Na Macawa! As slow as it was!

The most eventful day was Monday, shortly after emailing........ It all started in the afernoon. We were going to play basketball with some of our YSA, well, none of them showed and then all of a sudden, we saw one, coaching little kids on another court!

Well, that was not even the half. Then we went over to one of our members house. She was way busy, but offered for us to come back the next day for FHE. Originally, that was our plan, but we had gotten a referral, so Elder Pence wanted to check it out. Well, if we were going to do FHE we wiould not have time to meet with our new investigator. We cancelled dinner, to go see this new investigator.

When we finally got there, the investigator had a somewhat femmy voice. Elder Pence silently said oh no...... Well, we get inside, and we taught a great 45 minute lesson of the Restoration. Well, after we were finished, we asked if he had any questions,"or things he would like to share."Quoth Elder Pence. Well, he went into detail for an hour about probably the most disturbing things. As most of you know, I have seen and heard weird to the point it doesn't bother me too much, but this was straight-up disgusting. Way bad. And when I mean details, I MEAN DETAILS........... I am sure you can guess by now what happened, but if not, then good for you......

The next day, was a walking day. A member we invited bailed on us when we had invited him to a lesson. Well, it ended up not mattering, sense the investigator was sick anyway.

The following day we headed out to the Koro Matawalu. It is the farthest our area reaches to, which is about 27 miles out from our flat. Way---- Far. We taught a couple of investigators and came back.

The only other thing is that our ward SIMS list is so out dated, some of the people on it have passed away a while ago. We spend most of our time cleaning it out, visiting people only to tell us that the person we came to see died 3 years prior. Not really too much happening, though. I mean our new Mission president arrived in the morning yesterday. The airport elders were outside freezing, and the new Mission President was sweating out of his mind. Makes me think. I am going to die when I come back home. Cold here is not very cold, yet the people freeze any way. For the longest time I have laughed at them, since this is Fiji winter. Well, I am starting to get used to it. 

I am sending three pics. One Is a member grinding cocnut with his crazy 4 -year-old. Then its me this morning, I finally cut my hair so it is way shorter then that pic. The last is my Fijian "Hey Brother" By Avicii.  

 

Til Next Week, Elder MacLeod

Last Friday Night!

Alright, so this week was pretty interesting. I am trying to type fast, so If I make mistakes, you can either fix them for me, or leave them up, so that people see mah bad typen skilzzzz.

I am not really going to list days individually this week. I will start off with the begging. We started off with Sister Matheson pretty much giving all of her sisters info to Elder Pence. She gave up her email, a picture, and made comments like from exact quotation, "My mom would make a great mother-in-law." It was all funny. And to top off the first couple days, my desk collapsed, and all my stuff came crashing down. It sorta hurt my leg, but I am ok. Just made a louder, funnier study time! 

I also wanted to mention how you commonly pass people in the neighborhoods. It starts with Bula from them, then we acknowledge them saying io Bula, and as you walk we would say keirau sa raica oqo. So, it is normal to them, but the funny thing is the exact translation. That exact translation is "we are going to keep looking like this." That is pretty much what you say to people as you pass them by. like all the time......

Well Later in the week came service day.

So for service, we werewere someones garden. Were (whe-ray) in fijian means garden, and werewere apparently means take a sele (fijian word for knife, but is more of a machete) and cut the grass with it. So I do not want to hear you guys complain about mowing the lawn. I would take a lawn mower over a sele any day to cut the grass! 

The next day was just as great. This was Friday. So, I can quickly throw words to make a song parody of Katy Perry, but that would take to much time. So Friday, we had to go into town and meet the zone leaders. We were heading to an internet shop to print off baptismal programs. Well, we were running late and, of course because of that tardiness, this random lady stopped us. Neither of us have ever seen this lady before, and she for some odd reason wanted to tell us a story. Well, she goes on about this mother dog fighting it's puppy, and accidentally killing it, then being adorable (which I do not understand in the slightest.)  It carried the body away from the father dog...... Yeah, it took her 10 minutes to explain that story. She was just crazy. Well, we got to the internet shop to make the programs, and we had printing problems. Not a big deal, but we were running late to a baptismal interview now. We ended up splitting up. Elder Heath and Elder Pence, and Elder Abplanalp and I. Well, we got there and did the interview, but the whole day I just was not feeling so good, and by this point I was definitely not going to make it through the whole day. We got into the truck, and by this time I can hardly focus, but my Zone Leader does not know where the Carnival is.......... He has been in Lautoka for 3 months longer than I have. We went the wrong way, and I told him he might need to pull over, I shouted it again, but I couldn't wait. He hit the curb and I let loose. Yeah it was Gross! We went to the flat after. It was about 4:30 pm. Well, then Elder Pence ,in his wisdom, grabbed these candies I put outside, cause they were bad. Well, he gets WAY sick from them. He puked blood the next morning. Not good. Well, the whole night I couldn't sleep, cause the constant churning of my stomache. The next day I was poppin mints every second. Mostly, cause I had to do my first baptism. I will have pics! Great week, though. Sunday, I wrote a talk but ended up throwing it out at the start of speaking. I said something completely different from what I was going to say.

 

 

The picture of the spider was when Elder Pence got up at 4 in the morning and saw it. The body is the size of your thumb. We done killed it cause we didn't want brown in our pure white flat.

 

The other 2 are me driving in Fiji and my first baptism!

 

Well Until next week.

 

Elder MacLeod

Meetings, and the Koros

Alright, so we had Zone Conference, and  Train the Trainers Tuesday and Wednesday in Nadi. I will send the pictures from those days.

As for food, we had what Sister Klingler made us, SO IT WASN'T FIJIAN!!! I was so excited, all the people want to give me is curry with broken up bones in it, and fish.  I don't even like fish that much. I had the food she made 2 days in a row!

After that on Tuesday, I taught this lady on the bus the restoration! She was surprised that I had been there for about a month, and I knew Fijian! Later the same day, Janet bought us bacon! We had one great morning the next day! 

On Thursday, we went to the prasads to pull out kasava trees! Well, for those of you who don't know what Kasava is, they are similar to potatoes! I mean they are not quite as good, I would better compare them to yams. It was all good. Shamli gave me some soda, then they made us lunch. Sadly, it was lamb curry, which lamb is terrible. Not even my companion likes lamb.

The next day, I was going to do an exchange with the zone leader. My companion needed to do a baptismal interview for them, cause he is the district leader. Well, for the first night we had one spiritual thought, then they gave us lovo! Which is food cooked in an earth oven! Or buried under hot river rocks. This is also the same pits people do those fire walks over! After that, I had the day planned out with backups, backups for the backups, and even backups for the backups of backups. Well it didn't pay off! All of them fell through. We just went back to the flat where I made some shoulder bacon. 

The next morning we got up, and we did studies. Elder Heath taught me a little of pronunciation. We were going into Matawalu, one of 2 koros (the bush).  I already went to the other, but the only thing to mention is that the other one is closed, so we have to ask the chief if we can enter. Matawalu is open though. Well, I gained many followers, which would not stop grabbing me. There were 13 dialects in that village alone, since they had parents from all over Fiji. Elder Heath was having a hard time keeping up, and he has been here 22 months. Well, at the end of the day Elder Pence came back, and we went to Analitas'. Apparently, they have contracted a bacterial disease. It is super bad. Many had huge sores, so we gave 6 blessings. I now have given 9 of 15 blessings! When I got home, I showered so good! I was freaking out just being there in the house! I didn't shake their hands, I was so afraid of getting disease! Sunday, I offered the prayer in 3 meetings, then in 2 lessons. Simi complimented me on my Fijian being so well in just one month. I am trying so hard to learn, cause it  is English speaking where I am now, and you can lose your Fijian so fast if you don't speak it!

Lautoka Zone Conference - June 2014

Training Meeting -Nadi- June 2014

The left side, and the difference between posts and poles is vague!

This week was interesting, I mean my companion's sitting next to me proclaiming about his sister being engaged. Any who, let's get down to the week. Starting with the beginning.

Tuesday. These are normally district meeting days, but this one was a Zone meeting! It turned into 32 missionaries running around Lautoka. We didn't really teach either since every appointment fell through. It was not stressful though.

Wednesday. Weather here in Fiji is simple. Super hot, or raining. In the west, it usually never rains, but since I have been here, it has rained quite a bit. I must have brought some luck with me or something! The members are like babies, though. They did not understand what the phrase, which is a title, "The cost and blessings of discipleship." It is kind of annoying in the later days. Like they acclaim to knowing and understanding something, then won't do it. Encouraging people is 3/4 of my mission.

Thursday. This is service day, na matai vasagavulu kalima miniti (the first 45 minutes) I drove on the wrong side of the road. By wrong side, I mean the left since it is all backwards here. As I recall, my mom did not trust me to drive stick-shift on the main roads. Well, I drove on the complete opposite side and main roads with no problems, on the highway, in the Second largest city, in a new country! How's that for proof I know how to drive. Even after not driving for 2 months from being in the MTC! After that, we were to rip posts out, which I was thinking ah no big deal. Just dig a 2 foot hole down to each one. Well, it turns out they are giant logs used as poles, that are sealed in concrete. We were given these tools to rip out these 20 foot poles: A long nail shaped piece of metal, a hand sized hammer, a shovel, a smaller spade, a metal wedge, and a pitchfork. Well, it took us at least 4 hours to get all 8 poles. I was so tired. The rest of the day we did probably way too much walking. We had a 3 mile trip to one visit, which in turn meant 3 miles back. Then we went to another two visits, that are on opposite sides of our area. Super tiring. I think the days walking around amusement parks have paid off.

Friday- Well, our first place was to go to Janet's, which I don't like going to because the men just eyeball us since men are open about themselves here. It is pretty gross. We quickly left to go give sister Cokanawai a blessing. Which was my 5th blessing out of 8 I have stood in on, that I have given. Then we had dinner scheduled with the Reddy's who we called and it turned out they were in Rekireki. Which is an hour and a half drive toward Tavua. I think at least. They told us to meet at the lounge, which is probably the nicest restaurant I have been in here in Fiji. They were way late so it turned into us just eating with the Lautoka first sisters.

Saturday- I was able to eat ground beef this week twice. My companion said that this week he has had more ground beef than his whole mission.

Sunday- Was CRAZY! Both the bishoprics were released, so they now have just people in charge until they call a new group. The Stake President seemed somewhat angry. Now, Our new mission president wants info we can't get to him, since we don't have a bishopric. That was my week, though.

These are views of Fiji from my flat window.

Fiji, (F)indi, and well that is all thats new!

So this week it got hotter. Believe it or not. Yet the heat doesn't make you sweat. The sheer humidity does. I hardly notice it now, but I know it is there, cause you sweat more from it.

Most of you are probably wondering what the Findi means. It  is the knock off Hindi language. They speak a different Hindi here than in India. Half my members are Hindi, the other half are Fijian.

This was an uneventful week. I mean we played volleyball last Monday as a district. Then we had a district meeting Tuesday. I guess we now have 3 baptisms scheduled and coming up! What else happened?  I killed about 2 score of spiders! I took our bug poison and went to the 2nd bathroom and sprayed it down. I saw the spider, then after that, I soon figured out that there were so many more bugs. The floor was covered with dead bugs. Because this poison is so strong, it can kill cats just as easy.

I saw that we have a new cat. A cava dou vakasama! Datou sega ni gagadre e dua vou CAT! I bet it was cause Caitlin couldn't resist when someone offered to get another cat.

Sorry my week was kinda boring. It is Lautoka, which is the city of the rich people in Fiji. Nothing interesting happens in Lautoka versus other places. I mean there are more promiscuous people trafficking here, but that's a normal sight to see.

 

 

Oh the story of my sulus! So yes, Here is a pic of Elder Pence. When I first arrived in Fiji,  the AP's took us to buy sulus. Well, when I told the lady my size, she came out with 4 different sulus. The colors in my size were really dark grey black, dark black, and a slightly darker black. I chose the dark black and slightly darker black, haha.

 

 

Elder Pence and Myself in our Sulus!