Week 72 in Ha'apai

This weeks highlights:

Monday- Ran out of ranch dressing. Sad day. No more crouton tasting breakfast crackers. Lots of teachings.

Tuesday- I got attacked by a vicious mother chicken, and yes indeed "the chickens have large talons." Went tracting around in the rain. Fun time. Lots of lessons. 

Wednesday- Met a crazy lawyer, ex-stockmarket conman from new zealand. Very very interesting conversation with him. He was actually a very smart guy, but also kind of crazy. Fun combination. More teachings. I freaking love our Bishop too, he is the man, so helpful. The family that we were teaching in his home this night, they've accepted the invitation to be baptized and they told us "we have been waiting for missionaries to come back for three years". That was awesome. 

Thursday- We went tracting in the rain again and at one point the rain started falling so hard that we hid under  a mango tree. Grant saw a fallen coconut and asked if I wanted a drink and I said yeah, throw it against the tree. So he did weakly and I picked it up and said "no grant, you gotta throw it hard like this" it was much more prepared to break than I thought it was, and shattered violently against the tree, pouring coconut water all over Grants shirt and tie.... hahah oops. One less white shirt for grant. Taught a minister of a another church just after that, and he asked us to come back. Also, we went searching for a guys house deep in uta (the forest/bush) and Grant started talking about how cool it would be to wander upon a tribe of really native tongan people walking around with loincloths around their waists and being super dark and all this crazy stuff, and then we both freaked out as our hearts stopped for a second and saw what looked exactly like the type of person we were describing staring at us. Turned out that it was a statue, loincloth and all. Super freaky. The freakiest part was that we walked another hundred feet or so and looked back at the statue... and it was turned around facing us! Freaking freaky tongan voodoo magic going on. Freaky.

 Later that day, we had fafanga at one of our members homes and the twenty four-ish year old guy there told us all about his time in Australia trying to learn english and being compounded with the refugees for overstaying, his iran refugee girlfriend and so on haha. At one point he told us that he didn't learn about the FLDS people (polygamists that call themselves mormons) until after a long while of people calling out "multiple wives eh!", and him not knowing english, yelling back "io!!!" (Yeah!!) hahahaha. 

Friday- Met a crazy breadman who told us all about his row team days. Fun church activity where we taught. Good food. Reminded me of the good old days when X and I would hangout and talk for hours while eating food on the couches in the church hallways at church activities back home. Good times. 

Saturday& Sunday- lots of great teachings. 

All in all this week was great. Things are going awesome right now. We have 8 baptisms set up for the next three coming weeks and are teaching 24 people. Its great. Nothing is more fulfilling. Its amazing how someone can change their lives so drastically by deciding to listen to the missionary messages. Its awesome. Love it out here. Hope you guys are all doing well too. 

Ofa Atu, Elder DeSpain

Week 71 in Ha'apai

This past week was great. Summary of what happened, plus the week before since I didn’t say anything last week. 

Tuesday 31^st- Got food poisoning.

Wednesday 1^st - Suffered from food poisoning, then at 5:30 pm I decided I was done with food poisoning and so I asked Grant to give me a blessing and “just heal me now, not eventually”. So he gave me the blessing and I felt better. But then later in the day I had to decide whether or not I felt well enough to go to a family home evening with Pisope. Still wasn’t feeling amazing, but I decided it would be a test of my faith in the blessing, and that afterwards I would most definitely feel way better, because that’s how it works right? Faith and works before results. I thought for sure it would work. Then I got home from the family home evening and experienced the most violent projectile combinations of sickness I never imagines possible at the same time. Lesson learned, not my will be done… 

Thursday 2^nd- Got over sickness eventually. That night Grant and I talked until 4:30 am about a bunch of stuff. Didn’t even realize it. Good talks.

Friday 3^rd- First day with the new missionary schedule. Pretty cool. That night we had to do a vilo hoa so that we could get to all of our teachings. I taught at our stake Presidents house w/ Elder Gardiner. It was an awesome lesson. Haha at one point I told our President “thank you for your repentance” instead of thank you for your explanation” because the words are so similar. Also in that lesson Elder Gardiner, instead of saying “na’e fai e sisu ha ngaahi mana” or “jesus did many miracles” he said “na’e fai mana e sisu” or “jesus did magic” hahahaha. It was a great lesson though. Afterwards Gardiner and I went back to the MQ to wait for the other guys to finish up and we just talked and so on, at one point he asked me what some noise was and I responded “The wind keeps knocking my thing off the thing” and he busted up laughing and said “you’ve been in tonga too long” hahaha. True true. (cuz everythings interpretive with things in tongan).

Sunday 5^th- Got out of the shower and found a little boy named Mosese clipping his fingernails at our table. What the heck. He just walked in out of nowhere. 

Tuesday – For fafanga we bought jam and peanut butter at the store so that we could make pb&j sandwiches! So we were really excited about that. Also, that night, we had to do another vilo hoa to teach two lessons at the same time. So Elder Hau and I went to Saia Taufa’s house (the dad of Xaviers mtc comp), and we taught their investigator the gospel of Christ. Haha, during that lesson, I messed up the joke I sometimes use when teaching enduring to the end really really bad. Instead of saying “kapau ko ia, mahalo pe te tau viviku he taimi kotoa” or “if that was it, we would always be wet” (talking about how being rebaptized is unnecessary), I said “kapau koi a, te ke viku he taimi kotoa” or “if that was it, you’d be peeing all the time” hahaha. 

Thursday – Discovered that ranch and breakfast crackers tastes like croutons. Delicious. 

Sunday – Bunch of great teachings and tons of new bapitismal dates set up. Good stuff. 

Great week. 

Love you guys, Tay

Week 70 in Ha'apai

Enjoy this Pig. Internet is really slow today.

Of a atu, Taylor

Week 69 in Ha'apai

This weeks been good.

Monday- Realized I've got six months until I fly home, so I started a more diligent workout program in the mornings. (and I stuck with it every day this week). 

Tuesday- Found three new houses to teach. The third we met because I was joking around with the kids about lifting the cement weights in the front yard. Had a great lesson with another investigating family also. 

Wednesday- Found out that Elder Taufa, Xaviers companion from the MTC, is from this area! I know his Dad, and we live on his sisters property! Pretty cool. We also taught a lady named Melaia and awesome lesson, and she gobbled it up. Golden investigator. Really fun. 

Thursday- A family with probably ten kids let us in and we taught them all about the atonement. That was fun. All ten of em were just lined up sitting crosslegged in front of us on the floor. Good stuff. 

Friday- Interviewed the zones investigator, who was mentally handicapped. So that was an interesting interview. Nice girl though. We taught another family the plan of salvation and then afterwards the family with ten kids that we taught on thursday had us come and eat fish with them. Really good fish. Even cut down two coconuts for us to drink. 

Saturday- Went to a house that stood out to me earlier in the day and ended up teaching the plan of salvation to two college aged kids there, that was fun. That night, Grant and I stayed up pretty late talking, and then I felt pretty weird and asked Grant if the door was locked. So he got up and locked it and then he said that he was thinking the same thing. Then the next morning Grant told me that he couldnt sleep for a good while cuz of a super loud swooshing noise like a huge gust of wind going through the trees at the same time outside. 

Sunday- Pisope asked us to speak last minute, so I spoke about the book of Enos and signs of true conversion. It was good. 2nd hour we taught a less active lesson one. 

We've done really well with the melons this past month. Over twenty we think. Thats more than one every other day. Everyone just keeps giving them to us. We havent gone a single day without a melon in the fridge or one on the ground because the other melon is occupying the fridge. Thats a good month for you. 

Anyway, good week. Hope you guys are all doing well, love Tay. 

ps. Sorry no pics again. Internet is super slow