Greetings from Sunny Fiji!
Pictures first this week, since I was really slack on that last week!
This is a tie I made out of a Palm Tree
And this is a Spider about as big as my hand
This was a sunbow one beautiful day this week
This was a Service Project we did. We lifted a engine out of an old car for someone who needed our help. The Reddy family.
Sugar Cane fields are one of Fiji's biggest industries. It is now cutting season. They burn the crops after harvesting. Hundreds of massive fires roar around us this season, in nearly every direction you can spot one if you look around the hills at night
This was the difference after I shined my shoes from a guy who was shoe-shining on the corner in town. I didn't realize how much my sandals had needed it! They are almost destroyed. I will need a new pair maybe soon. The Lord is good. I'm blessed and my feet are calloused.
This is a family we are working with. They are the Chand's. They are working to become an eternal family. They are wonderful!
This is another family--Fijian. Matavuso/Vakawai.
Random bits of information I gained this week:
The House of the Lord is always clean--why should ours be any different?
Don't change for anyone--only for the better.
4-Part formula for receiving revelation: 1 softening our hearts, 2) asking with faith in Christ, 3)Believing that we will receive, and 4)keeping the commandments. (1 Nephi 15:11)
If we are ever tempted to be less than our best selves, let us remember that our choices now are forming all we'll be both in this world and in the world to come.
Helpful principles of relationship keys that have refined me to the point that I now know that whatever I face future in my life, nothing will be able to break my relationships if I repeat what I did on my mission in those relations:
Relationships of every kind with people are about building and strengthening one another. Avoid focusing on yourself.
Be vulnerable in that you don't put walls up, even if everyone else has them or you get hurt by someone.
Love the individual the way Christ does.
Integrity, compassion, love. These are the things I will be judged on.
Smile more. Show love in your face. Show it in your constant actions.
Set aside your own way of seeing it and set aside your own will and pride and connect soul-to-soul with people.
Validate and acknowledge them.
Edify them. Heal them. Compliment them. Look at their good and tell them.
Being heard is akin to being loved.
"It takes two to contend, and I will never be one of them."
Turn all hurt over to the Atonement and watch it come back to you recycled and for your good and joy only:
A good principle for all of life's adversity:
H.U.R.T.
The Lord taught me that through the Atonement, all our Hurt in this life (of every kind that will or may ever come upon us,) can make us
Happy on a deeper level, if we turn to the Lord and His enabling strength
Untouchable to the level of having Heavenly Father become our only foundation, and thus only He can affect us, because we're only built on Him
Ready to lift others that may ever face the same hurt, and to lift and love them as we wished someone had when we were there
Transformed into a diamond, gold, full potential of ourselves instead of anything less--like coal without heat and pressure can't reach its potential.
Our phone ring tone is a very VERY realistic cat "Meow." Whenever we get a call, people always look around in confusion. Even when we are on public buses or in lessons with people. People are always fooled by it. And when they find out it is actually our phone, everyone bursts out laughing. It's so funny!
This week, I fell in a deep ditch. There are hundreds of ditches everywhere here in Fiji. There aren't always just gutters like in America--often there are deep trenches running everywhere in place of gutters. I lost my footing while sharing the gospel one day this week and fell in this ditch completely by instantaneous surprise! I was blessed that nothing got hurt. No broken anything. Just adrenaline and surprise and bewilderment! I continued on sharing the gospel as soon as I was out of the ditch.
I have had many times where I was falsely accused and torn at by others and attacked--and I'm so grateful! I have learned the real grace and usability of the Atonement. I can have someone attacking or piling up all things against me, and I can plead silently to my Heavenly Father for grace, and I am able to respond to all warmly and wisely and full of love and compliments and humility and power and overcome any roadblock or obstacle that may come between another and me. By the Holy Ghost I always chose not to revile revilers or to retaliate with anything but love, peace, happiness. I have learned the truth of Christ telling us that this really works: Walk an extra mile with those that place burdens on you, surprise them! If they strip me of my coat, I also freely give my shirt and pure love and forgiveness. This is such a joyful way to live. These secrets really work.
Heavenly Father is ready to help us live His best secrets. All knowledge comes as we faithfully simply are faithful in keeping His commandments--no matter what.
A good question I am learning to ask myself and evaluate myself on is "Was I like Christ yesterday? How?" In retrospect, I examine, then ask, "Am I today more than I was yesterday? How?"
This week I attained a level of humility that I never have reached in my life before. There is nothing sweeter or more productive than reaching the deepest levels of humility and teachableness and meekness. These things make real men; men formed for eternity and fully usable by the Lord. These make us more powerful than all the world around us. I prayed sincerely with real intent that Father keep me at this blessed level--and deeper. Being humbled in Christ's way, to His highest level of humility is the richest, most advanced and rewarding way to live.
Self aggrandizement gets me nothing but emptiness, and threatens destruction of my soul.
To love and accept people fully and treat them as the Holy Ghost tells me that Christ would treat them, or how I would treat them as if they were Christ-- this is my mission and it is why I am happy. The power I need to draw on to do it, is all drawn out from the power that is in my covenants.
In the eternal scheme of things, a couple of years is no big deal--but what I become in these couple of years, will determine everything for the rest of the eternal scheme of all things in my existence. I can rely on Christ and that will reach me to His level of ability if I firmly attach myself to Him.
This week has been amazing
That was a picture of me during a service project.
Mrs. Narian got Baptized!
Just one month ago, we were prompted by Heavenly Father to go up a hill. We acted on this prompting, and at the top was a house. We called out and a lady came out. She was in her 70's. We asked her that if she were to come to know that the things we were teaching were true, for herself from Heavenly Father, would she be baptized? She said yes.
We have taught her for one month.
She has left everything behind. She was Hindu and didn't even believe in Christ of know who He was. And now she has given up everything to follow Him because she knows Him for herself and has transformed. We have only taught her a total of 17 hours.
17 hours changed Mrs. Parvathamma Narian's 73 year old life.
I have never come across anyone like her in all of my mission.
She walks to church on her own if no one comes to get her.
All of her neighbors are against her and despise her for abandoning what she had followed all her life, but she isn't swayed by all the opposition. She was Baptized the day before her birthday, and on her birthday (sunday,) she became a member of the Lord's true church and she received the gift of the Holy Ghost!
I was privileged to baptize her by her request.
She has said in Hindi, "who would have thought I would be baptized. Heavenly Father sent the missionaries. He knows me. This was all from Him. I'm going to come to church every sunday for the rest of my life."
She had gotten very weak and sick the day before her baptism. We gave her a Priesthood blessing and by the next day she was completely healed and recovered and entered the waters of Baptism.
She is so excited to go to the Temple next year.
This last bit is for you, Mommy.
I read your letter on top of a mountain.
And I saw this and wanted to send it to you. I love you soo much!
My companion broke his arm. A big dog chased us and he fell in a ditch. Pray for him.
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