How's it going family?!

Manahoana Fianakaviako!

    Manahoana fianakaviana means, "How's it going family?!" Sorry Mom, doesn't work if you say it to me haha! You can say, "Manahoana ny zanako!" This means, "How's it going the child of mine!"

    Today's another day where I don't have as much time as I'd like to email, but I'll type quick! I don't have as many stories because it was a little bit slow this week, but there was some especially spiritual experiences though.

Tia Ny District Aho

    I've grown to love my district! It's really humbling to be their leader because they're all such good effective missionaries, and it's tough to not see what I lack compared to them. Elder Palmer and Robinson are by-the-book missionaries, oh my gosh. They consult the missionary handbook for everything, pretty amazing honestly. Our district has a goal where if we interrupt during personal study, we have to write the First Vision in our language, and some of us have almost memorized it! We also have a goal where if you address other missionaries by dude, guys or something that sound like slang, then you have to do 5 pushups at night. That's one I struggle with. I had 140 push ups one day, but it's working! I only had 10 push ups yesterday.

     But I understand why I was called to be district leader, because of Elder ______. Elder _______ left his mission early this morning at 5:45 AM, due to some unresolved issues and problems with the 24/7 spirituality. Some of my most spiritual experiences I've ever had were in interviews with him. He said he never felt the spirit, so I prayed and got the prompting to teach him all the missionary lessons. It was a huge blessing to see what the PMG lessons can do to help draw people closer to Christ and Heavenly Father. Even though Elder ________  had to go home, he said he's going to go resolve those issues and try to come back. 

    Also, Elder Schnoor and I have become best friends with this Haitian guy named Elder Duvinston from New Jersey. He's really too cool for us, but he let's us joke around with him. He's going to BYU, and we talked about rooming together when we get back!

Zone News

     The Fijian district is leaving Monday, and I'm getting pretty sad about that. Most of my best friends here are in that district: Elder Hamon, Simisky, Whiting, DeBaltzo, McKee, Brooks and a couple more. Our zone is gonna shrink quite a bit.

    We got some new missionaries for the Samoan district, only 2 of the 5 can speak English, so they mostly just hang out by themselves.

    Elder Smith (my friend from home) is in my zone, but I don't see him as often as I'd like. I've only seen him like thrice because his schedule is so different. 'Tis too bad.

    

Some Mo' Pain

     The language is still very stressful. I worked really hard the first couple weeks to develop a big vocab core (about 350 words at this point), so I can understand mostly everything my teachers say. However, I'm still struggling with the grammar rules a lot, and I stutter a lot more than I should. I know I'll eventually get over this hump, but it's incredibly frustrating. My teacher said I'm on track to be decently functional pretty soon, but my brain hurts gah.

    Because of this, some of our lessons to our teachers kinda have gone to pot because my companion and I somehow dig ourselves into a hole every time. I always forget everything I want to say in the moment, and it's tough to feel the spirit. It's going really well with one of the "investigators," but the lessons with the other two feel almost hostile heh. It's scary to imagine teaching an actual investigator that bad and ruining my chance to help them/give them a proper introduction to blessings of the gospel. Thanks for praying for me to speak the language better.

Zavatra Tsara

• I'm not as hungry anymore since you sent all those snacks. They saved me! It's not nearly as hard to sleep anymore because I don't go to bed suffering from hunger pangs. Plus, the hundreds JK of earplugs you sent me block out Elder Hamon's weird moans at night so well. Thanks again!
• I've also hit it off with this 6' 7" Tongan mountain this last week, Elder Moala. He's actually one of the new zone leaders. Him and I do this things where if someone makes a joke in class and meetings, we wait like 30 seconds and then say, "Oh I get it!! That's funny!" Then, we laugh as obnoxiously as we can. It's been the highlight of the last few days.
• I see so many people I know! It almost feels like I'm at BYU because there's about 10 people here from my mission prep class.
• Two of the new Samoan missionaries sing songs with me when we in the shower. One of them can sing exactly like Frank Sinatra, oh my gosh...

    Sorry I wasn't able to send as many stories about this week. I'm gonna write a bullet point list of ones that I didn't have time to talk about like I did the first week.

Stories I need to remember to tell you...

• Weirdest Sunday
• Arm-wrestling Underdog
• Sister Nebo (Marshallese girl) and My Interactions
• Awesome Missionary Broadcast
• A couple more that are in my journal

Fantatro fa marina ny Fiangonan'i Jesoa Kristy ho an'ny Olomasin ny Andro Farany! Rehefa nibebaka ary nanakaiky amin'ny Jesoa Kristy aho dia tsapako ny fifaliana sy ny fiadana, tsy enta-mavestra.

Love you so much!!!

Elder Soper