Cagi Laba!!! (Hurricane)

Bula Vinaka!

Well it has been a pretty crazy week. There is a Hurricane whipping through Fiji right now. We are actually the only 2 Elders in the whole mission that get to email today because everyone else has to just stay in their flats. In the Northern side nobody has electricity or water. It is pretty crazy here in Suva right now but it isn't supposed to hit here directly. The eye of the storm is supposed to start turning down this way though and head for New Zealand so it will probably get worse here today. The forecast for the thing has changed about a million times. It pounded Samoa pretty good. As of right now it is a category 4 hurricane which means the winds are over 100 MPH. Everything is cancelled and shut down and stuff. Pretty crazy. Everyone is fine though. It should pass by tomorrow, but we are not sure because when it hit Samoa it turned back around and hit Samoa a 2nd time, So we will see. We are definitely in the safest place though here in the mission office. I am pretty sure it is one of the nicest buildings in Fiji haha so no worries. It has been pretty crazy though because we are the ones that have to keep coordinating with President and all the zone leaders and making sure that everyone is getting checked up on regularly to make sure that they are all ok.

This was a really good week. On Tuesday was the day all the transfers happened and it was a pretty insane day. The weather was bad that day too and so every single flight that had missionaries on it got changed multiple times. So we had to keep on changing our plans and stuff to get everyone to where they needed to go. Me and Elder Estill drove like 140 kilometers that day just back and forth to the airport and all over Suva and Nausori. It all worked out good though and we got everyone to where they needed to be. On Wednesday we got to go through the temple with all of the people that were going home. It was really crazy because Sister Longley went home and she was in our intake! Time goes by way too fast. But the temple was way awesome because me and Elder Stock got the headphones and we did the whole session in Fijian!! It was so cool. It was all really easy to understand. I want to do it some more before I leave because I don't know if they will have the Fijian at other temples back home ha. How is the Gilbert Temple going by the way? You should send me some pictures of it.

Me and Elder Stock are having a blast ha we are doing a lot of really good work. We had some really awesome lessons this week. We have an investigator named Apenisa. He is in his mid 20s, he has always been a big partier and stuff but he has been coming to church for a while now. In Fiji this last week they had a huge YSA camp at this resort and he went to it and he came back and he wanted to be baptized. He just had a ton of really awesome spiritual experiences and realized how much more happy we can be when we are doing the right things. We went and saw him and asked him when he wanted to be baptized and he said "tomorrow" haha but since he had some of those problems with word of wisdom and stuff we need to wait a few weeks. He is doing awesome though.

Well I wrote the first half of this email a few hours ago, a lot of stuff has been happening. We had to run outside and help them cut down this big tree because it was falling towards the temple presidencies house. But then we went to President Klingler's and Sister Klinger made us some PB&J so that was sweet ha It is getting bad though.. the zone leaders from the west called and that is where it is hitting bad right now and they said there is just water coming through all the windows and doors even though they are shut tight just because the wind is blowing so hard. I cant imagine all the people that are just living in the tin houses... we might be doing quite a bit of service after this. Keep praying for us all here in Fiji. I know that we are in like the safest place but I wish we weren't. I want to be out and helping all the other missionaries and make sure that they are all ok. I know that I will be fine. I am just worried about the missionaries, and especially just worried about the people of Fiji because I love them so much. It will all be ok though.

Well just one other story I want to share real quick. We are still teaching that man Filipe, the one that lives with the old member Sister Sinu. Well earlier this week or maybe last week she was really sick and had been for a while and so we went to see Filipe and we taught him and then he asked us to give his mom (sis. Sinu) a blessing. So we did. and then me and Elder Stock went back to teach him the other day and he was amazed and bore a good testimony on how right after we blessed her and left she was better. She went out and started working in the yard and she is almost 80 years old haha it was really cool though. It is always a great feeling when we get to see how we actually do have so much power in our priesthood and especially how much faith these people have that the Lord can help them like that, through us. He also told a story about how the first day we came over his mom said the missionaries would be coming and he asked her if it was going to be Fijians and she said, no just 2 boys from America. So he wasn't home when we first got there and so we were just sitting down talking with Sis. Sinu and he came home and heard people speaking Fijian and he thought "o, they brought along a Fijian boy to translate for them" and he came around the corner and just saw us and so he thought "o the Fijian boy must have gone to the bathroom or something" but then he saw that it was my mouth moving and that the Fijian was coming out of my mouth and he said he almost fell to the floor because he was so shocked hahaha It was really cool. He said it is a miracle and just another witness to him that this is the true church. It is way fun to be with Elder Stock now too because his Fijian is way good so when we teach in Fijian it is just like we are speaking English, probably better haha me and him even just speak Fijian to each other a lot of the time. Way fun.

 Don't worry about this hurricane stuff either. We will all be ok. Au lomani kemudou!!

Loloma, Elder Hawk