Hey!! We had a crazy busy week! Exchanges on Tuesday, so I had another sister with me in Tamavua. It's always weird to be with a different companion :P  We found a bunch of new investigators this week and got to work out some problems with investigators.  The work here is booming!!  We have 2 other companionships covering the same area as us so we run into each other alot.  Friday night we were at a members house teaching Sami and the new elders were going around knocking on doors trying to find someone!  We went into the other room for our lesson and they quickly asked the others about the boy they were looking for. AWKWARD SARA GA!!  Whenever we go to that area, all our families say that the elders have been coming around lol!  The good thing, is they're finding some referrals for us :D
Anyways.... as I said, we had alot to do.  Tuesday morning at district meeting, President Klingler walked in for a surprise visit!  So glad I didn't have to do the training that day!

Saturday we took a YSA from our ward with us. She's prepping for her mission and we found some investigators that she would be really good for.  It was sooo nice to have her with us in the lessons. We have a new family we're teaching and the dad's English isn't very good.  She was able to translate alot into Hindi and bear testimony so he would understand more.  Awesome!!

We were also able to go out to a new part of my area I hadnt been to yet.  It's way out in Colo-i-suva forest and there aren't any buses so we had to wait for a member who knew the way.

Not much time left, but things here are going great.  Lots of work, lots of rain and lots of fun.

Here's my letter to the Mission President to fill in the gaps (I hope it's not weird that I send these)

Dear President Klingler

This week went really well.  First off we had exchanges on tuesday. I stayed in tamavua with sister Tsu'a.  We were able to visit alot of families and found some new investigators. one of which we have started teaching.  Her name is Matila,  She's 14, lives with her siblings and grandma.  We just had our first lesson with her, but hopefully the others will join later on.  We were also able to visit with Vakacegu and her family.  They had baptism dates earlier, but haven't been keeping appointments and we havent been able to see them in a while.  We reviewed lesson three, focusing on faith and acting on what they know.  She shared that she is scared to ask her husband if they can be baptized.  He has been supportive of them taking lessons, but so far only the kids have been attending church.  We are finding another fellowshipper that we think will be able to help her work up the courage.  Meanwhile all we can do is continue teaching, show our support and pray that his heart will be softened.  We received a referral from the Tamavua First elders and were able to contact her yesterday.  She didn't have time for a lesson, but we have an appointment for next week.  Her name is Kal.  She has a few kids and from what the elders told us, her husband died a while ago.  She had visitors over, so we couldn't sit and talk.  Another good new investigator is Fina. Sister Maile and I OYMed her a long time ago and I've been stopping by with my other companions but till now shes been too busy in her village.  But Friday we were able to sit down with her, and we made a return appointment for next week.  She and a few of our other investigators are good families for us to teach in Fijian, and we are hoping she will be willing to help us out.

A new ward mission leader hasn't been called yet (I think we have a lack of priesthood brethren in our ward) so for now, we are reporting to the Bishop.  As we've been speaking with him more, I noticed that he doesn't seem to understand much about missionary work and what his role is, so that might account for the lack of support from the ward in the past.  We are trying to share as much as we can with him and he's been more willing to meet with us.  We've been working with the Relief Society president and her family to help us with some investigators and visiting less actives.  There's one family in particular that we're worried about, the Samisoni's are a recent convert family and we have been teaching Siliwaqa (their niece who lives with them).  She is ready for baptism, but missed the date because the family is going less active.  We think they're being pressured by Brother Samisoni's dad.  He's not LDS and has recently asked us to stop teaching the kids about the Book of Mormon and only do Bible stories.  We have talked to the bishop about having some priesthood brethren visit with us to speak with the parents and see if they need help from the ward.

We had to move Sami's baptism date to the 9th of November because of stake conference, but he is continually progressing.  We have been teaching more about prayer and testimonies.  He is still nervous, but is always willing to participate share his testimony.  He has asked one of his friends from the ward to baptize him and we are very excited that he has so many friends in the ward.

That's all I have time for this week.  I'm very excited about the sisters training this week and about all of our new investigators.  We have a lot of work to do .

Thank you for all your help and advice president!

Love always Sister Pyne

Love you alll!!!!!!!

Moce toka,  Sista Pyne

This is from our meeting for the training companionships, at the presidents house

Hey everyone!!
 
So this has been an interesting week.  Lots of new experiences.  First of all, there was an earthquake here!  Crazy!!  To be honest I didn't feel anything, because the house we were in shakes everytime you walk, so we had no idea until we heard a member talking about it  :P   I think its the same one that hit the Philippines.  No damage here though so that's good.  Weird thing number two.  Woke up around 2 am Thursday morning with a giganto black centipede crawling down my arm!!! Aahhh!!!! FYI, they're poisonous, about 6 inches long and like to bite people.  Not to mention super creepy. (I sent a picture of an orange one a while ago) and it was in my beeeeeeeeed!!!!  Luckily, I've had plenty of animals jump on me in my sleep ( ie geckos, spiders chipmunks...) so I didn't freak out until after we took care of it. (can you tell I'm still grossed out?) Needless to say, I couldn't sleep the rest of the night, and I had to shake out my bed and bug proof the bedroom door for a few days.  Hopefully it wont happen again or I might be scarred for life!!

Other news, its cyclone season again.  Yay!  It's been raining almost everyday.  Pretty sure I wont be dry again till next spring lol!  I love hearing the rain outside.  It's really good for proselyting because we get free rides from our taxi friends and everyone invites us in to get out of the rain, so we're meeting lots of new people.

OK. low on time, and I want to send some pictures. so I'll tack on my letter to president to finish things up.

Dear President
 

This week went well.  We had alot of fall-throughs, but the lessons we were able to have were wonderful!  Especially with Sami.  We have been teaching him at a members home and this past week we watched the restoration video.  He took it very seriously and was able to feel the spirit strongly.  The Sogari family bore wonderful testimonies about how they joined the church and their personal conversion.  Sami really understood, and even though he wasn't comfortable sharing his own testimony yet, you can see that he has one and he's becoming closer to Christ.  He is still keeping all of his commitments and even gave some pamphlets and a true to the faith book to a friend who was asking questions.  He is such a strong boy and is sticking to every truth that he learns.  We were able to attend our stake music festival with him and some other less actives.  They all really enjoyed it and Sami even participated in the ward numbers.

We haven't heard from Jokaveti, but we gave a Book of Mormon study guide to her fellowshippers to pass along.  She said she was trying to read, but it was confusing for her.  I hope she can turn to the scriptures and the members for support while we aren't able to help her.

On Saturday we went to Siliwaqas house with our relief society president so she could visit with her aunt and uncle, but they were on a trip and only the kids were home with the grandparents.  We weren't able to discuss their church attendance, but it did give us the chance to OYM the grandparents who sat in on the lesson.

Vakacegu and her family aren't keeping appointments and aren't calling us back.  We have stopped by the house a few times but were unable to contact them.  We will keep trying, and discuss their expectations from our visits. 

Prem and Rita (our newest investigators) had to cancel because of a wedding so we weren't able to finish lesson one with them, but Prems leg is healing quickly so we hope they will be able to attend church soon and start getting to know the members.  We are planning on bringing a member with us soon.  She's putting in her mission papers and asked us if she could come with us, the same night that we were planning to invite her!  It's amazing to see how the lord prompts from both sides. 

On Sunday one of the zone leaders investigators attended our ward!  He was a referral we received, but he didn't seem comfortable with us, so we handed him over to the elders.  This was his first time at church.   I'm so happy they were able to help!!  Elder Ohlson said they would help him progress then hand him back over to us so he can get used to the ward.

The talks on Sunday were really wonderful. the youth spoke on what they learned from conference and were able to share exactly what the ward needed.  Everyone is getting together to help fellowship  and I have high hopes for this area.  There's so much more work we can do with the members help.

That's it for this week, thank you for all you do president.

 Love always, Sister Pyne.

Bula vinaka mai viti tale ga!!!

This was the week of meetings.  We had our zone training on tuesday, 'train the trainers' on thursday, then conference on Saturday and Sunday.  Sooo great!!  Pretty sure everyone knows how much I love firesides and stuff, so this was an awesome week for me.  We had to drop an investigator, always hard, because they weren't progressing and weren't willing to make any effort.  We did find a new family and we have some more referrals, so I'm really excited about that.

The hot season is starting up and I'm seriously missing the orange leaves and chilly mornings of fall in Utah.  The only change is weather here is rain, or no rain lol!

Conference was awesome.  It was shown in the gym at our ward and we all ate lunch together in between sessions.  We have a stake music festival coming up and the youth and ysa are doing the Cup Song so we practiced that.  So fun!!  Even our investigator started doing it with us!

Aahh!! only 6 minutes left.  I cannot tell you how fast email time goes every week.  It's crazy!!

Anyway, we had some transfers and one of my really good friends got sent to an outer island.  No chance to say goodbye!!  So sad.  The good thing is he's being replaced with one of my favorite elders from my intake, so I'll still have a buddy in the area.

The Fijian ward in our area got split so we're getting a new set of elders in our district.  So there's gonna be 3 sets of missionaries covering the same area!  The elders area is split to match the ward boundaries, but we still cover both of theirs for the English. soooo many people!!

Well, my times "sa oti" so you'll have to wait till next week.

Love you all!!

 Sister Pyne

Check out the bats in our tree!!  It took forever to get a picture, but there are always bats
flying around.  We hear them screeching all night in our tree. see.

BULA VINAKA NOQU VEITOKANI!!!

how was conference!? i hope everyone enjoyed it. havent seen it yet, but i cant wait to hear what our leaders have to say. this past week was interesting. theres a flu bug going around, and both of us were sick so we spent most of the week at the flat. we did get the chance to find a new family to teach though. their names are prem and rita. nice indian family. we only met with them once, but they seem like theyll be a really good family to discuss with. the father is sick and a member family  they know contacted the elders to him a blessing and we got a referral to teach after  that.

we also have another baptism :D sami from volaus family accepted a baptismal date. hes the only one who comes to church and been present for every lesson. hes such a good kid!!

other than that, theres nothing new. we have some fun ideas to try with our area so hopefully ill have some stories in the next few weeks. ill keep them secret till then. 

love you all!!

sister pyne