Week 7: Earthquakes

Elders from Vahe Amoni (District Ammon)

This week was smooth but a little tough. We were able to witness the baptism of 2 of our laumalies on Tuesday and it was a good program. This whole week it had been raining all day and all week long. Every time we stepped out side when we thought it was good to go it would start raining again. For some strange reason every time we do laundry and hang it out dry it rains, like bruh wth 😂. We usually hang our garments in our own home and then our other stuff at the neighbors house where we do our fō (laundry) at. We were out doing our daily vilo and then it started to sprinkle and we remembered we put our clothes on the clothes line so we sprinted all the way home to grab our garments and hang them up inside. There wasn't enough space for our other stuff so we had to just leave them in the rain sadly. I went to sleep that night and I woke up because the wind and rain were coming down so hard and I also didn't close the windows so I wake up and I’m pretty much just showering in my sleep. I wasn't soaking wet but I was wet from the rain. I changed and then went back to lay down and I realized our other stuff and my precious pro club shirts were still hanging out on the neighbors clothesline and I just cried because when I wake up either my clothes are gonna be gone from the wind or super wet from the rain or one of the puaka (pigs) is gonna be wearing it. The next morning though I was woken up from our neighbor. She gave us our clothes and was just smiling and was like "ah that's dope she picked our wet clothes of the floor" but when she gave me the bag I realized our clothes were hecka dry! They were more dry than the clothes we hung up in our MQ (mission quarters) 😂. I don't know how they dried our clothes or when they even went outside to grab our clothes but to them I'll be forever grateful.

Since it’s been raining we usually stayed inside but a couple of days we went out in the rain. Rain or shine the work needs to be done. While we stayed inside one day, I was lying down when I felt my bed shake a little bit. I was in and out of sleep and I turned to my hoa (companion) and said "yo!" because I thought he was shaking the bed to wake me up and he was like "what??" and then I was confused. But then the whole house started shaking—we were going thru an earthquake! I jumped out of the way and our MQ had fallen because of the earthquake.... nah I'm just playing 😆 the earthquake lasted like 7 seconds and was nothing. The only thing that fell was me and that was back to sleep. 😴 The next day I was reading and listening to music with my headphones in and I had a cup of juice that we had got from our fafanga (meal) the day before. It was sitting on the chair and I saw that it was making ripples and I was like “what the heck?” and then realized we were getting hit by another earthquake! This one was way worse. I grabbed a suitcase and threw it on my hoa to protect him from the falling debris.... nah I'm playing it was exactly the same as the one the day before. 😂

I got boils on my leg again which is not exciting because as you know it never was the first time. Before, I had only 2 pala (open sores) on my left leg and a bunch of other small bites but now I have 11 boils on my leg. The pain is the same as before, unbearable, and the pain makes me angry. At first I had my hoa squeeze the boils but now I squeeze them myself because it just makes me angry. It really sucks because I only had 2 before and the pain was crazy. Now I have 11 so I’m pretty much in pain all day, all night and it's alot worse than before. It also sucks because I’m pretty much just bleeding all day long from 11 different spots on my leg. I showed my mom on Monday the 2 pala which are super huge and bleed alot. All the other ones are smaller but still bring pain and blood. I woke up one day and I started cleaning up my legs as usual and I was out of it. I started getting super angry. I started thinking like “sheesh I have pala, I can't even speak this language good enough, sometimes the people will laugh at me, it rains all day so it's hard to go out and even do laundry”. I was super angry. I didn't even read my scriptures or pray that day. I decided to read something called the Riccardi letter, which I won't explain in full detail because this email is getting hecka long. But in there, there's a part where a missionary named Elder Humphrey goes to a room to pray and he, too, is angry and he tells Heavenly Father everything that’s going on. But while praying he gets a response from God to which he says he hears this message, “Elder Humphrey, I am here. I know who you are. I sent you to those neighborhoods, the very ones where you experienced nothing but rejection. I prompted your changes in direction to even more difficult neighborhoods. I know where each of the elect in your area resides. I know their names. I could send you to those addresses only, and save you the time and sacrifice looking for them. BUT ELDER HUMPHREY, WHAT GOOD WOULD THAT SERVE YOU?" I read that part and almost cried because I felt like maybe Heavenly Father would say the same thing to me. He is there and He knows who I am. He sent the weather and pala and all the other hardships I’ve endured, but if he wanted to he could've blessed me with a perfect body and the wisdom of Solomon. But what good would that serve me? I felt a little better and then my mom sent me a scripture from the Book of Mormon found in Alma 20:29. In there, the missionary Ammon goes to a different land to find his brethren and upon finding his brethren he is filled with sorrow because he saw the condition that they were in. That were hungry and thirsty and suffered all types of things but, "Nevertheless they were patient in all their sufferings." I loved that because, again, even though I'm going through some small stuff all I have to do is just endure. That pretty much sums up what I had gone through this past week.

I love you all and just letting y’all know it’s still DC4L. I can say what I want, I'm 6,000 miles away from ya'll. 😂😂😂

Ofa lahi atu kimoutolu!