Vakatawase!

Bula Vinaka noqu matavuvale!

Well it sounds like everything is going awesome back home! I am really jealous that you guys got to go shooting! There are NO guns in Fiji haha the police don't even have any guns. The only people that do is the military. That is sweet that the boys both did good in that tournament, and that their team did so well. It was really fun talking to you guys on skype. It made me actually miss you guys for about that day... but it wore off again and I don't miss you anymore... haha im jk. I do miss you guys a ton but it just doesn't really effect me because I am so busy and having so much fun here. I cannot believe that I am going to be 21 on Wednesday... I didn't shave this morning and my beard is big just from one day! haha I am totally going to grow it out for a while when I get home just to see how big I can get it. We are going to be flying over to Savusavu on my birthday to go on exchanges with them over there. I didn't plan it like that but if I did have to plan where I wanted to be on my birthday I would probably choose Savusavu so it worked out pretty awesome. The senior couples over there know that it is my birthday and they both said they are going to be making me some cake so that should be sweet as well.

Well this week was another fun filled busy week for us. I guess you know about all of the stuff that we did up through Tuesday from Skype. The picture on this email of me and Elder Stock is what we wore on Christmas day here haha Our Christmas tree had fallen down so we used the stuff on it to decorate ourselves instead. Turned out pretty sweet.

On Thursday we had our Zone Leaders Council. It was really good. Probably one of the best ones that I have been to. All of our zone leaders right now are way good. It is really cool to see how all of us at that meeting have like the same good attitudes about everything. It is fun because all of us have been serving together all this time and we are all really tight together so it makes things really fun. We had cheeseburgers and milkshakes for lunch and it was amazing... haha funny how not having little things like that makes us appreciate them so much more. There is actually 3 McDonald's here in Fiji, 2 here in Suva and 1 in Nadi, but they are too expensive usually for our support money and it really isn't the same as America ha We always go there to get soft serve ice cream though because that is the one thing that is cheap and good. Still WAY different than American soft serve though.

The highlight of this week was for sure going up to Nasivikoso though. We were going to go to after the Zone Leader Council on Thursday but we had to deal with some other stuff that happened here. So on Friday morning we woke up really early and then drove with the Lautoka ZL's over to Nadi. The Lautoka ZLs are Elder Moaalii and Elder Tausinga so that was really fun to get to be with them for a few days. So from here to Nadi was like a 3 and a half hour drive, then we picked up a member and drove another 2 hours up the crazy mountain rodes way into the interior of the island. That is what some of those pictures are from. It was so beautiful up there. When we got there we split up and went to just find the people that have been going to church up there and aren't members yet and also to look at the flat the the Elders would stay in if we send a set up there full time. I would LOVE to get to go serve up in there and just live in the village like that. They would have to bathe in the river and use the neighbors outhouse if we send them up there. It would be awesome haha So the Elders haven't been up there for a while and there is like 8 people that we taught that have been going to church up there and will probably get baptized in the next little while. We taught 6 lessons in like 4 hours ha it was so awesome. It is crazy because it is just this village out in the middle of no where but the church is booming there. There is like 70-100 members there which is more than attend some of the wards here in Suva haha they just meet in this tin building. I will try to send a picture of that too. It was so amazing being up there though. Then we drove back down that night and stayed in Nadi and then drove up to Lautoka the next morning so go see the Zone Leaders area there. Then we drove all the way back to Suva from there. It was a really good exchange, we got a ton of work done.

Well there is an Elder here named Elder Ishibashi and him and his family were following my blog before he came out on his mission and he was skyping his family here in the office this week and so I went over and said hi to them and I told them that I would give him a shout out this week in my email home so that it would make it on the blog. So shout out to The Ishibashi family in Hawaii! You have a very nice family! And thank you for letting us have Elder Ishibashi here with us! He is the man! He is doing great work.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! And especially for taking care of me and putting up with me for the past 21 years! haha Au lomani kemudou!!

Loloma, Elder Hawk