Diligence

Hello you guys!

Just dandy to hear from you guys again!  It sounds like everyone is doing great, which makes me very, very happy.  Man, I am so very jealous that you guys get Conference next week.  I am really, really looking forward to that this time.  We get to hear from the best!  I hope that you are all looking forward to that.

This week was quite good actually.  I was able to learn a lot.  On Tuesday, I had my first district meeting with this district.  I really enjoyed teaching.  I was able to learn a lot from their insights and things that they shared.  The Elders and Sisters in my district are awesome.  I love serving with them.  Later that day after the meeting, I went on trade offs with Elder Koloamatangi.  He's the man!  Me and him were in the same intake.  I didn't think he was too big of a fan of me just from the vibes that I would get.  I was a little worried when I found out he was in my district at first.  I was worried about how it would be--if he didn't like me.  Ha ha shame!  Man, he's awesome.  We spent the day laughing and enjoying the time that we got to know each other better.  It was a great time.  While we were out and about, we met this Samoan girl on the street named Tonga.  Elder Koloamatangi can speak good Tongan from his time he spent in the Tongan program.  After hearing her name, we assumed she was Tongan so we started talking to her in Tongan...haha, nah, she was Samoan.  She was really cool, though.  She invited us to come back to her house sometime.  So, we have some potential with her family.  That's great!  I'm really excited about Elder Koloamatangi and how cool we are now!

We did some service this week for our grumpy old man (Brother R).  It was a good time!  He had waist high grass that we got to attend too.  So, we took the weed whacker and just went hard!  It was pretty fun.  We knocked it out in an hour.  He was pretty happy about that so I think we're on his good side permanently.

So here is a funny story for you....me and Elder Hopoate were talking about the MTC.  I told him the story about how my teacher, Brother Mataupu, was the one that baptized Elder Viliamu and the story about how excited Elder Viliamu was when he found out that I knew Brother Mataupu.  About 15 minutes later, we went to one of our member's houses and guess who was there....Brother Mataupu!  Man, crazy!  I was so happy to see him.  Turns out--he's engaged to a girl in our ward and he's over there most of the time.  It was cool seeing him.  He said I've changed heaps since the MTC, so that's good!  We are probably going to go hang out with him today.  I love seeing people I know!

This week I've been really focusing on diligence--what it means and how I can have more of a desire and so forth.  I really like D&C 123:12-14.  Those scriptures gave me so much more of a desire to do my best.  We have to talk to everyone.  It is so important.  I'm not going to lie, it's still something I struggle with.  Talking with people on the street is kind of a hard thing to do but when you have a purpose behind it, for example, know that they need what we have, it makes it easier.  On Saturday night, it was about 10 minutes until we needed to head home.  We parked our car in town and just went out to try and talk with as many people as we could.  We did not have a lot of success at all.  We found this man, he's from Kenya and he works at this little dairy place.  We were able to have a nice lesson with him on the side of the road.  We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he is really interested in learning so that is really exciting.  He doesn't live in our area though, so we sent his info to the Mt. Roskill Elders.  The miracles come when you just do what you're supposed to---TALK WITH EVERYONE!

I got two letters this week from two really good friends of mine.  They were from two missionaries who just went home, two missionaries that I didn't care for very much at first, Elder Matthew and Elder Niederer.  Hearing the things they said really meant a lot.  The time I spent in Papatoetoe was the best time of my life.  That's where I changed on my mission.  That's when I forgot about Zach and just let the gospel change me.  When I did that, that's when I was humbled and realized that those two Elders just wanted to help me and they really did and I love them for that.  Man, Papatoetoe--that is the PLACE!  This is a good area, too-we should be having a baptism this weekend so I'll keep you  posted on that!

Funny Text Elder Johnson received:  Johnson Brother, This is Charlie-Come back tomorrow please brother, I'm hungover!

Go Cougs!

Things are going great.  I love it, man!  I miss you all so much and love you heaps.  Have a great week-
Ofa Atu

and to the Taani's kou mau ha ofa lahi atu ka koe and kou miss koe!
Pita Pole Ofa atu dox!!!