Week 6: Fear Not

 

"And ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit, preaching my gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound of a trump, declaring my word like unto angels of God." ~Doctrine & Covenants 42:6

Malo e leilei famili! Forgive me, this email is super long.  If anything, skip down to the final paragraph and read.  If you don’t feel like reading this whole thing— yeah, my bad!  I didn't realize I was writing the entire Miriam Webster's dictionary. Lol!

This week has been super busy.  My hoa (companion) has been called to be the district leader and that means he has to take care of baptismal interviews and taking care of the district. I can tell he takes this job seriously. For P-Day we had it in Fua'amotu which, for us in Ha'asini, it's about an hour walk.  But for some of the sisters it's about 2 hours or an 1 hour and 30 mins.  My hoa had called the AP (assistant to the president) that picks us up (who is one of my long time good friends from Texas, Elder Foni).  Elder Foni said he was sorry and that we would have to walk, which to me and my hoa is not too big of a problem because I actually love walking!  But my hoa asked if Elder Foni could at least pick up the sisters.  Foni told us that he wasn't able to pick up anybody because there was a new intake (missionaries) coming in and they were super busy with that. The sisters ended up coming anyway.  Another thing that I noticed that shows my hoa cares so much is when we went into the MQ of the Fua'amotu elders. They did not have a fridge and they had this fan that was like literally on it's last legs.  If you looked at the fan, to be honest, it looked so funny because if the fan fell over then it would probably be over with. But my hoa wanted to make sure that they get a better fan and, even more importantly, a fridge. 

Anyways all that was from P-Day.  This week was good. We were able to ask Lima and Etuati if they wanted to be baptized and they both said yes.  So this coming Wednesday they will be getting baptized.

The rain and wind has been crazy this past week. We were walking in what seemed like light rain at first but then the rain came pouring down and the wind was pushing us around. The rain was hard and it was hitting my glasses so I took my glasses and shoved them in my taovala and started running to the house of one of our Kainga lotu (church members). When I got to the house of our kainga lotu, I shook off what water I could and I realized my glasses were gone.  It sucked because those were the glasses that tint automatically in the sunlight. I'm lucky cuz I have an extra pair but now when I walk in the sun it's like I'm pretty much just staring right into the sunlight.

One day this past week me and my hoa had headed to Lavengatonga because we had a lesson over there. We went to the laumalie’s (person we were teaching) house that we were going to teach at and called out to them but there was no answer. We called again but again, no answer. We hopped over the fence and walked around calling again but still no answer. I headed to the back yard and as soon as I called out, I heard a bunch of dogs barking.  There was about 6 to 8 dogs running towards me now and they were all barking.  I just stood there because sometimes dogs will be all bark and no bite.  So I stood there and one of the bigger dogs who was probably the alpha in the pack, lunged at my ankle to bite it.  I lifted my leg up so that it wouldn't get bit, and to be honest, I was already a little angry because I'm pretty sure we just missed an appointment with a laumalie.  So now when some random dog is trying to attack me, best believe I'm gonna be super angry.  It's funny, this kinda reminded me of a comedian my uncle Jared showed me and one of the things the comedian said was "somebody's gonna get a hurt today!"  So looking at these dogs I'm like, "Somebody’s gonna get a hurt today!" and when that one dog made a move I lifted my leg up and I kicked the dog into the ground. The dog whimpered and usually when I hear dogs cry I feel bad because I’ve got dogs at home and I love my dogs.  But if you try to bite the ankles of a servant of Jesus Christ—you gonna get a hurt today!  The dogs started backing up and when they got closer I just raised my hand up like I was going to punch them and they backed off. The owner of the dogs called them all back and told us our laumalie was in the city doing something for her family. I was still angry about the dogs—to be honest, I was more offended and thought “I’m trying to share the loving gospel of Jesus Christ and you're trying to take out my ankles?  I help people build their spiritual foundations on a rock, and you (the dog) gonna get rocks thrown at you.  Please know your place, dog.”

On a spiritual level, I want to share again my favorite scripture which is Deuteronomy 31:6. I've shared this scripture with this email list before but, again, the reason why I love this scripture so much is because it says "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." Sometimes on this mission even though I have a hoa it can sometimes feel very lonely.  But when reading this scripture I always pray and say "Heavenly father, please stand with me." And the instant feeling of comfort is something that I cannot forget. Sometimes I forget how much Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father love us. Heavenly Father created this whole plan for us to be with him again. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us and he hasn't even met us yet. When thinking about it, to be honest, I'm not sure I could lay my life down for people I did not know.

One last thing I want to share is that I was watching those Bible videos one day about Jesus Christ on the gospel app. I got to the part in the video where he is suffering in Gethsemane. Jesus fell on the ground and laid down and cried.  From the side an angel walks out and comes toward Jesus then laid his hand on him and sat with him. I was overcome with emotion because I sometimes feel I'm the one on the ground suffering and crying out, then out of nowhere comes Jesus and lays his hand on me and comforts me. There is a picture of a lost lamb covered in mud I included below, but in the background you can see Jesus Christ running to save  the lamb. We are all lambs of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we feel like we're too far from Jesus to come back to him, but we don't realize that Jesus is calling us by name, trying to find us and bring us back home. Jesus Christ will leave the 99 sheep just to find the 1 lost lamb. 

Ofa atu, 

Elder Tuha Vimahi

#HurrahForIsrael

 

Jesus Christ running to save the lamb   

             "Be strong and of a good ^acourage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the ^bLord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not ^cfail thee, nor ^dforsake thee."

Deuteronomy 31:6

"And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray."
Matthew 18:13

One of their kaingalotu brought Elder Vimahi & Elder Vaioleti sandwiches and soda for lunch.  

He said they were so starving that day.  His hoa took a picture of him as soon as he walked in LOL

Chowing down on their sandwiches. 

     

Playing cards with the kids.
Lima (stripe shirt) and Etuati (little boy next to her) will both be getting baptized on Wednesday.

Elder Vimahi & Elder Vaiolet with friends, Lina and Nela who got their mission call. 
Lina will be serving in Tonga.
Nela will be serving an English Speaking mission in Australia.

                 

Elder Vimahi said he never liked fruit before his mission but the pineapples are so bomb. 
He said they walk around and eat it like a lollipop or ice cream cone.

    

Typical Tongan snack--ice cream on a fat slice of bread

Another pretty sunset to capture.

Their beautiful oceanview