Sister Keapo Chong's Mission Journeys: I'm Training!!!

bula mama,

well we had transfers on saturday and guess what...I'M TRAINING!!!! sis. pyne is leaving and going back to Suva to be a sister training leader and im staying here in Labasa and training a new sister straight from the MTC. and let me tell you im freaking out!! i feel so unprepared and unready to train. i haven't even been out here a full 6 months yet and i already have to train a sister on what missionary life is like. i dont even know everything about missionary life!! but i know that the Heavenly Father knows me better than i know myself and trusts me to train one of His daughters. it'll take a lot of prayer and fasting to know what the Lord wants me to do and what i need to teach this sister. pray for her as well lol. she should be coming in on wednesday so we'll see how it goes. i have no idea what her name is, where she's from, nothing. so we'll just have to wait til wednesday.

this week was pretty awesome! we had a lot of member present lessons which was amazing! i love when members come with us to our lessons because it adds an extra testimony and a lot of the time they can relate to our investigators a lot more then we can. here in the mission we have 7 steps to success and the 6th one is "harness the power of the members." so this week we really focused on this one because we really need to do our best to get the members in our branch involved with the work. something important that i learned is to talk to the members about our investigators. here in labasa, usually someone in the branch will know who that investigator is because labasa is a small town. so we can take that member to our lessons because they already have a relationship, which means the investigator trusts them more.

on saturday our branch missionary leader came with us up to boca loop, bulileka. he taught us how to catch the bus up there because it's too far to walk and now we dont have to wait for the elders. we went to visit 3 families and it was awesome! it was the first time that i spent a full proselyting day with him. he actually asked if we could go up to boca because he wanted to meet our investigators. there was one family we went to see that we could possibly start teaching the whole family. they're indian so we didn't think it would be a good match to take bro. reo (our branch mission leader) because he's from rabi and doesn't really know how to speak hindi. but something told us that we should take him anyway and he was excited to meet this family we had told him about. we went and taught them more about prayer and asked bro. reo to share his experience with prayer as an investigator. his testimony was so powerful. the father of the family was so interested in what he had to say, which was a first because usually he just sits there. it was at that moment that i knew there was a reason we brought bro. reo there. even though he doesn't speak hinidi for some reason he had a special connection with the father, which made all the difference.

okay i have a few funny stories this week...

#1- i was at meli and lucy's flat for dinner one night and we were getting ready to leave. i stood up and was grabbing my bag when something tickled me neck and i got really scared and thought it was a mo'o and i kind of jumped and boom! i fell through the floor!! i broke one of their floor boards and i felt so bad!! but we were all like rolling on the ground laughing and i didn't want to stand up again so i just crawled out the door lol. it was so embarrassing but i was just grateful it was meli and lucy haha.

#2- getting into our taxi to go home on friday night there were to guys yelling at us, "lewa!!" which just means girl but anyway we just got into our taxi and these two guys get into our taxi with us and are full on drunk! they were so loud and hilarious! one guy told us that he was a member of the church and was talking to us about playing rugby for LDS while the other was totally trying to get to know our names and where we're from and everything. it was sooooo funny!! before they got out we invited them to church and the one that said he was a member was like "ofcourse! i always come to church!" he also invited us over for lunch after church it was hilarious!

#3- sitting on the ground after church waiting for our meeting i saw a bee coming closer and closer to me and you know what happens...it flies up my skirt!!! i jump up jumping up and down trying to shake it out of my skirt and it stings me on my knee. all the members that were there and the elders were laughing at me. i finally got the bee out of my skirt and squashed it. it was sooooo sore!!!!

well that's my week. got stung by a bee, broke the floor, made friends with some drunk guys, and found out im training. it was wananavu!! au lomani kemudou sara!! kalougata tiko!!

loloma levu,
sista chong