4-23-18 Really looking forward to working with these people!

Kaise hei! 

I don't have a lot of time, just popping in briefly to let you know I'm alive.

Yesterday was hectic, hence my not being able to write. We as a zone went to a beach for our zone P-day, which was wayyy fun. Because of my self-reliance class and my having to run around the zone for pick-ups to shuttle over to the beach a good hour drive away, I only had time to jump on and check without responding. 

This last week was great, though! It was a pretty normal week of good work. On a bit of a sad note, Elder Hess and I thoroughly went through our teaching pool and determined that half of them weren't keeping their commitments, so we dropped some and others are pending. However, the other half are doing great. We're looking at a baptism this weekend for Deo, and we had heaps of people referred to us by members over the last week and they're all way onst. Really looking forward to working with these people! 

No super significant things to report from the last week. 

I'm excited for zone conference on Thursday. The focus of zone conference this time around will be on chapter 7 of the Preach My Gospel: How can I better learn my mission language? The reason being that President Higgins and the older missionaries in this mission have noticed that the language ability of the missionaries have recently died down significantly. More and more lessons are being taught in English, and the missionaries don't have all that much of a drive to get really good at the language. We're sending home and spawning missionaries that are content with their decent Fijian. President doesn't want decent Fijian speakers, or even good or great Fijian speakers. He wants missionaries to go home fluent. He wants missionaries to be able to teach the principles of the gospel so well that there can be no misunderstanding of doctrine. More than this, however, he really wants to stress to sisters the importance of learning the language as well. When I first came in, we had some golden Fijian-speaking sisters here. They weren't fluent, but there's a culture within this mission that sisters just aren't under the same obligation to learn the language because they're always assigned to serve in English wards and branches anyway.Every now and again we have a sister missionary that has really good Fijian "for a sister". President wants to break that. I don't know when he'll start putting sisters into Fijian wards and branches (there's one such area right now, Toga), but he wants them to go home with as good Fijian as they can obtain over 18 months. I would love to see how this new language learning stress helps the mission, and I know that it'll be huge in motivating FSM missionaries to study and speak their assigned language all day every day.

Elder Hess and I are conducting a training on language learning principles and how the culture ties in. We determined that embracing the culture and adopting its customs, no matter how odd or different they may be, is essential in learning the language. For example, what are the contents of a normal conversation in Hawaii? Hunting and fishing laws, volleyball championships, politics, work, school, the economy, etc. Fijians typically converse about their teitei (plantations), how hot the day is, rugby, where they were and where they're going, and 80% of the conversation is a joke. We talk about different things and think different ways, and when we learn to adopt their thought patterns, politics, sense of humor, and so forth, their word choice, structure, and vocabulary begin to make sense. Indians talk about their sick family members and their favorite foods and the sale happening at Max-value. When we come to understand the things they're passionate about, we learn how we can better reach out to them and meet their needs. Over all this, we need to learn the vocabulary we need to converse about all such things and how to go about talking about it.

Again, I'm way excited. Sorry, I left my camera in the car again, but I'll send all the pictures next week. Mean, Lehia! That was a CLEAN win! Still lick you in three weeks, though. Also, Kala'i looking sliiick, what a skuxx! Still lick you too.

I'm glad Anya is cool, send her my love! And I don't know what 'Io's plans are or what he's willing to do, but I don't reckon he'll stray from home for the sake of marriage. I think he'd have the strength to make her stay in Hawaii, unless otherwise prompted by the spirit. Honestly, unless the spirit impresses me that I should follow my wife to the state/country of her origin, she's definitely staying on the islands. But that's quite a ways off to start thinking about. 

Anyways, I'm glad everyone is safe and doing well! 

I love you all so much, have a great and blessed week! 

Khyaal rakna,
Elda Ishibashi