Sister Keapo Chong's Mission Journeys: Conference and Spiders

oh my gosh there is so much going on at home!!! new house, volleyball, burnt hands, dancing, soccer, hula, DAD GOING SCHOOL!! makes me miss you guys even more. but dont worry, i never regret coming on my mission, i love it!!!

we got to watch conference this weekend. it was sad though because only 15 of us came to watch the saturday sessions and then on sunday morning a lot of people from the branch and then on sunday afternoon the same 15 from saturday stayed. on sunday we had no power, like every other sunday, so we had to find a generator. so we hooked it up and it worked but then something happened and it shut off. they went and got it fixed but then it shut off again 5 minutes later because the cord blew up. so they had to go buy another cord. so while the rest of us were waiting we sang hymns for about 30 minutes. it was just really frustrating and hard work just to watch conference. i never had to go through so much just to watch conference. but now im deeply grateful of how fortunate we are at home to be able to just turn on our tv and watch it and also that every sunday we have power in the chapel. counting a lot of my blessings here.

well, the work is moving fast here. there has been so many changes since i got to the area. im not sure if its because im making the changes or what but its a good change lol. we had zone meeting training on thursday and the zone leaders were talking to us about members present at our lessons. we have actually been doing really good in getting members present in our lessons but the mission overall has had decreasing numbers in members present. so as a zone we made a goal of 5 members present a week. that's what we're mainly focusing on now. we're trying to look at our investigators and think of who in our branch would be able to connect with them. this last week we met our goal and we have been taking different people to our lessons, instead of the same 2 or 3. my testimony has been strengthened so much from having the members in our lessons. their testimonies and experiences they share have strengthened me so much.

we had a lesson with Lucy, who is getting baptized on oct. 26 with her husband Meli, about the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. we took with us the young women president, Sis. Rakuita. she is just so sweet and she has been through so much. her love for the gospel is immeasurable and her testimony is immovable. while we were teaching Lucy, i couldn't feel the spirit as strong as i usual do and i was getting nervous because i had no idea what to say. so while sis. rakuita was sharing a personal experience i said a prayer in my heart. a short but powerful prayer asking for the spirit to be with me as i taught lucy. the next time i opened my mouth in the lesson, it was filled with exactly what needed to be said. at the end of the lesson we asked Lucy if she had anything to share and she started to bare her testimony. she said it in fijian so i got the main things but i didnt understand everything but i could feel the spirit so strong and she started to cry but i knew it was tears of joy and then i began to cry. so after the lesson we asked sis. rakuita what she was saying. sis. rakuita told us that she is so grateful for us sisters and teaching her the truth. she never knew how much our Heavenly Father loved her until we started teaching her about the gospel. she never knew why our Savior, Jesus Christ, came and died on the cross, until we taught her about the atonement. she never use to wake up in the morning and pray to thank heavenly father for everything she has until she learned about the power of prayer. i began to cry knowing how much this gospel ive known my whole life could change someones life so much. before my mission i always use to take the gospel for granted and i never took the time to share it with anyone because i never thought anyone wanted to know about it. but now i know that there are so many people in this world who are searching for something and that something is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

this conference they talked a lot about member missionary work. LISTEN TO THIS COUNSEL!! DO MISSIONARY WORK!! as a missionary now i can tell you that it is so hard to do the work without the members of the branch/ward. so my challenge to you all is to help the missionaries. give them referrals, go with them to lessons, feed them, do anything you can to help them. the best way to find new investigators for a missionary is through the members. so i challenge you and want you to be a missionary!! when the member missionaries and the full time missionaries work together the work will go faster and many more people will have the opportunity to receive the gospel.

okay so this week there were a few fun things that happened :) first one i went into the shower and was about to turn on the water when i saw a huge spider the size of my hand right next to the faucet!! i screamed so loud and wrapped my sulu vakatoga (lavalava) around me and ran out so fast. my companion was just laughing at me and i was like stop laughing and get it out haha. so she got it out of the shower and i almost didnt shower that night, i was fine with just putting on my pajamas and going to bed. it was terrifying!! second, we went to our family home evening/dinner appointment on monday night. it was dark and we were walking on the road to their house but there was construction! so while we were walking this huge truck decides he wants to come and drive straight towards us. so we had to like run to the side, in the bushes, to wait for the truck to pass and you know what happens...i didn't see there was a little ditch/hill thing and i slip and fall flat on my back!! this old man was next to us and was just cracking up, laughing so hard. i was so embarrassed!! we got to the house and the kids were like "sista chong why is your skirt and shirt all dirty? did scooby (their dog) jump on you?" i didnt even want to answer i just told them no he didn't and walked to see the parents lol. so shame!! third, there's this road we walk down to this settlement. along the road there's the cows and goats just hanging out, eating grass, and don't usually bother you. well, we were walking on this road and we're walking past one of the cows and then there was a little calf. well me being so smart was like aw what a cute little cow. went a little closer to look at it and the mama cow started to run towards us!! oh my gosh i was scared for my life!! we ran and good thing the cow was tied up so it stopped but it stared at us until we were out of sight. so im scared to go back lol. okay my last story happened on friday night. so some background first. me and ikaia are in the same zone, meaning if we had a zone conference we would see each other. so ive been waiting to see him and our zone conference is going to happen next month so im so excited to see him. well on friday night we were just about to go to bed when our district leader called us to tell us that there were transfers. so he's reading off all the names to us and where they're going, i wasn't really listening until suddenly i hear, "Elda Nawahine." Ikaia was being transferred to Suva!! i almost started to cry because ive been waiting to see ikaia and now when there's only a couple weeks before i can see him, he get transferred to a different zone, a different island!! isa!!

well that was my week. au lomani kemudou sara ga!! au misitaki kemudou!!!

loloma levu,
sista chong