This week has been awesome! Learned and felt a lot of new and super important things.
To recap the week a bit, Monday was awesome! The two Suva zones got together and we had a mass qito. Wayy fun playing basketball and American football with the Suva North zone. That night, we had dinner with a family who'd JUST sent their son off to the England, Manchester Mission on Wednesday! He said he knew and really liked the first Elder Ishibashi (as well), his name is Elder Sumeet Chand. Way excited for him! He ran into some pretty tough roadblocks as he prepared to serve, but through his undying faith in Jesus Christ, diligence and perseverance, he was able to get everything done!
On Tuesday, district meeting was replaced by Zone Training Meeting! This ZTM was excellent, and I felt like it was almost set up for me, based off what I needed to know and improve on. A huge part of it was focused on finding, which is easily my biggest weakness. When I find, I typically feel like I have to get comfortable with the person before I start dropping doctrine and asking if we can enter their homes to share a message. Hey, how's it going, what's your name, what do you do. After those trainings and ESPECIALLY after being on exchanges with the zone leaders on Wednesday, I learned that ALL those things can be discussed IN the house. Makes more sense, really. Elder Datoon showed me a finding technique that seems to work 80% of the time with Indians, something he learned while on exchanges with Zone Leader Fitisemanu. It was really uncomfortable and new for me at first, but after trying it a few times and watching Elder Datoon do it, I feel a lot more confident about it.
"Hello! Kaise hai? Aapke din kaise raha? Too ha, humlog missionaries hai lds church se. Humlog ek message share karta hai pariwaar ke bara me, aur humlog kali mangtaraha jane agar humlog sakta ee message share kare aapke pariwaar ke sange!"
(Hello! How are you? How's your day? So yeah, we're missionaries from the lds church. We share a message about families, and we just wanted to know if we could share this message with your family!)
Indians are bold and straight to the point, so the whole social approach doesn't seem to work.
Anyways, most of the responses to this approach have been warm yeses! When we're in the house, they're way open, kind and social. This will come in way handy this next week, as we'll be doing HEAPS of finding.
On Thursday, we were privileged to be joined by President Layton in a lesson with one of our investigators. Sunita has been living with her husband (to whom she is not legally married, which is the issue) for about 3-5 years now. She and her first husband, who is unwilling to divorce her, has been separate for ten years now. Elder Datoon and I were not exactly sure how to handle the situation, so we asked President Layton to join us for a lesson with her. He'd met with her once before, and since then, she had not missed a single Sunday in church. Her Muslim brother also allowed her to attend church after speaking with President one-on-one, so we had a testimony that President has quite a powerful way with words. He was very bold as he told Sunita to do whatever it takes to divorce her first husband and marry her current one. The weeks or months it will take will be completely worth in the long run, as she will then be able to be baptized and sealed to her current husband. These couple of instances have made it really evident to me that I have to work on my conviction and boldness. Finding the line between firmness and rudeness however, I'm still trying.
The rest of the week was just heaps of finding and the same ol' same ol' awesome visits with awesome pariwaars. I think dad will be pleased to know that I can make a killer fried rice now, ask Elder Datoon (if he says otherwise, let me know).
MAN sorry I'm gonna have to cut this super short because I've been running into computer problems the while time I've been here. IN RESPONSE TO LETTERS:
I'M SO SORRY, YES I've received everything!! I feel like such a brat, I'm so sorry! Thank yous SOOO MUCH for the package! You may be pleased or scared to know that that massive bag of wonton chips did not make it four days, and thank you SO MUCH for them! Also thank you so much for the little snacks, Elder Datoon and I went ham on them and he thanks yous as well haha. Forgive me if you notice that I may not wear the tie for a while for two reasons. 1. It's SO nice and I have a way of staining or ruining ties and I don't want to risk anything happening to it. 2. It happens to be exactly Elder Datoon's favorite color and I see him eye it out every time he goes in the room. He has like four ties to match it, and I'm afraid of him kerekere'ing it off me. Again, THANK YOUS!! Also, please give grandma yet anOTHER hour-long foot rub and a BIG hug and kiss for me please, as I have received her card as well. I will ask Grandma about these foot rubs when I come home, and if she reports that these foot rubs didn't happen then I'll be really disappointed. Mom, the Hindi equivalent to "Au lomani iko" is
"Ham aapke pyaar karta hai"
Ham- I
Humlog- We
Tum- you (inf. when addressing children, friends, etc.)
Aap- You/thee (form. when addressing adults, the Lord, nanis, etc.)
Tumlog- Yous (inf.)
Aaplog- Yous (form.)
Pyaar- Love
Karta- Doing currently/generally
Hai- is/are/am
Bahut- very much
Finally,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!!!
I don't have enough time (on my mission) to express to yous how grateful I am to both of yous for EVERYTHING you've done for me. Thank you both so much for everything I have and everything I am. Thank yous for everything you've done for me and for the way you raised us. Yous are better parents than any of us ever could have asked for, and I mean that fullheartedly. I realize that I shouldn't just be saying this kind of stuff when your birthday comes around, so I promise that I'll make the extra effort to express to yous how much I love and appreciate you both. I'm glad you both had incredible birthdays, and I hope yous have another INCREDIBLE week!
I love you all so much, thank you all for everything. Elder Datoon and I are in great health and greater spirits, and we are excited for the work this next week has for us.
Au lomani kemudou sara vakalevu,
ham aaplogke bahut pyaar karta hai,
aloha no au ia kakou,
I love you all so much!
Aaplogke vinakaduadua larkaa,
Elder Ishibashi
PS I don't know if I've told you already but ELDER LEE CHIP SAO was called into hindi program! Like I predicted!! HA.
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