Sea Urchins....yummy????

Hello again! I have a lot to tell about my week!

Monday- The night before some stuff went down, I was called some rude names. I had to sit on it all night. I confronted the problem and expressed how I felt. The situation turned out a whole lot better. The relationships that I have with the Elders in our flat has grown so much stronger all because of courage. What a blessing the have to Holy Ghost to teach each of us the importance of control. We also had a funny argument with an investigator about pencils. Weird!!!

Tuesday- District Meeting. Working with the senior couple in our ward is one of the funniest times, but one of the most stressful times all put into one (The next day will explain this). Many of our appointments fell through so we did what we could. As we were leaving a less-active member's home we heard a man from across the street said "Who are you?" And then added "Ye are deceivers of the truth", and "your doctrine says that Satan is Jesus' Brother". Quite an angry man. We talked for a few minutes and then moved on because he just wanted to argue.

Wednesday- While traveling with the Irvines to an appointment with a recent convert a bird pooped on Elder Burns' window and he about threw up. Before getting to the actual lesson Sister Irvine asked me if I would say the prayer; she said, "Sister Matua is a Young Women's President." Elder Burns sat there laughing while I was super surprised, not sure why she said that but I was hoping to ask this contact if we were related. Plus Elder Irvine being the driver about killed us while driving from appointment to appointment; driving on the opposite side of the road, almost running into islands in the road. Yeah it was scary. We had a lesson with the Sisters in our District, Sister Kelli and Kata. Vai is her name. She had some really deep questions, she is a 7th Day Adventure I mean 7th Day Adventist. A very spiritual person who has read almost the whole Book of Mormon! One of the Elect!

THE DREAM TEAM

Thursday-Another day of work and humor. I attempted to fix my bike....didn't work. Spent an hour on it just to find out the the little pin that keeps the air in the tube was broken! In frustration I called it quits and to relieve the stress I made lunch for Elder Burns, then everything turned out okay:) I learned a lesson today that missionaries should NOT talk with teenage girls because they tend to have misconceptions about what you are doing here. They try and sell themselves to us, so you could say they "Reveal" who they really are. Then we were mocked while visiting with an in-active member (Ta'ala Family), the friend of the father pulled into the driveway yelling a Samoan word out his window he said "Pepelo" (liars in English). So grateful I was the only one that understood what was said. Later, Elder Burns was attacked by a Shiz Tsu. But nothing too serious just a little jump from the dog trying to bite him. Elder Burns told me gave the dog a knee to the stomach. To conclude the night we had a super inspired lesson with Nestacia. Phoenix's Partner:) She's been reading the Book of Mormon and had some really cool analogies. She related the Book of Mormon to the Lord of The Rings. We invited her to baptism but she said she wanted to wait until she got to the middle of the book.. NO!!!! We tried our best to teach her the reasoning behind it, and asked her to have a kneeling prayer with her. But Elder Irvine took the situation into his hands and said the prayer for her..it defeated the whole purpose of having her pray. We were a little upset but hopefully we can get her to pray next time.

Friday- The Assistants (Elders Talamaivao and Huffman) had a Trade-off with The Zone Leaders, which meant that they would need to spend the night. Friday morning we played rugby at the Local park for morning workout! What a great workout! Kept me awake all day. We had an awesome idea to play a game during lunch. It consisted of a box and flexibility. In the process of bending down I attempted to bounce to get the box ( Bad Idea). My hip bone popped and I jumped up and immediately grabbed my right bum cheek. Everyone laughed at me. While walking around during the day Elder Burns and I had a deep talk about concerns and worries that we had. Having someone to talk to really eased my mind.

Saturday-We ran into an atheist couple who verbally attacked us with questions concerning God. And why religion causes people to fight. Why should we give our money to a church. He had a whole lot of concerns. We felt so confident about the truths of the Gospel we ended up teaching them the Gospel for two hours. Each question they had we were able to teach a Gospel truth. Also had a full on conversation with a Samoan lady, haven't done that for a while. It felt really good. Ran into a member from my first area who is currently the Bishop, Bishop Afui'e. Then one of the scariest moments of my life. Always ask what is in the food before you eat it. The Taukolo and Tutagalevao families fed us a sandwich with AVOCADOS!! I didn't know there was until one of the little kids ran out and asked what's on the sandwiches. I have never pedaled so fast back to our flat. I took allergy meds and I was okay for the rest of the day.

Sunday- I learned another lesson about SIN. Gospel Principles lesson was on repentance. What I found out was this, Satan works on us by attaching thoughts of sins and feelings we have, that leads to sinful actions. So keep your thoughts and feelings clean so that we don't have the temptation to act on those feelings. Visited with Pita, he was the only one we visited. He shared stories about Tonga and his crazy dad killing cats. Ha, Ha! To end the night we had a visit with Phoenix. He was hung over. Couldn't really teach a lesson so we talked to him. So sad to see him regress, but hope we can help him on his way towards the Savior.

Halloween...look closely!!!!

Hope your week is amazing and full of happiness:)