's cool.  I just thought that was sweet and it was sort of fulfilling the scripture in the D&C -- "The fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers."

The mission is dope.  

Keep spunkin' around the dunk bunk,

Elder Eric "Angelo from Boyz n' Bladez" Johansen

PS  Thanks for the package!!! The speaker is way nice and I am loving the jalapenos.  It's been like 1 1/2 years since I've eaten spicy food.  Also my comp thought the leaf fossil was way cool.  Slapmaster Ice


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