Week 73 in Ha'apai

This week was pretty same old same old. Lots of walking around and talking to people in the rain. Got splashed from trucks going through puddles a couple of times, that type of stuff. 

There was some really cool stuff that happened though. 

First, to start off: two weeks ago we held a family home evening with a man named Palu Matakaiongo and his two kids. Five days later, we watched him get buried at the nearby cemetery after having died of too much alcohol in his system. (He was found dead under a tree with a beer bottle in his hand) something like that, and we watched the neighborhood bury him at the cemetery. That was crazy to us because we had just met with the guy a couple of days earlier and got to know him. THEN... yesterday, a week and a half later, we were going around shaking everybody's hands before church as usual, and then I shook his hand....... Palu Matakaiongo was sitting ready for church..........................whattttttttttttt. That was insane. I still do not understand. Maybe there are two Palu Matakaiongos here or something, or he has a twin brother. but that was crazy.

Also, an eighty year old woman possessed with a demon from hell scared the freak out of me. We were trying to find one of our investigators and went to the neighbors house, where this woman cursed us out and yelled at us to disappear and never come back or that she would call the cops. She also told us how incredibly much she hated us and what we were doing. "Going around causing problems". I have never seen so much hate in someones eyes my entire life. It was quite possibly, literally out of this world. So much hate and anger. It was crazy. 

my response- "Sorry Maam, all we're doing is trying to bring happiness and peace to others by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ"...... we walked away from a verbal assault. 

"And that there is a crazy lady"- Nacho.

Good week. Love being out here. 

Ofa Atu, Taylor DeSpain

Here's a pic of one of our baptisms this week.