ituku.tuku from Elder Hawk

Sunday, December 30, 2012

The Road to Nasivikoso

Fijian kids playing in the river

Potential Flat for the missionaries in Nasivikoso

The church in Nasivukoso.
They sit on the floor because there is so many of them attending here.

The village of Nasivukoso

Gotta love Fiji

Hawk & Stock on top of the world

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

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Temple at Sunset

Peni and Mela and their little girl Wini from Vunivesi came to the temple
to get sealed!

Companion Study by candlelight.
We were without electricity for 3 days after the hurricane

Hurricane Pictures

Vakanuinui vinaka nomudou Siga Ni Sucu!!

Bula vinaka!!

Well, yet another fun filled week here in Samabula. It is so crazy how fast the time goes by here but when I think about certain things or events that happen they seem way longer ago just because there is SO much that we are doing here all the time. I got the package you guys sent this week!! Thank you very much! My favorite part was definitely the gummy worm eggs ha The poster was really awesome too. I put it up on the wall in our flat. Last night me and Elder Stock made our Christmas tree... it is made out of a coconut tree leaf thing. It turned out pretty awesome haha Those are the pictures of it that I attached to it. The poster says the same thing as the subject of this email, it means "merry Christmas" in Fijian. Hope that you have a happy birthday too dad!

Well this week was a little different because of the Hurricane. On Monday everyone in the mission just had to stay in their flats all day. I guess we were the lucky ones that just got to be in the office and get to go and eat at Presidents house haha That night we had dinner at presidents house with a bunch of the senior couples because the power was out everywhere. After we had a FHE and me and Elder Stock were put in charge to lead it. I shared a scripture from Alma 26:35-37 and told of some experiences where on my mission I really felt like the Lord knew me and was aware of what I was doing and was helping me out with it. Then I had everyone in the room go around and tell of an experience they have had where they really felt that the Lord was aware of them and loved them. It was way awesome. Sister Klingler said that that scripture is actually the same one that Elder Jay E. Jensen shared with here when he set her apart to come here to Fiji. Then President Klinger played Christmas songs on his teeth.... haha he can do this way cool thing where he like flicks his teeth and moves his jaw to make different pitches and play any song. He is the man! haha

This week there is a girl here in the temple patron housing that came to go to the temple and get her visa to go to St. George to serve here mission there. She is from Vanuatu.

This week Peni and Mela and their little girl Wini from Vunivesi came to the temple to get sealed!! I was so cool to get to see them again and especially to get to see them come out of the temple after being sealed. I got a picture with them so I will have to send that to you. There was a couple other people from Savusavu area here too to go to the temple so that was way fun to get to see all of them.

We have a lot of really good investigators right now too. We have one guy we are teaching named Tiko. He has been taking the lessons for over a year and a half. He comes to church a ton and everything but he has just never been able to drop his problems with the word of wisdom. This week we had a really good lesson with him about the Atonement and how a lot of the time we forget the part of the Atonement where Christ suffered and felt absolutely everything that we would feel or face in this life. We taught him about relying on the Lord for help and also about having faith in himself that he can actually do it. He really has a desire to change and I know that he will.

Me and Elder Stock have been doing really good about just contacting everyone that we meet. That is probably one of the best things that we can do just because we are always so busy and running around everywhere. It is so fun that we both just have that excitement about the work and it really is just multiplied with us together. And we both just love the people so much and can really get people to feel comfortable and open up to us. The other day we were in town and we just started talking to a man that was working cleaning up the street. He was amazed that we were speaking such good Fijian because he had never met any other missionaries before. We started getting a few other of the workers that started wandering over because they could hear us speaking. Long story short we ended up at a picnic table in the middle of town, drinking juice with all of these people and teaching them about a living prophet and the restoration of the gospel. It was so awesome, and so much fun! We got all of their information and referred them to the proper missionaries in the areas that they lived in. It was way awesome.

We also had a pretty fun adventure the other night getting all of the Northern Zones Christmas packages on the boat to send to them so that they could get them before Christmas. The boat came in at about 9pm so we went to the dock with these 2 big huge boxes that had all the packages and stuff in them. There was THOUSANDS of people there that were trying to get onto the boat. So we were waiting outside of the boat for quite a while and it was way fun just talking to all of the people there. We finally started all moving onto the boat and it was a mad house haha we got onto the boat and it was just packed shoulder to shoulder but we finally made it to the cage and got the packages on. We ended up being there til about 1030pm. It was fun though just talking to all of the people there.

Well I hope that all of you have a very merry Christmas! I am so glad that we have always had those Christmas traditions that have made it so easy for us to really just focus on the true meaning of Christmas and to build our testimonies. So awesome. Well I am planning on Skyping on Wednesday morning here. So it should be in the afternoon on your Christmas day Well Au lomani kemudou!!!

Loloma levu, Elder Hawk