Oct 26 New Mission President

Hello very much from the Samoa!

How are each and every one of you doing?

The week has been good. This week we got to meet with the new mission president for the first time. He has a very strong desire to hasten the work here in Samoa. He stressed the fact that for missionary work you need the proper spirit. Without the holy ghost this work cannot go forward. He then informed us of some new mission rules / standards that he would be implementing. 

 

I will admit that when I first heard some, or all, of the changes he is making to the mission I was not 100% supportive of all of them. Some of them seemed to me to be unattainable. I thought and prayed about the new rules and I prayed for the strength to be able to obey them. 

 

After the meeting with President my comp and I decided that even though these new rules would be very hard to follow, and we knew that not all missionaries would be keeping them, we would give our all to be able to keep the new mission standards. The first day after the meeting we tried our best to keep them, expecting to be tried and tempted and have a hard day. But that first day was one of the best days that we've had in the mission. We were able to find new investigators and even set baptismal dates for a couple of our investigators. When I thought about it that night I realized the Lord has promised us that He will not give us a commandment unless He prepares a way for us to accomplish it. My companion and I have felt the fruits of that promise in our lives. This area has a reputation of being a hard place to get work done, but the Lord has blessed my Comp and I for being obedient to all the rules of the mission, even the ones that seem silly or impossible to follow.

 

  We will be having 2 baptisms this Saturday! :D We will be baptizing a man named Pilikaki and his son Chris. These will be the first baptisms in this area since December last year.

  We had a fun experience this week with a man we passed on the road. He saw us and started speaking English to us (what the heck?!). He said "man I just come back from the Leone High School reunion. It started back in 1970... uh1971 and praise the Lord God almighty Hallelujah that's a lot of years!! I want to Faatalofa (greet) you." Then he shook our hands and gave us each $1 the whole time telling us how good God was to all of us. Then he said "well I jus wanna say a bit of a prayer before we go" and he grabbed our hands and said us a prayer in Samoan and then after the prayer he once again exclaimed how good God is and with a final "Hallelujah!" he was on his way. Pretty fun.

Other fun things that have happened this week:

-We walked to the far end of our area (a 4 hour walk) and got a new investigator there. Found out that if we walk from one side of our area to the other we would be walking for 7 1/2 hours.

-We are now in hurricane season

-caught some rats

-Climbed some Coconut trees

-Had a beach party with me and my companion and some crabs we caught.

Well I love you all and hope you have a good week!

 

I am so glad to hear you are doing good. You and Dad are in my prayers every night. As long as we put God first then everything will turn out right no matter how hard it seems. I love you so much!

Thanks so much for the Thanksgiving dinner! It has kept my comp and I from starving. ;)

 

Alofa atu, Love you!!

-Elder Lamoreaux