First Bible Bash and a Sacrament for 9

bula sia mama!

Anyway, this week was another slow week and we had a lot of fall through appointments. the work is moving slowly. everytime we think things are getting better, it just gets harder. we're still working on finding more investigators but we haven't been very lucky. the hard thing in fiji is everytime you go and knock on someone's door, they invite you in to sit down, have some juice, and talk a little bit. then you start to share about what you do and start talking about the gospel and then they tell you they go to another church, but all of God's word is good. so you pretty much get your hopes built up and then crushed. i sometimes wish that they would just shut the door in my face from the beginning so i dont sit there for like 20 minutes talking to just have them not be interested. another thing that's hard is that fijians are so nice that they dont like to say "no." so when we ask them if we can come back and meet with them they act all happy and excited but when it comes to that day, they start to lie and hide, which just wastes our time and we get so frustrated. i want them to just tell me that they're not interested and not be nice lol. but me and my companion are praying all the time to help us find some new investigators. hopefully we'll get some new investigators this week.

this week i had my first bible bash. me and my companion went into the pharmacy store to buy some face wash (which is $20!!) and while we were looking one of the workers comes up to us and at first asks if we need help. we tell her no we were just looking. then she asked us if we worked anywhere because of our name tags and we told her who we were and what we do. in my mind i was like "yes! this might be our new investigator." well, as soon as i thought that she suddenly said, "do you know what it says in Matthew 6?" where in the world did that come from! before i realized it she started throwing bible verses at us asking us if we knew what that verse said. she told us that we pray to God not Jesus and we told her yes we believe that too. and then she threw another bible verse at us, even though we agreed with what she said. i was so confused to what she was trying to prove! then she said there is one greater then Jesus, and we said Heavenly Father. but they are the same through their works and she said do you know Heavenly Father's name. we were confused by her question and told us, "God's name is Jehovah." she was a Jehovah's witness. I told her that Jehovah is Jesus Christ and that God is Heavenly Father. she just kept throwing bible verses at us with jehovah in it until finally i was like you know what, thank you but we need to go. we're not here to fight about religions. then we walked out. we then went to meet the elders for lunch and we told them and one of the elders was like "let's all 10 of us go back to the store and teach her the gospel." haha but dont worry we didn't. we just forgot about it. but that was my first experience and i hated it. i hated the feeling of not being able to say what i wanted to say because she kept cutting us off but i know that that's not what we do. we dont go around trying to prove someone else's religion wrong. we're just here to share our message and it's their choice to except it. but the Jehovah's witnesses here are really irritating. they go around telling people not to listen to us mormon missionaries because we dont believe in the bible, only the book of mormon. so they just give me more motivation and determination to teach everyone the truth!

This week we had a lesson with our one new investigator, Maca. she goes to seventh day church and she lives by Meli and Lucy and they asked us to come teach her. our lesson was really good and she understand and seemed to believe in the things we were teaching. we taught her about the Restoration of the gospel and we asked her if she had any questions at the end. she sat their quietly and asked, "how do you know which church is the true one? how do you know that your church is true, what about mine?" me and my companion sat there quietly looking at each other like who was going to answer her question. i finally just felt prompted to bare my testimony. i told Maca, "there's no scripture or anything i can show you that will convince you right now that our church is the only true church. but i can bare you my testimony that i know with all my heart that this church is true and that it's the only true church on this earth. i know with no doubt in my body that joseph smith was a prophet called of God and that he restored this gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ. this isn't joseph smith's church, it is Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's church that they restored through joseph smith. i testify that joseph smith translated the book of mormon by the power of God. and that by reading it, it's the only way you can know that joseph smith was a true prophet. only if you read and pray about it." i could feel the spirit so strong at that moment. it didn't feel like i was speaking but rather my lips were moving and the spirit was giving me the exact words to say. after, i bore my testimony she didn't say anything. she couldn't argue with me because it was what i believed, but i knew that it impacted her and i could see the spirit working in her. i now can truly testify that there is no way at all you can do missionary work without the Holy Ghost! the Holy Ghost converts, not us.

Lastly, yesterday we went with the elders up to Boca loop which is about a 15 minute drive from town, where we took up sacrament. the elders are starting a unit up there and they invited us up there because technically it's our area it's just that we don't have a transport so it's too far for us walk. but we hold the sacrament meeting at a member's home, outside on her porch. her and her son are members and then only 2 other people came. so we only had 4 people at sacrament, besides us. this experience was so humbling to see the dedication and love these people have for the gospel. me and my companion got to speak to them yesterday and the spirit was so powerful, even with just the 9 of us there. it is an experience i will never forget and we will continue to go up with the elders on sundays and hopefully the unit will grow more and more.

well all is well here. i still love being a missionary and would not change it for the world. me and my companion always talk about the weird things we're going to do when we get home. well, just the fijian things that we'll do at home, which will be weird to you guys lol. it'll be fun!! but au lomani kemudou sara ga!!

loloma levu,
sista chong

Gotta LUV the NIU!

Some RS Sisters in Labasa Branch