REJOICE IN CHRIST

Dear Family and Friends!

Before you read this week's email, you are restricted from perusing beyond this point until you have watched these wonderful uplifting Easter Videos! (:
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NEW LIFE IN CHRIST


It now dawns upon the last quarter oF my mission. 

6 Months is what it cuts down to. 

We have had such a trying month as a District and Companionship, but the non-stop bottom-line is that there isn't a more unified and loving Companionship or District out there!  We are having fun and choosing joy in the hardest and bleakest of times--and that is the ultimate satisfying experience in life: being the full master of rather than in any degree being mastered by one's circumstances or life conditions.

​This is what I look up to every morning and ponderize.  Kind of my own personal motto or mission statement in a way.

  We worked with the Ward as hard as we could and gave all we had in devoting to much sweat, pain, energy, seeing the mighty results and soul enlivening savor that pours into life through accessing the power of heaven in covenant keeping or fasting or sacrificing; arranging rides every week, giving blessings, praying, working, planning, arranging, giving space for agency to take it's role, calling, visiting, doing service, reading the Book of Mormon with, and loving from our full hearts and offering up our whole souls as a sacrifice unto Christ on behalf of our precious converts and investigators and members. . .
It has been one of the most blessed month's of our missions, for me and Elder Mounga.  We have grown together in every way, deeper and happier and stronger. 

In a prayer last night, Elder Mounga prayed, "Dear Heavenly Father, at this time as the skies look bleak and times are dark, we rise to choose joy.  We thank Thee for this experience and look to Thee..."  When Christ died, it seemed all was lost.  His faithful Disciples pressed on through that time and saw what they never could have believed and drawn from their souls was the exultant "Hallelujah!" 

In working with so many people, they each do have the full potential we were searching and praying and working to find.  That, "Seeds take time to grow", is a lesson we have been learning. But among sifting through all these godly seeds that want to press up out of their individual "soils" of darkness, remorse, sorrow, sin, discord or discouragement up unto the everlasting light of Christ found in our message that has hit their hearts--among all the sifting, we have found people who are just golden who have been sprouting up and feeling their Savior's love!
On Sunday, we had two amazing friends in particular who not only came on their own, but made friends and just felt loved and at home and even then stayed after to join Choir! They are looking forward with faith and hearts fixed on Christ and moving resolutely to their Baptism next month! 
The focus of this week that I felt needed to be our emphasis, was to make Elder Delfin's last Birthday in Fiji the most loved and special and uplifting of his time on the Mission.  That was fun.  One of the best experiences in life is just being with a friend, making life sweeter and richer and fun for them.  We had a District Get-Together in honor of his last Birthday in Fiji, and gave simple presents and spent time and jokes with one another.

And to accomplish some exchanges:
This is a sample of one thing we do in the mission.  We swap companions and areas for one day and learn from our fellow missionaries in our District.  I conduct 9 24/h Exchanges in every 6 weeks, and it is such a uplifting and engaging experience.  I love this District and watching each of them soar higher and higher week by week.


Elder Nelson

What an upbeat and faithful Elder!  He is doing well.  He takes life very easy with his illnesses and always has something light-mooded to say to get us all at ease and laughing.   

We had a training on "Being an Epistle--Epistlize Our Heart, and Words & Actions Follow." To change one's nature, all one has to do is Epistlize one's own heart.  An Epistle is what is found in the New Testament, letters written about Christ to lift the world toward Him. People are always reading you as you go about your life on the day-to-day even until the day you die.  You are 24/7 teaching and shouting out to the world without even making a sound.  So, we each committed to prayerfully set 2 new goals that would Epistlize our nature a little more.  We each shared our feelings and recollections from last Zone Conference and discussed how we can get a new heart and cast away old self.  That really had an impact on us all. How does Christ want Himself represented? That is the question to ask in order to know how you should live or what you yet lack.

Elder Burgener

Is growing rapidly!  His Fijian is actually phenomenal, and he is doing well at leading the tripanionship.  What can I say?  He is well organized, a greatly personable and respected leader among his fellows and knows how to put others first in all things.  He is perfect at receiving and giving direction with such meekness and heed.  He demonstrated great planning and managing skills.  We have been companions from day one of our missions, and now can look at each other and see how far we've come.

Elder Babcock.   He is a five star missionary.  We trained on using the Atonement in all aspects of life and being grateful for whatever comes.  How Gratitude always invites the Holy Ghost, and so when we are even grateful for the trials and challenges and set backs and sickness, all is joy.  Be Joyful Always becomes a new life--a reality.  We shared many stories from each other's lives that realllllly opened up our views. He has come soooo far on his mission.  He is really one of the ones who is changing his nature and I really admire him.

Exchanges are a tremendous boost. 

Elder Delfin gave us our Training on Tuesday.  He trained us how to make Lessons short and effective.  Simply lay out a usable format:

Principle: ____________ , Scripture _______ __:__ , Analogy/Demonstration: _____________ , Question/Commitments: ___________ ____________ .

Very useful and adaptable!

One morning, I woke up and looked out the window and this is what I saw:

​We have giant bats that sometimes sit in our tree for 12 hours eating bread-fruit.  They are huge!

Easter was a Hallelujah indeed!  This has been the best Easter I have had in my life yet.  I really was enveloped and enthralled in the majesty of Christ's glorious reality to me personally.   I have been swallowed up by Him into a grave and now risen anew as something I never knew I could be.  New life is what He has made of me through this mission, thanks to Him serving His mission. 
6 Months is a short time.  I won't hold anything back.  God can strip me bare and wear and tear until nothing is left--these 6 months are what I've worked up to the past everlasting eternities until now and what I shall look back on for every eternity ahead.  You and me can be a living sacrifice to His will--a higher and happier way.  I hope and have a sure faith that He can make of you and I an acceptable and pleasing offering to Father in Heaven. 
It is dawning now on the last and final quarter of my mission, I may make of it all I promised and solemnly covenanted to my Heavenly Father before coming to earth in the realms on high from whence we come, that which He then saw in me, that He knew I would make of it--if I will always fix my eyes on Christ.

​He awaits. 

We can do it!

"Now"--For 2 Things:

You have no idea how flourishing and yet inexpressibly challenging the labor is here in this isolated part of the Lord's majestic Vineyard.  We are in the world's ultimate paradise, preparing children of God for transcendent celestial paradise.  This place is like no other.   This is a different world than where you have ever known.  When I am home, oh you won't know me. 

The District (as shown in attached photo) is working very hard and seeing each other through some of the hardest days of our missions.  The full District is an unbreakable unity, and it startles all of us just how we're there for each other in every hard moment.  This is a team I've only ever dreamed of.  There is perfect accord here, no matter the torrents and storms these sailors must face as a body.  With some of our investigators running away with no clue or hint as to why, mysteriously, or some getting kidnapped just before their Baptisms were about to take place, and with wrapping all our fasting and prayers and labors and tears and sweat around these precious and eager followers of Christ--it has indeed been a day of testing.  We are still strong and do have so much going right.  Things are going great because we have each other through it all, and Christ works good through all things, always.  

This week, after one of the hardest days of my mission, we were walking down the hot road to go save some dear people we love... walking down roads that were so hot my companion said he could feel it through his shoes, I was making phone calls to many different people we are working with.  Each call I would make would connect, and the people on the other end would be talking and then after 10 seconds, a deep breathing, angry, voiceless disturbance would cut the call off.  This same thing cut into and then cut off my calls twice.  We then entered into the house of our dear family we are working with.  Their house was filled with darkness.  One of our dear investigators was possessed by a devil and was starting to show his teeth and become wild, sweaty and writhing around.  The Spirit of the Almighty overcame my system and I arose boldly and by the power of the Holy Priesthood I hold, I raised my arm and rebuked all the demons in the home and in the people occupying it.  Immediately after exercising the power of the Almighty and in the name of Christ commanding the evil spirits to leave, I went right into prayer over the house.  The Voice of the Holy Spirit flowed through my mouth what I must say, and the room began to change and the feeling began to reverse.  We pulled from my bag a DVD entitled "Finding Faith in Jesus  Christ" we watched the entire film for a half hour and then read from the Book of Mormon and New Testament for a half hour.  The Book of Mormon reading is what really made the long-term difference.  By the end, the whole family was marking their scriptures and teaching each other and smiling and happy and peaceful and joking and at ease.  Light filled each one of us, and as commanded in the prayer I was prompted to pray, angels came and ministered to the hearts of the household members and guarded the compound.  

I challenge us to surrender.  Give up your life, not part or some or a little--but all, to Christ.  Just drop dead.  End your you.  Time to give up.  In order to "Endure to the End" you need to "End" Your old hold to what you think life should go like--to all it could highest, grandest, brightest, gloriously be like.  For you to give up your everything everything everything to Christ. What I mean is to LIVE by GIVING ALL TO CHRIST.  Your whole heart, might, mind and strength isn't just a nice phrase.  It's the real thing and means just what it means! 

Life is for 2 things: Enjoy!  and Build Satisfactory Future!
Ponder on that.


My life has been worn out and torn around and shred to pieces into ... something whole, complete, new, alive, on UNQUENCHABLE EVERLASTING FIRE. If you could have come to Fiji with me, you would have been consumed by a fire that quenched your whole being and melted the fiber of your very being into lava flowing goo... and you don't need to come to Fiji with me; I'm sure things in your life just end up leading you to that point sometimes... and I hope we have all been melted into that pool of lava goo because if and once you do Heavenly Father can then shape you!  Hop your goo into His forming hands!  Tell God, "God, life isn't mine.  You can have it.  It's all yours. Loving Father, I as your child, trust you completely.  I'm ready to show that.  Humble me and reshape me.  I'm ready to melt and be deformed so I can be formed into all the vision you once grandly had for me. Now the day has finally come that you can make that an everlasting reality."  Jesus Christ is ready and waiting to form you into all and more than you ever dreamed.  Here is the call to eternity.  

I bear my testimony that I have not belief, but, knowledge.  I have pure knowledge to and then beyond and deeper than all my senses--that Jesus Christ and His Father, God--your personal, loving, eternal Father--live! They don't live to rule the universe and govern... God the Father, His Son and the Holy Ghost live for only 3 things: Y, O, and U !  Precious, eternal and priceless you!  Jesus Christ is a real individual.  His face is the ultimate joy to the human heart.  Are you and I on a path that is making us into even His image and full likeness?  If not, sacrifice that path immediately.  You as a divine heir of all He hath, are worth more than putting off the abundant joy and life He has outside your heart's locked doors.  

You're looking at the door and picturing the lock in your mind's eye. You alone know perfectly; you know perfectly what locks remain. Time to decide.  Unlock or block out the sound of the knock?  

I testify the Book of Mormon is the anchor of life.  You need to read that book.  Life is going to be a hollow version of what it could be until you delve yourself into this book of pure, sweet light.  The accounts in the New and Old Testaments and Another Testament and especially words straight from true, living prophets today, are all 4 what your soul needs and is missing if deep down you feel like anything is missing in part of your life.  

I testify that if you are a Priesthood Bearer, you have to live worthy of your Priesthood at all times.  I have had to command legions of demons out of people and dwelling places, I have experienced miraculous healing that snatched me and others from the actual jaws of death, I have seen this authority transform eternal destinies through ordinances where the power of Godliness can seal families and individuals to one another and eternal bliss and joy that never dies.  You hold it, but does it hold your priority? Or does it take only 2nd place in what guides your every decisions in daily life?  You can't be like the world if you have the power that made the world.  Think about it.  Change from the heart of your heart and work out, out, outward till you are clean and usable always.

I testify Christ DID in full reality suffer the full accumulation of all your guilt, grief, sorrow, struggles, heartache, temptations, sufferings, rejection, disability, infirmity, depression, illness, disease, pain and humiliation, all of your mental, emotional and physical torments you ever have or could know--and this so that you could know you can and will overcome them all only if you heed His entreating call of love: Oh Come, Come Unto Me.  How?  Through making and keeping and building the very foundation of ALL you are on COVENANTS, promises that connect God and you to the power and heavenly help you need in order to change, progress, grow and triumph in this life.  As in  the book of Mosiah, chapter 24, your Covenants are what make your burdens light and cheerful, only positive and beneficial to you.
The hurricane that hit Fiji was supposed to destroy all human life here.  If it had hit directly over all of the land, Fiji would no longer exist.  All banks, all government, all police, business, economy, importing, exporting, living--gone.  Thousands upon thousands would have been heaped up on the earth and all things ended. The Lord is giving everyone maybe just one last chance to receive His message and repent and come to higher ground.  We don't get many chances if we keep ignoring them.

I raise a bold call to all the reaches of the earth, to come unto the Savior  through building each of our lives on the Covenants and Ordinances He offers through this restored Gospel that exists only in this Church, the Church of Jesus Christ.  Hear the voice of living prophets who speak with Him face to face.  Find the peace, joy, hope and find every yearning of your heart met! Find every hunger and emptiness of your soul filled and made more than richly, perfectly answered and whole.  Come and be made clean, joyful, whole, healed, pure, holy again!  You are destined to succeed and only your choice to embrace the Restored Gospel of Christ or not can break or make that eternal reality, everlastingly joyful or eternally damned.  Oh I call on all men everywhere in the name of the Master I serve, to take the hand of healing that is reaching out to you, know a better way, repent and heed His invitation to higher ground, above the crumbling smoldering ash of the clouded lowlands of this falling world.  

Will we rise to a higher level?  

Will we never hold back?

Will we never look back? 

Are our eyes fixed forward and upward?  

What will I change to take His image fully upon me today?

I send my love across the 12,000km or to wherever this letter may reach in the reaches of the world I send it to.  

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

Ambassador of the Savior of all Mankind,
Elder Howard
Fiji Islands
Nasinu Hindi

Blaze Embraced--Fire on Fire!

Fires of life used to burn me, then I became fire in the Lord's hands and now fire just builds my joy and light to a perfect day of endless reaching ray. We can get everything in our life all on one team by getting Christ as our ONLY captain: Trials, joys, peace, chaos, all mesh into blessedness when He's leading the life. Your heart doesn't belong in your chest; it belongs in Christ's hands.  Your only mission in life is to do that--and then the once restricted and painful becomes endless vistas of boundless glory and wondrous rich abundance.

​This has been a great week!

  Elder Mounga has made the full switch!  He talks only in Hindi! On Friday he just said, "Elder Howard, starting tomorrow morning, I want to only talk in Hindi." I was surprised!  This was very out of the blue.

True to his word, the next morning and ever since, even if I talk to him in English, he will usually respond in attempting just Hindi.  His fire is independent and self-sustaining now!  This is the moment of joy for me as his follow-up trainer!  He's wobbling and toddling, but, it IS on his own two feet now!!  It is really remarkable how proper his sentences are and how clearly it comes out now.  HE has caught the desire and the love and is showing the determination.

We come home well-worked and happy every single night.  (:

This has been a wonderful many weeks of learning how people grow and develop... just like plants.  You can't force growth or fruit; you just love it and nurture it and be there for it and work patiently until it chooses to open--all the while just being ready to just keep the sun rays pouring in the windows, the water regularly given, soil favorable, bugs and hostile plants at bay. 

These lessons that have come through lovingly seeing investigators through their hardest trials recently, and in seeing people progress.. these lessons will benefit my posterity. 
Our Mission President has been such a model for us to copy: we come up against a crushing concern with one of our beloved investigators, and in deciding how to handle it we think of him and how he would handle it.  We are blessed with a President who is just perfectly in-line with the Prophet who is EXACT and PERFECTly in line with Jesus Christ who is in line with The Head of All things in Existence. 

Patience, understanding, maturity, giving space and time, and especially love and trust.


That summarizes recent growth.

​Just like in Heavenly Father's words from Jacob 4:41, 47, 49, 61, 70, 75, sometimes we as missionaries or our Mission President may say, "What more could I have done for my vineyard? Have I slackened my hand, that I have not nourished it? Nay, I have nourished it, and I have digged about it, and I have pruned it, and I have dunged it; and I have stretched forth mine hand almost all the day long."  And when He saw that these tender plants still needed tender longsuffering and gentle patience and for me to be in it for the long-run for the construction of deep roots--He called in reinforcements.

This is our story:

"Wherefore, go to, and call servants that we may labor diligently with OUR might in the vineyard, that WE may prepare the way, that...[we may have] the fruit which is good and the most precious above all other fruit.

"...The Servant went and did as the Lord had commanded him, and brought other servants; and they were few.

"And the Lord of the vineyard said unto them: Go to, and labor in the vineyard, with your might... if ye labor with your might with me ye shall have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up."

4 Prospective Missionaries in our area came to help us almost daily. James, Raymond, Tumeli and George.

"They did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things."

Obedience, the Price.

Joy, the Reward.

Love, the Motive.

Spirit, the Strength, Guide, Enabler, Teacher.

And then finally, in the end after they have labored for a long time, pouring out their love and souls and patiently looking forward to the joy and the fruit and the fruit of the laboring in itself being joy--pressed on and triumphed!  He says then:

"Blessed art thou; for because ye have been diligent in laboring with me in my vineyard... ye shall have joy with me."

Then twice it says the words "for a long time," reminding us of both the long time it took to bring forth the strong and self-sustaining tree, and the long time that the now adult tree will bear fruit and bring forth more trees one day.  The LONG TIME is worth it, for it will bring forth fruit FOR a LONG TIME.

These are the sweet lessons that have been the course the Master-teacher had for us this "semester" of missionary service.

These lessons will stay in my heart the rest of my mission and ever after as I will look to the nurturing of my own children, and those sons and daughters of God that will be placed under my stewardship in future roles and leadership ahead, in the days that remain in my time in these realms below, and then to an endless day in the realms from whence I come and at which my soul does and has always truly belonged.

In working with the precious souls in our area of Nasinu 2nd, we have found 4 families that especially stand out amoung all the rest, that are the "Precious Fruit" of the Vineyard of the Lord; and all the trees that are progressing at their own individual rates, are still on the road to the Celestial Kingdom and new life by showing faith in the Savior and embracing the marvelous work and wonder of the Restoration, through to Baptism.

We have been just finding more golden people every day as we go teaching the golden. The Savior's love shines through their lives as they grow and we grow with them. We have found some people who went through the Temple Tours but just never went to the tent and never knew you could fill out the referral papers.  They're good!

We know that the people here in this area are going at the right pace.  People have had so much opposition in coming to church, but, they're still strong and the coming weeks will bear the fruit.  Families are coming together desiring to be Baptized as a family and work toward the Temple, being Forever Families.  It is a joy! April and May will see the fruit.  The Lord's work is steady and consistent.  Learning people's growth pace is a tricky thing, but the Spirit is the key to the mystery of each individual's unique heart.

Now, much to share, so here--I will start with pictures! Yay!

This is Shryna and her family!  She is 10 years old and has more personality and cheekiness and hilarium than almost anyone I've met in Fiji!  She's got a strong testimony and this family has a special place in my heart.

This is Joseph!  He was Baptized and has set a great example for all around him in changing his life and following Christ.  Light is growing in him and he is becoming a light to all around him! 

This is Rihaan!  I met her maybe 6 months ago now.  She is A FIREBALL of amazingness.  She is the ultimate missionary and has an eternal attachment to the Book of Mormon and her Savior Jesus Christ.  She is one of the people who has truly made a whole nature change, true full transformation by following Christ.  She is a true inspiration and will change hundreds if not thousands of lives.  I know it(:

That is me and Elder Mounga making roti's together!  We are Indian in everythin! 

These are pictures of us when we got stranded on an island after the hurricane picked us up and hurled us 100's of miles out to sea.  We are living off of random turtles that swim up to us.  Dolphins are too chewy.  Crunchy turtles are where it hits the spot for us. (;

We are helping our friends build their house.  They are so fun!  They served a 3 year mission when they were a little younger.  I learned how to make my own house.  I don't think I will be buying a house after my mission.  It is too satisfying to build your own and now I know how! 

This is a moth... yep.. .what else am I supposed to say?

more next week! 

LOve, Elder HOward

Won't Recognize Me

Due to the Cyclone that has destroyed the nation, I haven't been able to send out a good email in 2 weeks.  Now, due to the number of people I am responsible for here and the work that needs to be done, I have to keep it simple for the 3rd week in a row.  I will share with you a detailed account of all this after my mission or next week. 

At the performance of thousands of youth for the Prophet before the Temple was Dedicated, the most satisfying thing was to with joy see my beloved recent converts performing!  How far they have come and all they are. 

I have gone through almost the whole variety of life's challenges on one level or another now... I have seen that the Savior is perfect and can make us perfect.  He doesn't care what we go through as much as He cares about the end result of what it will make us.  See you are becoming, and trust Him by having all your actions be full of faith, hope and pure love. 

The only true greatness is that to be as pure as a child.

The Spirit's potential is unlimited.  The body's potential is limited.  But the potential of the soul is only limited by the body's ability/capability to yield to the spirit.  Don't sacrifice what you want most for what you want now.

We haven't always have food, water or power, and many don't have homes. 

My life is dedicated to bringing others JOY that fills them, lasts, and that they can then share.