Elder Max Barnaby: Even Weddings Don't Stop Us Now (Matei/Qeleni Area, Week 7)

Wow! This week has been just crazy! It's been tough, but for some reason, it's also been one of my favorites. This week, I've learned to adopt a positive attitude of not worrying, just going with it and having fun. In addition, I learned this week what hard work coupled with faith in the Lord can truly do.

I smell the Truth in those sandals

Elder Carter is...special to man and beast

On Monday, we had a Family Home Evening planned (family scripture study/activity night) with

some members who live nearby our house, but they all of a sudden cancelled on us. Tuesday was rather unsuccessful as well, though we did have a very enjoyable District Meeting. On Wednesday and Thursday, we went on exchanges - Elder Carter went down to Vuna area (on the other side of Taveuni) and Elder Noble, our District Leader, came up to Matei. Elder Carter was especially excited because he started his mission down in Vuna, and he got to go back (which doesn't happen too often).

Exchanges with Elder Noble -

he really enjoyed this ice cream

Elder Noble and I had a ton of fun - there were no more lessons on Wednesday, but on Thursday we had some very effective lessons. That was most impressive, because Thursday was when the weddings happened. That's right, the weddings. Two weddings, on the same day. One was the wedding of the Naselesele village chief's daughter, so it was big. EVERYONE was gone. We had to work really, really hard just to get a few lessons this week. The thing with Fijian weddings is that everyone goes (except for us - no one invited us) and they last for days afterward.

This is Koroi - he's hilarious.

The funnest days, though, were Saturday and

Sunday. We saw some great families on Saturday, and they all had way funny little kids. The Tuvasu and Qumi families - some of my favorite families here in Taveuni. We also saw Sikeli, my favorite. He's getting really excited for his baptism - he's started telling everyone about it! Since we started seeing him last month, he's read all the way to 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon - it's way awesome! I love the guy, hopefully he'll be able to be baptized in the next few weeks. He's the man himself.

Members - Brother Tuvasu and Brother Qumi and child

Sunday, though. Sunday was crazy good. Church was good, there wasn't great church attendance - only about 17 people came to church, but one of them was Sikeli and a few less-actives as well. We were very happy for that. After church, we reviewed our week and saw that we'd only seen 11 families and individuals this week. In the past, we've been able to see 20+ people per week - that's what we refer to as "Standards of Excellence" here in Fiji Suva Mission. 20 lessons a week is having really effective and productive weeks. Elder Carter and I set a goal to have 20+ lessons every week this transfer, so we decided to work as hard as we could on Sunday. We were literally carried from lesson to lesson - the Lord aided us in His work. We flew from lesson to lesson and village to village, and at the end of the day, we'd seen 6 families and individuals and traveled a good 5 miles by foot. It was amazing to see the Lord in His work, helping His people through us. This was the best.