Working Hard in Lami

Looks Like Kapahi!!!!

bula mama!

this week was invitation sunday! it's where all throughout the pacific the area seventy has asked all the wards to set aside 30 november as a special sunday to invite all of our non-member friends and families and our less actives. we had an amazing turn out!! a lot of the members brought friends to church and we also saw a lot of less actives come back. we had 5 of our investigators come to church!!! we almost had a party!! lol two of them it was their first time to church and they enjoyed it. we also may have gotten a new investigator from sunday that we'll go visit this week. so we were so happy and invitation sunday was a success!! 

the theme for the sacrament meeting was matthew 11:28. one of the speakers was one of our returning members. he did an awesome job!! it was amazing to see how far he came, from not even living church standards anymore and falling away to standing in front of a congregation bearing such a powerful testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. it was blessing to see. i learned that it is never too late for someone to come back into the Gospel. we should never give up on visiting them or inviting them back. eventually they will back. 

on thursday as we were walking through one of our areas a guy called us over, wanting to know more about the church. we sat down where he was and asked us, "so what do you guys believe?" i was like whoa man, it'll take more than just one meeting to tell you what we believe. so we asked him if he had time and we had a lesson with him. we started teaching the first lesson, the Restoration, and were talking about prophets when all of a sudden he tells our member present in fijian (thinking we dont understand)...."can i have guys come because they can actually teach me something." i stopped and just said "you have anything you want to share or a question?" he then opened up to the scripture "i am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ...." he repeated the same things over and over and said he wants men to come and teach him because only men can tell him what that verse means. we sat there for a little while and he went on and on and then my companion just jumped in and told him what the scripture meant. she told him that no matter if you have men or women come and teach you, we teach the same things. he got quiet after that and finally listened to what we had to share. he tried to prove the Book of Mormon wrong and told us that he just wants to understand Christ's life and why He came and suffered for our sins. i asked him if we could share a scripture from the Book of Mormon and he agreed. we opened to alma 7:11-12. after we read it and i explained it a little and all he said was, "who wrote this book!?" with such excitement. we knew that now he was ready to listen to us. we explained more about the Book of Mormon and invited him to read and pray about it. he said he would and asked us to come and check up on him every time we walked by to see how his reading was going. so we will go back and see him this week and see if the Holy Ghost has pierced his heart yet :)

our new investigator that we met last week when she came to church is doing amazing! we went to her house after church on sunday and was able to talk to her mom and her sister as well. they are such kind people. the mom told us of all the hardships she's gone through and is currently going through. she asked us about our missionary work and if we go through hard times as well. we told her that this is hardest thing we've ever done in our lives but it's also the most rewarding. we taught them the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they believe everything. in that same lesson we committed the two sisters to be baptized on 20 december and they accepted. so we're really excited for that!! they love coming to church and activities and love learning more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. we're excited for them!!

the work here in lami is going very fast and we're barely keeping up. definitely keeping us busy :) a new intake came in today and we'll have 2 of the sisters staying with us while they're doing orientation and stuff, so that's exciting!! i think that's all for this week. au lomani kemudou!! sota tale!!

loloma levu,

sista chong

Missionary Homecoming Dinner

Bula Maleka!

LAMI!!

bula mama!

well this week was a pretty busy week for us! we were working hard all day from morning until we had to go home at 9pm. we felt like we didnt have enough hours in the day to visit all the people we wanted to. 

yesterday at church we had some people come to church that we never expected. one of them being a guy we never taught yet, but one of the members brought him. another one was a lady who met the elders yesterday and told them that she wanted to go to church. so they told her the times and she came to our ward because she doesn't speak fijian. so now we're going to start teaching her!! yaaayyy! she has been through a lot and im so excited to get to know her better and see the Gospel bless her life.

this week there was a girl in our ward that came home from her mission in the Philippines. we went to her homecoming dinner at their home. they had sooooo much food!! (ill send you pictures) but i was watching her all night and she just looked so sad and lost. like she only wanted to talk to us about the work and how everything was going. she scared me man!! but it was cool to hear her testimony on sunday. she shared about how much she learned to rely on the Savior and His Atonement and to use the strength that comes from it to get through the hard times. and it made me think about myself and how ive learned the same thing. to truly rely on the strength of the Lord when i feel i can't go any further or do anything more.

as a mission we're reading through preach my gospel and marking every scripture that's in it. we're trying to finish it before christmas. but this week i was reading through chapter 4 which is "recognizing the Spirit." as i was reading through it i got stuck on the section that talked about the Spirit of Promise. i never really heard about it so i decided to take some extra time and study it more. it took me took D&C and i learned that it's the spirit of promise that seals the covenants we make in this life for the life to come by those who hold the keys to do so. i also learned that when we dont keep our covenants then that sealing doesn't exist anymore. how scary is that!? it made me think, am i keeping all the covenants ive made so far? what can i do to make sure i keep my covenants? so i challenge you to ask yourself that question and really think if you're keeping all the covenants you've made.

one day as we were walking to one of our appointments and we saw this old palagi lady standing by her window. so we waved at her and she told us to come in. when we went inside she was very nice and she introduced us to her son, who had some real crazy long hair. as we were talking to them, we got real excited and thought we would possibly have new investigators......but oh how wrong we were. after a couple minutes she started asking us the same questions that she asked us when we first got there, we realized she had short term memory loss. and then her son started bible bashing us and talking about all these things in the bible that i had no idea what he was talking about. after a while we realized that we wouldn't be getting 2 new investigators, but we were grateful that we met them :) they gave us some good laughs for the day.

well i think that's all for this week. just plenty lessons. and many more to come this week. good to come us busy :) au lomani kemudou!! sota tale!!

loloma levu,
sista chong

A Great Week

Hawaiians in the House

bula mama!!

well this week was amazing!! we had mission tour. which is when one of the area seventy presidency comes and goes around our mission visiting different areas and speaking to us. i dont know if you remember but last year elder pearson came, and this year we had elder haleck. he was the one that spoke about the sacrament in this last general conference. but he and his wife came to talk to us and visit our mission. sis. haleck and sis. layton talked to us about simplifying our teaching so that our investigators understand better. they talked to us about asking inspired questions, using object lessons, making sure we use words they understand, especially the Gospel terms. it really helped and so that's what we're focusing on a lot now. 

MTC Intake

we then had elder haleck and pres. layton talk to us about using our missions to prepare us for the rest of our lives. it was pretty intense but it really opened my eyes and helped me to see how important it is to do everything you possibly can on your mission. they also talked a lot about exact obedience. which is something that my companion and i have been working on and i must say we're doing pretty well. lol. but you know there's always room for improvement. so we're going to really focus on being exactly obedient so we can get the most out of our missions. they helped us to see the lessons we've learned in our missions. things like learning how to study effectively, the power of prayer, blessings and miracles that come from obedience, and so many more. something that the mission has taught me was to grow up. haha! it's taught me that i needed to develop my own testimony and to lean on my own faith and beliefs. i've learned to really appreciate the Restoration of this Gospel. it was an awesome mission tour!! also i got to see a lot of missionaries ive served with before and also elder nawahine.

we also had stake conference this last weekend. we got to go on sunday only because it was out of our area and the theme was "hastening the work of the Lord." there were really good speakers. one of the speakers was the principal of the LDS college and he talked about how we need to make sure that before we go out and convert others we need to first convert our souls. he talked about how our spirituality level never just stays the same. we're either strengthening our testimonies and becoming more converted or it's slowly disappearing. so we need to constantly be increasing and strengthening our faith and testimonies. then pres. and sis. layton talked. sis. layton talked about how when we have something exciting then we just die to tell other people, and that's how we should feel with the Gospel. pres. layton told the story of Joseph Smith and how the same church Christ established is back on the earth again and how lucky we are to be a part of it and to be living at this time. it was a really good talk for our investigator.

A-Town Represent!!

as for lami this week it was awesome!! we went around with a member and just went looking for former investigators and we found about 5!!! they were really excited to see us and are looking forward to seeing us and having lessons again. so we're way stoked and excited to sit down with them tomorrow. 

lastly i had an elder ask me if i was from the "ghetto" of hawaii. hahahaha!! he asked where i was from
and i told him hawaii and then as i was talking to him and other missionaries he was like, "um sis. chong are you from the ghetto of hawaii?" what in the world!? lol he said it was because of the way i talk so i guess i just sound like a ghetto girl!!!! as you can see not much has changed :) well au lomani kemudou sara valevu!! 

loloma levu,

sista chong

p.s. on saturday it was burning hot!! no joke!! i have the worse tan lines ever!! ill take a pics and send it next week. lol everyone thought we went to the beach or something hahahaha

My Mission Daughters

A Missionary in Fiji.... Now that's the Life!!

bula mama!!

i can't believe that you guys are in disneyland again!! that's like what...the tenth time!! my goodness. but it doesn't matter because im in the best place in the world. haha...but really. a missionary in fiji.... now that's the life!!

but this week just flew right by!! i can't believe it's monday already. we had exchanges this week and so when you have something out of the ordinary in your schedule it just makes the days fly right by. it's ridiculous!! but im enjoying every minute of lami. the other day we went and visited our investigator, whose husband is a member, and we taught her about the Restoration. when we walked out of that lesson we didn't feel very good about it and we felt like we could've taught it a whole lot better then we did. so we studied and role played the next couple days until we were going back on saturday for our next lesson. as we taught the lesson you could feel the Spirit there. you could tell that it was something very different and new to her and it's going to take her a while to receive her answer. in that same lesson we committed her to be baptized when she came to know these things were true and she accepted. she said it'll take her some time but when she receives her answer, she will be baptized. 

we also went and taught another one of our investigators who the elders before us made a notes saying that she asks plenty questions!! so ofcourse me and my companions are like "oh yeah!" haha so we went and asked her if she had any questions about the plan of salvation, which was her last lesson. she had a couple really good questions. she asked us to explain more about the 3 kingdoms and the differences, she asked us, if there's a guy who does everything that was right and just but just didnt have a religion compared to another guy who had a religion and was baptized and everything but sinned and then repented all the time, which one would Jesus Christ take? as soon as she asked that question the talk, "his grace is sufficient" came into my mind. we explained to her that Christ doesn't only want some of us, but all of us! he's going to ask us to use His Atonement in our lives. also that first guy would have the chance to be baptized in the spirit world. as we answered her question it helped her realize and see that Heavenly Father's plan is perfect!! there are no loop holes!! isn't that amazing!? Heavenly Father loves us so much that he doesn't leave us wondering, but gives us a way that if we follow it, we will return to Him. 

on thursday we went and did service for this one fijian family. the have a teitei (farmland) kind of by their house and they took us out there to go cute the grass and weeds growing around their dalo and cassava and stuff. so we went to do that, oh yeah and did i mention that we did all this with a cane knife!! so you see 4 sister missionaries, obviously not from fiji, walking to the teitei, each with a cane knife in their hand. what a sight aye!! lol but we worked out there for like 2 hours and i got so dark! and the worse tan lines! ugh but it was a lot of fun. the old fijian lady that we helped is bu bibi. she's like this cute, old fijian lady, that's hunched over because she worked in the teitei her whole life. but we kept telling us, "dou sa oca, sa rauta!" which means, "if you guys are tired, then enough." haha she was such a funny lady. she sang to us and just kept talking and at the end she had her grandson climb the coconut tree and get us some coconuts to have after we worked. it was nice :)

we're still trying to find all of our investigators from the elders before, but they dont answer their phones and stuff so we're hoping a member will show us their house this week. im making every day count :) crazy how fast time is going. it's already november, say what!? and in sacrament our ward is already singing christmas hymns....making me nervous hahaha!! well au lomani kemudou!!

loloma levu,

sista chong

The Work in Fiji Continues

Dinner at Bishop's

bula mama!!

well nothing really new this week. we're still wandering around with the Spirit hahaha! it's really fun :) and we've been able to meet so many different people from it. 

this week we were able to visit a husband that's less active, but his wife and kids are not members. he came to church last week for the first time in over 20 years and he told our bishop that he is committed and is ready to come back. so we went and visited his family on saturday. before we walked out of the flat we said a prayer (as usual) and then something told me to grab 2 book of mormons. so i went and grabbed them before we left. when we got to their house we talked story and got to know them and then we started our lesson. as soon as we finished the opening prayer the husband asked us where they could get a book of mormon. when he asked that inside i was like "oh my gosh!! this is crazy!! i got 2 book of mormons in my bag!!" so i opened my bag and gave them to him. i told him that something told me to grab them before we walked out the door and now i knew why. he was so touched and we started to teach him and his wife more about the book of mormon. we shared with them moroni 10:3-5 and they both committed to start reading it as a family. we then invited them to church and he was like, "dont worry sisters, im never missing another sunday."

the next day was sunday and we walked into the chapel and guess who was sitting there already.....the whole family!!!! he brought his wife and kids with him to church!!! oh my gosh my companion and i wanted to just like jump up and down and scream haha. best feeling ever!!

we are also teaching another less active. he's an older man and has been a member for a while. we taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ this week and the Spirit was so powerful!! it made me realize how important it is for us to endure to the end. enduring to the end is what we pretty much do our whole lives!! if we dont endure to the end then we can't go back to our Heavenly Father. it is such an important step that we need to take. it hit me real hard in that lesson and i told myself that i will do everything i can for the rest of my life to endure to the end.

well i love you all!! sorry it's a little short this week. ill do my best to write more next week, but no promises :) hahaha au lomani kemudou!!

This Toko, aka TOKS!

This is Kanani!  We 'olelo in Hawaiian.  hahahaha.

Fijian kid's favorite game "Vaqiqi Taia"

Training in Lami!

bula mama!!

well im gonna be honest, this was a long week!!! i swear we did so much this week. partially because i had to help sis. matheson with transfers all day wednesday and so we woke up at about 430am two days in a row!! and you know how i am waking up early in the morning hahaha! but we made about 3 or 4 runs to the airport to pick up and drop off different sisters and then we were just driving back and forth transferring all the sisters to their new area. then finally we are here in our new area :) I LOVE IT!!! 

my new companion is sis. crichton and she is from australia. she came pre-trained!! no joke. she has just jumped into the work and is getting the hang of things already. sometimes i forgot that im training her because it's like she's been out for a while. until she says, "ummm what are we suppose to be doing now?" then i remember that she's still in training and is still learning missionary life haha. but she's awesome! our first lesson together she was already teaching right along side me which im so grateful. we get along a little too well haha. people probably think we're crazy when they see us walking down the road because we're always laughing and jumping around. so fun! also everyone thinks we're sisters or cousins or something. it's way funny.

our new area, lami 2nd is amazing! the members that we were able to meet so far were so nice and they showed us around a little. it's an english ward but everyone speaks fijian!! our first day in the area i was kind of overwhelmed because i didn't speak fijian in my last area, but now that's all we speak. and i love it!! it's fun helping sis. crichton learn fijian. she has a desire to learn and im learning as well! i already feel my fijian getting better and better everyday that we go out and meet members or just anyone. 

on thursday it was our first full proselyting day together in lami. so we looked at our map and picked an area called "qauia" and decided we were just gonna follow the map there and wander around. so that's what we did. one of the members we met the night before was so nice and dropped us at qauia and then we just walked in and wandered around BY THE SPIRIT :) we called one of our investigators that lived there and were able to go visit her and found out she was getting baptized on saturday! so good thing we went and saw her. then she told us she wanted to be baptized by one of the members that lived pretty close. so we went to their house looking for him and found like 3 houses full of members!! what a blessing and a miracle! we met a huge family that were all members and they helped us to find some other members and even one of our less actives. it was definitely a day of miracles.

so if you haven't noticed yet, yes i am walking again. haha! me and sis. crichton are on the same level, both out of shape. it's her first time walking long distances (like all the missionaries when they first get here) and ive been driving in a car for 6 months. soooooo we're working on it together. the first day we walked we were both dripping with sweat and it looked like we just ran a marathon and really we only walked for like 20 minutes lol. but it gets easier and easier. but its been raining everyday!! saturday we were walking to qauia village and it was pouring! by the time we got to our appointment (who wasn't home) it looked like we didn't even use an umbrella at all! haha it was fun though...sis. crichton had a lot of fun. 

io....so to start of our new area we had 2 baptisms on sunday. they were suppose to be on saturday but there was no water in the chapel so we had to move it. so sunday we had the baptism and it was really special. good thing we could find those 2 investigators before the baptism haha. but the ward was very supportive, so im grateful. 

well that's about it for me today. i love my new area!! i love my companion!! and i love my mission!! maybe not walking in the pouring rain so much but we can't have everything we want :) au lomani kemudou sara valevu!! sota tale na macawa mai qo!!

loloma levu,
sista chong

Getting Transfered!

bula mama!!

well i finally watched conference!!! it was amazing as usual!! also im getting transferred!! also i got a call from the office on friday asking what airport i was flying home to. and lastly, i got into a mini car accident on saturday!! so you can see i had a fun filled week.

so let's start with transfers. i have been released as a sister training leader and i will now be training and white washing an area. can you believe this will be my last area!? anyway let's not think about that. but im not moving too far from samabula, im actually still in the same zone/stake. i dont know who i will be training yet. there are 3 new sisters coming in today and the funny thing is i have to take them shopping in town and so im gonna get to know them real good so that no matter which one i train, we'll be friends already haha. so im actually white washing an elder's area. so we'll see how that goes. im a little nervous, okay very nervous, but i know the Lord will help me!

so the car accident.....dont worry nothing major, im fine!! we were driving to pick up our member present and we were about to turn right off of the main highway when all of a sudden we heard like tires skidding. and i looked in my rear view mirror and saw this taxi just coming right at us. and then *BOOM* he hit us from the back. we didnt know what to do so we pulled over and he did too and we talked and had to call the police for a police report for the church records and stuff. so we called the police and waited there for 1 hour!!! no one came!!!! PLUS while we were waiting this fijian guy walked out of the house we were parked in front of and he was real nice until he started preaching to us. seriously!! i was not in the mood to be bible bashed!! so we just let him go off and finally decided that we were just gonna drive down to the police station. so we went there and the police got mad at us because i guess the law in fiji is if you get in an accident you just park your car right there, dont move! even if you cause traffic or anything you just stay there. but we got all that taken care of and only had time to do one lesson after that. goodness!

now conference!! sis. matheson and i felt like it was christmas!! we were so excited!! i enjoyed how a lot of the talks were about parenting, coming unto Christ, sustaining the prophet, and the sacrament. i could write a whole book about what i learned but what i want to share with you is the talks about the sacrament. one of the questions i had going into conference was "what can i do more to finish my mission strong?" the talks about sacrament were given i knew that as a missionary i needed to focus more on the sacrament. really thinking about the bread and water and what they represent. i want to make the sacrament a truly spiritual experience, a holy communion, and a renewal of my soul. i like how sister cheryl a. espin said that when we ponder during sacrament, we dont just think about all the mistakes we made and the temptations we gave into, but we need to think of all the opportunities that the Savior gave us throughout the week. when she said this it made me think about an experience i had about a month ago. we were on exchanges and had all fall throughs. no one was home and no one wanted to see us so i was like okay we'll go to this less actives house that ive never met. the one chinese family on our list. so we went. as we pulled up the son was right by the gate. so we were able to set a time to visit him and his family. that was an opportunity the Savior gave me because that family is never outside!! so we went back that Sunday and met that boy's uncle who is not a member and you know what!! now he is going to be baptized on sunday!!!!! right there....an opportunity from the Lord. lastly, i loved when sis. espin talked about when the aaronic priesthood passes the sacrament. when they stretch out their arms to pass the sacrament, they are representing the Savior, as if He were stretching out His arms to us and telling us to come unto Him and be made clean. what a thought!! i loved that!! 

well i hope that you have watched all the sessions of conference! there's good stuff in every single one. remember to sustain our beloved prophet by standing behind him and praying for him. au lomani kemudou sara valevu!! sota tale na macawa mai qo!! moce jo!

loloma levu,

sista chong