June 4, 2017
Hi family,
This
week had some ups and downs. I’ve been having trouble finding people to teach
here; I constantly felt like I needed to do better and just open my mouth and
invite people, but it never seemed like a good option, so I felt kind of down. I
had a lesson or two with some less-active people, but it just didn't feel like
they wanted to come back to the church. There is a common thing that people
say, it essentially goes like “sure, yeah you can share something with me; we
all pray to the same God. I’ll stay in my church and you in yours, and we can
talk about the Bible, then part as friends and everyone is happy.” It’s a
clever plot by Satan and his servants because it takes away the desire to know
the truth. No one here seems to wonder which church is true. Church here has
become more of a social and traditional matter and less of a spiritual matter.
It seems more important to people to be accepted and follow the family than to
follow faith. Of course, there are those blessed people who have strong faith
and those who seek for truth. The family I baptized in my last area was like
that. They don't care who won’t talk to them now and who cusses them out; they
look to the future for everlasting life, and that is awesome. I am wishing I
can find people like this in my area here.
There is a man here I
love a lot. He is a member of the Wesleyan church. We are really good friends
and he loves me and I love him. I feel comfortable going to his house whenever.
I often go and do service there; he and his family are quite poor. He is 50
years old, but still works like crazy and next week he is going to Australia to
work at some farm for 6 months so he can get more money for his family. He is
one of these people I was talking about; he is such a good person. He is
willing and happy to help anyone, anywhere, no matter what. He believes really
strongly in the scripture of Mathew 20:36-39. Its where Christ says the biggest
commandment is to love God and love your neighbor, and he does a great job of
it. But we had a conversation once and I asked what his belief on God was, and
he basically shared how he thinks the image of God is when people live like
those scriptures, when they love God and their neighbors. He told me, he is
always willing to help (he was current helping out my district prepare a song
because he is very musically talented) the other churches, it is better to him to
be nice and help like that. He said something about how we could come here and
talk about the doctrine of my church, afterwards he would explain the doctrine
of his church and then nothing would happen, and it’s better to just be friends
and help each other out. I can't remember the whole conversation because it was
a while ago, but these are good people I wish I could help, but I don't know
how. It confirms the scripture "there are good men who are blinded by the
craftiness of men" So yeah, that's a huge problem here. Everyone who
doesn't hate the church is basically like this. So, when I visit people it's
either a "I have my church, I don't want to hear anything else" or "we
all pray to the same God." That's my area right now; I am just doing
service for days.
Right now, I have big
ole sores on my palms from husking coconuts, so many coconuts.... hopefully I
haven't wasted my time here. I have only taught one investigator in my 6 weeks
here. It’s a 17-year-old girl who is willing to come to church, but it depends
on her father. We are going to try to baptize her this Saturday, but I have no
idea if it will work. I feel good when I pray about it though.
Anyways, thank you for
your prayers. I love you so much. I can't wait to show you this part of my
life. Today was a good day because I climbed a big coconut tree and harvested
coconuts from the top. That was terrifying but I want to do it again.
Ofa atu,
Elder Sitaki
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