Elder Owen Stark's Mission : Week 11: Office- Learning Patience

Malo E Lelei!

How are my family, friends, and acquaintances? So we had a kind of good, but mostly bad week with a hopeful finish. I don't think that makes sense but hopefully you will understand. So this week started out pretty hopeful. The language is always a barrier, but I’m always excited to talk to people. I don't know if I told you this but my first week in Tonga, I accidentally called my ward mission leader a big rock. He wasn't offended though and he's a really great guy. So we set out with I think, 8 teaching appointments with members. Sadly, they all fell through and I was really frustrated. We didn't even get to teach our primary investigator, S. So this week we've been trying to figure out how we can improve our numbers and find actual lessons and stuff. We decided we needed to strengthen our members. They go to the temple every week, and they are probably the strongest members in Tonga, but we need to help them remember to share the gospel. The only problem is about half of them are out of town for summer break from school, (Nov-Jan) and so we only get to work with half of our area which is already tiny. Anyway, our plan this week is to teach and practice the lesson of the restoration with all the members we can and see what happens. (Oh, by the way, that girl we taught last week who was all prepared, texted later that day and said her mom said she couldn't be baptized, so that was pretty much over.)

This week sucked, but it turned out well. I began to study the Christ-like attributes in PMG, One of them is patience; we need to patiently wait for stuff to happen. I was frustrated because I wasn't being patient and I wanted success right then and now. I learned about it during the week and began to try to be patient and it works. We received large blessing yesterday. We received 5 referrals, 4 of which are a family we are teaching tonight at our bishop’s house. The other one we are teaching on Monday. I'm really excited!! And this morning during companionship study we asked each other what we learned from personal study. We were both searching for what we could teach the family tonight, and we both had the same answer from the spirit. We are going to teach about the importance of families and how the restored gospel can allow families to live together forever. It was a really strong and powerful moment. I got the answer when I was reading about how the gospel blesses families and I though of my family and how much I love them, especially Mary and mom. When I though of them and the other family the spirit came really strong and I know that's what I can teach tonight.

So crazy Tongan stuff. Well, first I will begin with my ward Christmas experience. We had the ward party last night with lots of singing and awkward American music about snow and stuff they don't have here. Then it came to the Tongan tradition time, which is eating. Tongans eat! You load up your plates with all sorts of food, usually 2-3 layers of food stacked on each other, and then you sit down, stop talking and start eating. My weirdest Christmas ever. I was sitting in a skirt and grass thing, dripping sweat, and shoving my face full of sheep, beef, chicken, octopus and pork, and I did this with both hands because it's okay to use your hands when your eating in Tonga. I had grease running down my arms and I felt sick to the stomach because I ate probably 5 or 6 kilo's of various meat and other foods. What a Christmas! I’m really excited and loving it here in Tonga. I’ll send a picture from the ward party. I went to the temple today. Doing another language is really rough and I butchered it, but I will improve for next time.

OFA ATU

Elder Sitaki