The Spirit at Work in Us (and some Pizza too) (Samabula 2nd Area, Week 8)

View from a member's house

Up, down, left, right - that's what this week felt like: all over the place.

This was the program for last Tuesday's district meeting. 

All the symbols stand for something -

 see if you can guess what they mean!

We had a pretty cool experience on Tuesday at our District Meeting. Every month, we set goals as to how many people that we're currently working with will be able to be baptized or return to activity in the church in the coming month, and then push ourselves to do all we can to help our investigators and less-actives to come closer to Christ throughout the month. This past month we fell short of our goal, so we discussed the people who are progressing most towards making and keeping covenants with our Heavenly Father and we came to a predicament: We couldn't decide between a goal of 10 or 12 "Saints" for the month of April (Saints = Baptisms + Less-actives returning to activity). So we decided to kneel down and ask our Father in Heaven which goal would be best for us - something that we could achieve but that could still push us. And we all got this powerful feeling, no doubt from the Holy Ghost, that the goal should be 11 Saints for April. It was honestly a very powerful spiritual experience, and we feel so empowered to help these 11 individuals to draw closer to the Savior of the World.

After District Meeting, we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and I went with Elder 'Ita to his area in Tacirua. We had a fun exchange - we just got good work done. It was fun being able to sit down again with some of the people I met last month on exchanges in Tacirua area. One of them, Taina, even remembered my name when we saw her, and for Fijians it's not really easy to remember a name like "Elder Barnaby" (hence the nickname, Elder Painapiu). That was a great experience though, and I learned a lot from Elder 'Ita on our exchange.

Brother Vuidreketi, the new First Counselor in the Samabula 2nd Bishopric. 

He's a funny guy - he and his wife bought us pizza the other day too!

Wednesday and Thursday we spent mostly at home - poor Elder Ta'a was sick again. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, though, we got good work done and we did our best to help out the people in Samabula. Friday was especially fun, because we got to go to a part of our area we've never been to when we went for dinner at the Vuidreketi's house. Actually, it was the very edge of our area - like, their house was the last house in the ward boundaries. But we had a lot of fun with them and they're preparing some people for us to teach as well. Definitely one of my favorite families. And only partially because of the pizza they ordered.

I know General Conference is now over, but we won't be able to watch it until next week. That's really what I'm excited about, to be able to hear from the living Prophet and Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, who let us know the Lord's will for us in this day and time. I testify that President Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I'm so excited to hear him speak and have my testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ strengthened even more. This week has found me learning more than ever from the scriptures and from my experiences, and I'm getting ready for a spiritual explosion as we watch General Conference this coming weekend.

(https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04?cid=HP_SU_3-4-2016_dPFD_fGC_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng)

I love you all!

Elder Barnaby

My messy desk :)

look at all that mail from Mom - what a lucky boy:)