Talofa from Tuvalu!!

Talofa!!

Well... first off I am SOO stoked for Rand!!! He is going to be a great missionary and is going to have a blast in Argentina! I cannot believe that it is in Quynn's mission! I really hope that they get to serve around each other! I haven't watched the video yet because the internet here is slow and won't load it, but I will watch it once we get back to Fiji.... I am still here on the beautiful island of Tuvalu!!! Our flight to come here on Tuesday got moved back to Wednesday so we were WAY bummed because our scheduled flight back was for Thursday. So we were only supposed to be here for like 24 hours. BUT... the plane has been getting cancelled every day and now here we are still on Tuvalu six days later!!! It has been some of the funnest days of my mission. This place is amazing. It is so beautiful it is ridiculous. It is so TINY too. Pretty much anywhere you are on the island you can see the ocean on BOTH SIDES of you haha which is pretty insane. We have been studying the language while we have been here because we have been teaching TONS of lessons. We taught 28 lessons in 5 days! The work here is ON FIRE! But I can bear my testimony and say a prayer and explain myself a little bit all in Tuvaluan! It is such an awesome language. It is a lot like Samoan. It sounds so awesome. I wish I could stay here longer and really learn it well. The gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues is so amazing and real!

So the first day that we got here we got off the plane and we were straight to work because we thought it would be our only day here. We split up and taught a total of 8 lessons that day. I was with Elder Peleseuma. He is a Samoan from Australia and he is the man. I love him. But one of the other Elders that had served here before is in Suva now and so before we left we had him write down how to share a testimony in Tuvaluan and on the plane ride the whole way here I was just studying it and memorizing it and in the first lesson that we went to at the end I bore my testimony in Tuvaluan and Elder Peleseuma was shocked haha it was funny. Elder Stock has got it all down too. He is the man.We taught this lady named Ina and Elder Peleseuma was teaching her in Tuvaluan but she knows some English so I started teaching a little in English and I talked about how we have a living prophet today and how he spoke to the whole world just last week and I asked her if she would be interested in hearing what he said and to see him and she was really excited and said of course! The Spirit was really strong and it was just another good witness to me of how awesome it is that we have a living prophet today and how big of a blessing it is to know about it! Then that night at one of the other lessons we taught, after the lesson the guy said "you guys have to stay and eat" Because it was his daughter's birthday. So he goes outside and brings in a WHOLE pig!!! haha They cooked it in the lovo (earth oven) It was sooo good. I got some good pictures of it.

The next morning Elder Stock and I got up early and got on the bikes to go get some good pictures of the island because we thought we were going to fly out that afternoon. So we went all the way down to one end of the island and it was crazy because we were just standing on this little strip of white coral that is like 5 feet wide and the ocean is on both sides of us haha but that wasn't the side that we actually wanted to go to so we got back on the bikes and rode all the way to the other side of the island, which only took us about 40 minutes. But we got tons of amazing pictures down there too. So we came back and started walking to the airport and this member guy took our bag on his motorcycle and went to the airport to drop them off for us and we were walking and we saw him coming back with our bags and he stopped and said "no airplane today" We all were jumping around and so excited haha so we had another day of great work with lots of lessons and lots more of feeling like a greenie not being able to speak the language and not knowing too well what is going on haha it has been fun to feel that way again. I worked with Elder Smith that day and we had some more awesome lessons. We were teaching a boy about our age named Apo and it was like the same lesson to Ina about prophets so he spoke pretty good English too so I shared to him the same thing about conference that I shared with her and it had the same results. It was great!

So the next day Elder Stock and Elder Smith went to check at the airport about the plane and they said it would come on Saturday and they also said that for everyday that the plane is delayed we get $50 Australian as compensation!!! haha So we have been getting paid $50 a day for being in Paradise! So if we leave today we will have $200 Australian haha and Australian money is worth a little more than American money! So we will go back to Fiji and be rich!! haha So we have just been working hard every day and the work here right now is on FIRE! So we taught a total of 28 lessons in 5 days!!! That is so awesome. It has been good that we have been so busy and doing such good work. So then on Saturday the plane got moved to Sunday and then Yesterday we were at the airport waiting and they said it was going to come. They had already stamped our passports and everything but then the plane had to turn around because of problems and so we got to stay all yesterday too! haha We got to go to church here which was really awesome. There are like 100 active members and we got like 7 investigators at church which was really exciting.

One other cool experience that Elder Smith and I had was a lady that we just contacted at her house. Elder Smith was speaking Tuvaluan to her and she came out and we went and sat on the little hut thing that they all make by the ocean and she had good English so we just had like an introduction lesson with her in English and at the start she said "You guys are so lucky that God has called you to represent Christ" and she said "I know that you guys are called of God and that you have the Holy Spirit because I can see it in your faces" It was a really cool experience and a great blessing to hear that and realize how much people can see us as representatives of Christ. I am SOO blessed to be a missionary and a representative of Christ and I am so thankful beyond words for this opportunity.

So that brings us to today... they told us that they plane should be coming today and we have to go to the airport at 1:00 to check it out but we will see haha we do need to get back though. It is probably pretty hard on President to not have any Assistants in the country haha I feel so blessed though for the opportunity that I have had to come out here to Tuvalu and to have had so many great missionary experiences and testimony building experiences. I can't wait to send you guys lots of pictures once we get back to Fiji! It is going to blow your mind! haha and pictures don't even do it justice. But I love all of you guys so much! We have the best family ever!! haha There is a lot of exciting stuff happening in our family! It will be way fun to get to skype you guys next month and talk! Au lomani kemudou sara vakalevu kau sa vakavinavinakataka na nomudou veilomani veitokoni ka ivakaraitaki vei au!!!

Loloma levu, Elder Hawk