Well this has been a pretty crazy week. It has been good though. About the whole new missionaries thing that you talked about mom, we heard from President Klingler that in the 2 weeks after conference there were over 10,000 new missionary papers that were started. Usually they get only 700 a week. But there was 10,000 in 2 weeks. And over half of them were for sister Missionaries. Insane. It will be way awesome to have so many more missionaries out.
Well I guess I will just start from the beginning of the week and work my way up to now. On Monday night we went out to Vunivesi, that village that we cover in Savusavu. They had a HUGE feast for me and they made me a way sweet salusalu (which is that flower necklace type thing that you guys saw that guy wearing from the olympics) it was made with real flowers so it was way cool. I bore my testimony to all of them and I spoke all in their dialect for them. It was sooo cool. They were all way shocked that I could speak their dialect that well and so was Elder Moaalii haha it was really hard to leave there. We will have to go back there for sure.
On Tuesday we had our zone training meeting in Savusavu. All the missionaries on that island came in and even my replacement and the other missionaries coming to that side were there because they rode the boat over too. The training was way awesome. I cried in front of everyone as I was talking about my mission and all of the experiences that I have had and how thankful I am for all of them and how humbling it is to be called to this position right now but that I know I will learn so much from it. It was really good. Probably good for everyone to see that side of me. Then we went to dinner at President Vatus house and they made me this raw fish stuff that they make on Rabi Island where his wife is from. It was WAY good!!! I loved it. They gave me some stuff too. Then we got on the boat that night at about 9:00. It was me, Elder Inu, and Elder Tay. The boat left Savusavu at about 10. It was a pretty decent boat. We had an ibe (mat) so we spread that out and slept on that on the floor for a while. At about 2 am we stopped at Koro Island and so we went out on the deck so we could see it. It was super dark though but it would have been way cool to see in the light. Then we went back in and slept some more on the ground until about 6:30. We went out onto the front deck of the boat and just hung out there until we got into Suva at about 10. When we were coming into the bay in Suva there was a bunch of dolphins jumping up out of the water at the front of the boat! It was the coolest thing ever. And right when I pulled out my camera to take a video they stopped haha it was so awesome though. When I got to the office Elder Myer, the Elder I am replacing took me into a room and did a sevusevu ceremony to give me all the keys for the AP stuff haha it was really funny.That night we had all of the departing dinner and testimony and things for the outgoing Elders. It was crazy to be at President's house with all of the Senior couples and all of these Elders that I have looked up to my whole mission. I left like a little mouse among all of these spiritual giants but it was awesome.
Then on Thursday, our job was to take all those Elders going home around town in Suva so that they could go souvenir shopping. It was really fun. Then we put them on the bus and they were off. We also got to go to the temple with all of them that day too so that was really awesome. I will probably get to go to the temple pretty often now. The mission office is literally like 100 feet away from the temple. It is in the same compound. We are pretty much the mission travel agents. We buy all kinds of plane and boat tickets and plan where everyone is going to stay and all of that stuff. We deal with a whole lot of church money so it is kind of scary sometimes haha This week we also have all of the Elders and Sisters that are training and all of their trainees are coming in and we have to do trainings for them so this week will be insanely busy. We also have a new intake of 3 Fijians coming in from New Zealand MTC so we have to do all of that orientation stuff too. We are also planning all of the stuff for our mission tour and Christmas party. This is the busiest time of the year for the APs. It is crazy. President Hamula, the area president for all the pacific will be coming for our mission tour and we will pretty much be his personal drivers while he is here. It will be cool to have time with a general authority like that.
Yesterday we had to drive all the way to Lautoka on the other side of the island with president and his wife to do a missionary fireside. It is like a 4 hour drive. We drove presidents car. I drove back. It is really cool to get to know president better and be with him all the time. He is an awesome guy. I really hope I get released as AP towards the end and get to proselyte more again at the end because I am going to learn so much during this time and have a huge fire to want to proselyte again haha We actually have a ton of way good investigators here if we can ever find the time to see them ha
Well I have tons and tons of pictures that I want to send you from this week but my card is not working. So I will try to get that figured out. I love you all so much. Thank you for your prayers and support! Keep em comin! Au lomani Kemudou!!
Loloma, Elder Hawk
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