Samoa Apia Mission - March 2015 - 2017

Friday, December 25, 2015

Nov 2

Alrighty... Well happy Halloween and all that festive stuff.

This week my comp and I baptized 2 people. :D Their names are Pilitati and Chris. Pilitati is in his 50's and Chris is his 9 year old son. They are both awesome and have very strong testimonies. Nothing is quite as awesome as seeing the fruits of your work when someone comes up out of the baptism water. I got to give a short talk about the water and the spirit at the baptismal service and this was actually the first time I have had to give a talk to a group of people in Samoan. It kinda scared me but I did it... This was my companion's first baptism on his mission and he was the one who performed the ordinance. It was awesome to see him do it. I know that baptism is essential for salvation, but it is only the beginning. After we have entered in by the door we still have to keep going down the path. When we receive the Holy Ghost it becomes a guide to keep us going down the right path.

On Saturday after the baptism I was approached by our Gospel Doctrine teacher who said he was going to be in Upolu on Sunday so could we please teach the lesson for his class? I said yes... I asked what the topic was for class and he said he would call me that night to tell me. It turns out that the topic was "O le faapotopotoina o le aiga o Isaraelu" The gathering of the family of Israel. This topic is one that I don't think I have ever really studied before in my life...in English, let alone Samoan. And now I was supposed to teach an hour lesson on it. Ooookay. 
 
On Sunday morning some things came up so I didn't have the opportunity to study "the gathering of the family of Israel" till we were sitting in sacrament meeting. I read through it once and then sacrament meeting was over. So I went and taught an hour lesson on a subject I knew nothing about. Pretty fun. I was praying pretty hard the whole time and I definitely got help from above. I filled the hour block and had a good discussion with the class and learned a lot about the "gathering of the family of Israel" for myself. This just goes to show that if we prepare as much as we can then the Lord will be able to help us. Even if we only are able to study for a bit less then an hour.

Other fun things that happened this week: 
-We got given a ride home by a drunk man (this is not the first time). We were walking home at about 8:45ish and a guy pulled up beside us in a blue pick up truck. This guy had passed us and offered us a ride earlier in the day but we had almost been to our visit so we told him another time. So he pulled up by us and said in a very jolly way "it's me again! you can't say no!" So we hopped in the back of his truck and he drove, or tried to drive, us home. We began to worry when he seemed to have a tendency to swerve toward every oncoming car and then turn away at the last second when the other car would honk at him. We could hear him singing loudly the whole time. When we got home we got out of his truck and told him thank you very much and then he gave us a 20ish minute lecture about how when we come to a new country we need to learn the culture and the language. After the lecture he left, still singing, and we said a quick prayer for his soul and went inside.

Well I love all of yous and hope you have a dandy week. Keep me updated on your lives!
Alofa atu, 
-Elder Lamoreaux

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