The highlight last P-day was definitely our family house night with Edwin, the branch president, and his family in Tanovoli! We gave a message on the temple because their family is preparing to go to be sealed in the Fiji Temple by the end of the year. I don't think I have even gone in more depth on the temple in any lesson before haha. Elder Hales and I also printed off a bunch of pictures of important temples in our lives. It was pretty awesome! What made it even better was the bougna they made. Its basically just a bunch of random island food that they bury/bake in a hole with hot rocks. It was pretty dang good.
Tuesday the highlight was teaching Julie and Jack again. They fed us a nice little meal and we got to talk to and play with a bunch of random people playing volleyball and soccer.
Wednesday we saw Peter and Anna again up in Jarailan. We taught the word of wisdom and they totally understood everything already. They didn't even question that it was all inspired cause this couple has been prepared by the Lord already!! They also said that they will be doing a huge last dinner with me before I come back home and they are going to custom adopt me into their family :). They said to make sure I tell my parents at home that I have a mama and papa in Vanautu. They also gave me a custom name in their family, Maliu. Pretty cool! I am going to have to see this family after my mission one day!!
Thursday we met this new potential investigator named Mele! He is super nice to us but had a ton of slightly aggressive questions about the church haha. We promised we'd come back to help him understand everything. Its crazy that even in the far corners of the bush of the world, people hear crazy rumors about Joseph Smith haha.
Friday we had our exchange with the Palon Elders. Their area is the single most far area from ours on all of Santo lol. Alot of driving back and forth to say the least. I stayed in south Santo, Jarailan and Tanovoli with this really cool elder from Malaysia, named Elder Sylvester. We were busy all day long. We started off teaching Mama Pauline and her family again. We talked about the Book of Mormon again. We read 1 Nephi 1:1 just to show them that you can learn a ton of things just from one verse of scripture. Next we met this inactive member in a village called Saradei. This lady is practically the only member in the entire village just because the other churches are so strong there. She really really wants to go to church and has a strong testimony but her husband wont let her, to make it worse the village is pretty far from the church building to walk :(. We are hoping to work with her husband soon :). She actually shared her family verse of scripture with us in Romans 8:16. This just happens to be one of my favorites in the new testament! I recommend reading the whole chapter, especially the last couple verses of the chapter. To end the exchange we were heading back to Palon, the opposite side of the island but the truck got a flat tire! We had to get our proselyting clothes all nice and dirty to change it on the fly haha. We were a little late to Palon but were still in time for their baptismal interview of a recently married couple up there. We did the interview then exchanged back. Twas a good day.
On Saturday the highlight was definitely the lesson with the big Presbyterian family again. We talked about the Book of Mormon and a ton of people came and sat in on the lesson. Some how everyone just seemed captivated. Normally Ni-vans have pretty short attention spans but everyone was well engaged in the lesson. Twas cool to see. I probably gave one of my most sincere testimonies of the Book of Mormon I have ever given. The spirit was strong. Rest assured I'm trying really hard not to be trunky! :)
Sunday we had all 3 hours of church for the first time since I've been there! A solid members recently came back to church and received a calling as well! Right after church we went and saw some family members of the young men's president in the branch. He came with us and introduced us to them. They are two really solid new investigators now I think! Awesome to see members getting out and doing missionary work!!
That's about it for this week!
Avec amour,
Elder Burbank
Pictures:
Family house night!
A copra drying shack! Ill explain a bit haha. So there are tons of coconut plantations here on Santo and when the coconuts dry out and fall off the trees there are a ton of dudes who run around collecting them and then they "shell out". That just means they scoop out all the dry flesh and throw it into these little shacks over a fire. They then send it off to the factories to make coconut oil. Cool eh?
Belief is the reason we go on a mission. It is the motive for preaching about Christ and sharing/Proclaiming his love. Faith is understanding we are children of God and our Heavenly Father. May the definition of faith bless you in life Faith is defined again and because faith has an inherent joy it gives us a solid foundation that we finally have the peace we have been searching for.
ReplyDelete"Many believer's feed themselves on what God hasn't done. When I dwell on what hasn't happened, I create the atmosphere for the spirit of offense to arise and to thrive. When I dwell on what hasn't happened, I legitimize unbelief. I live with a sense of justification, for not believing God.
Faith in the purest sense is the ceasing of resistance. even when there's no physical evidence, when the other evidence is present. Not feeding ourselves on what God hasn't done Faith in it's purest form is the absence of resistance
Heaven is a place where everyone is celebrated, some are more honored but everyone is celebrated. All men and all women shall be judged on the light which they have received. Heaven is a permissible culture. God's nature is eternally permissible. These statements protect us from credit.
Faith in the purest sense is the ceasing of resistance, even when there's no physical evidence, when the other evidence is present. Not feeding ourselves on what God hasn't done. Faith in it's purest form is the absence of resistance. Faith doesn't deny a problems existence, it denies it's influence. He or she was someone whom aridity and desolation never disturbed for he or she had a deeply rooted, and a vigorous faith.
Now we can act as we have always dreamed. Now we can act as we have always been. Now we can step into the light and gather the sunlight instead of blocking out our possibilities. Instead of blocking out our joy. Variety will bloom in/under the sun. We can show off our best, we can enjoy other people's gifts. We can blossom where we stand upon the joy that faith provides us. Upon the joy that faith inherently has, which blossoms the entire field of flowers"
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDYaxabUfkA - The Definition of Faith