A B Cs and ABACAs

Sorry for being late we just got back from a mountain hike gone wrong...... I will get there though. This week has many events actually. Going out of Lautoka in a bang oops... spoilers.....

This week we had a great beginning, but were so busy in the end, then reality hit us Sunday. We kept lessons steady through all this side stuff, so brace yourselves, and hands in the truck, under the blackboard...... 

We will start with the beginning, we travel this one pathway often here, with a log you walk across, well I was walking, and partially fell in...... all was good, we matched our best day for lessons still with that, I was kind of all over the place and out of it. Moving along, the same day with me out of it, I was clapping (which is respectful finish here) but I kept clapping, so the lady was laughing like she never has before. Well, following which we left and went along with the day. Later the same week we had our long waited for Koroipita (Project Benjamin) that we have been working on for ages.... It went pretty decent, I may not get to see the after effects, but I saw the event through. We had some fun news reports from E. Johnson and KSL 5 news.  I sent my last 2 sd cards to the walkers to take home. You will have to wait longer on these videos. They were funny.

Anyways, Transfers were this week, and we all guessed what would happen... I have being driven out of Lautoka to a small village known as  Nakelo in Nausouri Zone. Luckily it is just out of town, so I go to Nausouri Town every week, I am in a koro, but emails and P-days are all good! I have a comp there who will be with me 6 weeks before he goes home. President has told me things concerning the future of the mission for me, but I will let them play out, and leave you all guessing. I am in on the future for once, and I know what will happen to me in transfer 6 weeks from now, but that is for me to know, and you all to find in due time. Just know it is an opportunity to grow, and become a better disciple.

Anyways, I was really late back today to email, a 2 hour trip turned to 4 fast. Sister Wright will be going home from finishing her mission, and she has never been on (a) adventure. We went to the mountain koro of abaca (ahm-bah-thah) to hike to a waterfall, well our tour guide was very prideful, and thought she knew her way, and did not want to look dumb in front of the missionaries........  Well word of advice, it is better to look dumb, than be the reason of sorrow. These emails are not for me, if they were I would say so little, but I have learned, and President Layton has told me how these emails are to encourage and uplift others. 

Long story short, we ran into a Fijian guy who was shocked I knew fijian. 

He pointed out the way. It was a good trip though.

The hike

pictures on the hike

More landscape from hike

Chillin in Fiji

crazy voodoo like thing, I added a sasa to (sasa is broom) 

ward mission last time together in action! Moce Lautoka 1st!

Nakelo flood (we are officially in flood season)

waiyavi waterfall

Preparing Chocolate pudding pies to go along with our Thanksgiving Feast from care package.  (Thanks Mom)

This week's fridge.  Care packages are great!

Richardson?

Man things are lining up here.

Let-uce start with Monday. We didn't qito cause I didn't want to pay $5 to be somewhere for 15 minutes, so we sat around. E. Johnson was not feeling the greatest Monday anyway so it was all good. Tuesday we got out to go teaching. We had a lesson where we really complimented each other. We took extra time on each principle, well, the investigator was almost crying on every principle cause how happy he felt. We have got that a lot. Another missionary said he is always happy around us, cause we get along and just a an aurora of happiness about us.

Anyways moving along in the week. I went on an exchange with E. Raju...... He doesn't speak Fijian, cause he is the Hindi speaking Elder. This meant I had to teach every principle. Well I also had to move his baptismal date, so I dreaded the lesson the whole day thinking of how I would word it to not hurt his feelings. It went surprisingly well, and now as of result he will be baptized on the 29th.

Besides that I bought some new shoes for really cheap. It would be the equivalent of $10 USD so I got them to save for after I come home. I also wear them in the flat to keep my feet narrow. 

Not sure if I have said much , but we have been organizing a church media event. E. Pence and I had come up with the idea a long time back. Now we are still driving, just E. Pence is no longer here. It is scheduled to be on the 29th. We as the missionaries drew this idea up, and it has become a big thing now. I will let you all know how it goes. We were handing out fliers last week. Thus...... Richardson. (movie reference) 

Sorry not to much funny stuff...... I like this to be fun to read, but sometimes not much happens. Just the little trivial things. Ninjas with the kids, playing chicken with an umbrella versus a car (I totally won though.) Having popsicles (we made them out of water and those flavoring packets we got in the Halloween pkg). E Johnson's bollywood dream... And the bunch of Indian ladies trying to give me their daughters for marriage...... There was also E. Johnson speaking Hindi to the Fijian girls, then he realized it as we walked away, he was embarrassed, but he got to show off the Hindi speaking. We just rocked through giving out fliers by him speaking Hindi or Fijian. We even found a girl that wanted to be a missionary like us, so we told her if she comes to the event on Saturday we can show her how. Trivial stuff. This is like normal everyday. I guess there were missionaries is the news paper.....

Dinner out in a nice restaurant

My new shoes

Party in Lautoka

My name maze in progress

Missionaries from Fiji in the newspaper

Need I say more?

This week had its events.......I will start at our really lame Qito (sport) There was only 4 of us, and it was no-contest..... We had no fun with it. After which we were at our new investigators house. They made us pie and dinner. Well, while there we went through our food. Of course, I pounded through it faster than E. Johnson. Well, just before eating a member called and asked if we could run to the hospital to give a blessing...... We asked if she could call the Hindi Elders cause we were pre-occupied, but she insisted we call. Well, we called them and gave them the info, but they reworked the hospital entrance, so they called me to ask where the door was, but I didn't know they reworked it...... 

Well, they figured that out, so we ate food. Well, E. Johnson randomly came out and asked if he could step outside for a phone call. He walked outside, and came back in to tell me what really happened. He went out to puke. He puked 4 times. 

The next day was mission tour. Elder Halleck of the Quorum of the 70 came to speak to us. We had just an open discussion session. It was awesome. I loved it. I will probably save what happened there for when I come home 16 ish months from now. 

As the week went on we went to a settlement called Vunato for a return visit. Well, there was no male in the house again, so we left. As we were leaving, this lady  and this girl that saw us pass stopped us to ask about our church. After giving them a pamphlet, we heard the girl in the house yell, "Uro levu" which by translation would be super sexy......

That was not the end. We cut through the next settlement to get to our appointment faster. Well, as we entered, there was a girl in the tete on the left, 2 girls on the porch, and one behind us walking. They started to try and flirt, so we walked away a bit faster. We were walking through the middle when we passed a house with 8 girls on the porch. Also on the porch was this 12-year-old kid we had met while he rode his bike a week back. He started to talk to us (fijian) then as we were about to leave, he said E. Johnson was Kai Bua.  So then the girls were falling all over themselves so we turned yelling to each other lako lako lako! (lako=go) As we walked to the next place, E. Johnson turns and says," Man, I am questioning President on putting 2 skuxes together." hahhaha.  We have some funny moments. We end up running from settlement to settlement avoiding the girls.

Later, we had the 1 liter challenge, but somewhere along the way it became the 2 liter challenge. We each bought 2 liters of ice cream and had a race. Well, from the picture you can see I dominated!!! No one else finished. It was done in 15 minutes!

There are so many funny moments this week, like speaking Hindi (or the very little we know) at the Rameshwars, which lead to Sunday with a very embarrassing moment. Bro Rameshwar grabbed one of the YSA girls, turned to E. Johnson and said," Tum mangta?" which in Hindi that is: you want?  She was embarrassed, and we had a good laugh. Bro. Rameshwar really wants him to marry an Indian girl.  hhahahaha.

Until next time!

1. 2 liter challenge

2. Walking into the distance

This is Steve.

Notice how Steve is now down in the gutter..... 

Don't be like Steve, 

cause being in the gutter is no fun!

A Stick-ee situation

Let-tuce begin!

We had Zone P-day last Monday, which was really boring..... Everyone was bored so we sat around talking and catching up essentially. I bought a soccer ball, so I played a small bit of soccer! Most of the time at Zone P-day it is volley and rugby.

Anywhose..... Later that night we stayed with Ba. There is an E. Johnson in Ba right now (he has a blog). Well, we did splits with them, so the Johnsons went around convincing all the members they were brothers somehow in the same mission.... It was way funny. Well, then we sat around telling stories a long while, this lead to me and Johnson from Ba talking all night...... We even had like an hour and a half of language study. I just got too lazy to speak English...... Well ZTM (Zone Training Meeting) was the next day. I was so tired. Luckily E. Johnson had Zip-Fizz, which got me through it. It was way funny. I have some videos of it, but I can't really mail that yet.

Following this event, we had another Exchange. We had some good lessons with some of our investigators, then moved along to go home. Pres. Vuataki (mission 2nd counselor) gave E. Reeder and I dinner that night.

The next day we re-united and wandered from lesson to lesson. (normally the weeks start slow, but speed up after Wednesday.) We got a good bit in. We ate out like every single night. Well when we got back I said:"Nanuma, Nanuma na kalima ni Noveba." Nanuma is remember, and lima is 5. kalima is 5th. 

The next day, we did service in two places, got 2 lunches, but got taken away on one, so we had to throw it out to keep from getting bad. We were fed at the Nacebas house and got a golden referral from them. He is actually making us a pie today for visit number 2. We almost had 2 dinner appointments today, but the other cancelled since he will be home late.

Sunday was probably the funny day. We got out of church, and this was the 3rd time we have gotten Ice cream after church, except we were also provided lunch this time. Seems harmless at first, it just got funnier from there. We look to the side where we see Iva, this little girl chug a pepsi, then toss it like a drunk. We have no clue where she got it. Well then E. Raju ate the frosting off E. Johnsons cake...... Then Elder Johnson destroyed Rajus plate, then a food fight broke out between the 2. Well, E. Raju had chocolate frosting on his sulu, so a 2 year-old chased him around trying to get the chocolate. Well he left, and when we were standing around, the kid came back, but had a nice sized stick in his hands....... Well, he proceeded to start smacking my legs, hahhahaha, it stung a little but was way funny. The boys mom was way embarrassed, hahaha, but, we all had a great Sunday! Well that was the week.  E dua na nomuni taro? (any questions?)

Lunch at church with ICE CREAM!

Iva and her Pepsi

Lautoka Ward Building

Rockin Jeans on P-Day and my tan Lines! (we are going into Fiji summer here)

Smashing Elder Reeder

The difference between tomatoes, and Missionaries on service days....

The difference between tomatoes, and Missionaries on service days....

Well if you don't know....... you may not find it.....

Anyways to answer the package question I got it this week! Yet since Merika is a day behind, I got it on Halloween in America. So we celebrated Halloween a day late, but it was the greatest! Our neighbor is really nice, so she just keeps giving us mangos..... Well we had so much so for Halloween, we carved mangoes and took some pictures for the peeps back home.

Most of the week was just showing E. Johnson around. I mean we went to a settlement that I had never been to within my area, and picked up 9 potentials with return appointments within 15 minutes....... Sometimes I wonder if missionaries before us actually talk to people.... Everyone there was saying, Oh the missionaries would just walk through and never talk to us..... It is amazing what happens when you just talk to people, the principle is being friendly and kind.  You don't need to  share anything, but be as you would to your friends. (That is just what I spoke about in my farewell talk)

My mission starting in what is supposedly a "good ward" in Fiji is a testimony to me of how a functioning ward runs by certain aspects. The biggest way to retain activity is in activities themself. People do not like boring. Lots of people just go inactive with no activities. Do not take them for granted. Before I leave here, I want to get the mutual established here. It may not happen, but I know if I won't E. Johnson will. We had a great fireside a couple weeks ago. The ward loved it on the basis that it was a(n) fun activity.

Anyways Zone P-day is today...... I think I will buy a soccer ball at one of the side shops. Let me know if you have any questions like example, how to make fun of someone in Fijian, or what kind of food do you eat?  Not much more happened that was interesting in the week. Just the normal missionary talk. Funny stuff, but not memorable as well. Anyways, pictures are clogging the internet.

Mango Jack-o-lanterns

Part of Halloween Stash