Hey everyone!!  I'm sorry its been so long since I sent a real letter, but things have been a little crazy over here.

I have a new companion (in case you didn't know) her name is Sister Agavale.  She's 22, from American Samoa, and is from the same group as Sister Maile, so she will be heading home in January.  We get along pretty well and have made a lot of progress in the area.

We have some baptisms coming up, yay!!  The first group is on august 31st. It's the mom and 2 oldest kids from that golden family we have been teaching.  This whole experience with them has been amazing.  Their last name is Vavadra (you pronounce an 'n' in front of the 'd' and roll the 'r' ).  The parents were born in Fiji but moved to England because the father is in the British army,  so their 5 kids have never been to Fiji before.  They were church hopping a lot in England but couldn't find something that was right for them.  The father was actually a Talatala for a while!!  (that's a minister or a  pastor etc.)  They decided to move to Fiji for a few years so the kids could get to know their grandparents.  As soon as they got here they contacted the local primary school to enroll their kids and it happened to be the LDS primary!  So they met with the principle, we got a referral for them, and 5 days after they came to Fiji we were sitting in their front room teaching the first lesson, fast huh!!  The cool part is that sister Maile and I had been praying for a new family to teach because we felt like someone was missing. I guess we found them!  They have attended church every week and are very open with us about their questions and concerns. They have been sooo prepared!  The children found out about the word of wisdom from the school code of conduct and immediately stopped drinking coffe/tea and encouraged the parents to do the same. They read their Books of Mormon until their mom forces them to go to bed and are so smart!  The parents have shared many spiritual experiences with us about how they know the things we are teaching are true.  All of their questions go exactly with what we planned to teach that day. . . I could go on and on.  So this past week we invited them to be baptized and they accepted, no questions asked!  The only hitch is that the father is going back to England until December (he left this morning) but he felt so strongly about what we are sharing that he asked his wife and kids not to wait for him, but that he will find the missionaries in his area and continue to learn there. How great is that!!  He even gave us his address and phone number in England to send to his elders there. Before he left he bore his testimony that he knows they were prompted to come to Fiji so they could find the truth in this gospel. they are so spiritual and are rock solid in their testimonies even though they don't know everything yet.  I have learned so much teaching them and hope i'll continue to learn as we visit.  I know that they are the reason I was called to Tamavua,  no doubt about it.   I've helped a lot of other people, and learned from them too, but this one family has had a huge effect on me and I'm so grateful that I've had the opportunity to share this experience with them.

We have two other investigators with baptismal dates, but I'll share more about them next time because this is super long already.

We also had the opportunity to do our service at a fund raiser for the local LDS primary school.  It was so much fun!  They had a fair going on.  The kids had all made things to sell.   We helped them with the set up and prep for some traditional dances they did.  I can now say I'm a pro at tying sulus.. lol!   It was so great to see all the kids having fun and working together to get money for the school.

On Saturday we went to visit an less active Indian family in our ward, and when we arrived there was a ton of people there.  They were having the 6-month funeral rites for their grandmother that night so all of their family was there preparing.  They invited us back for dinner and the funeral after we finished our appointments. We got there a little late and had to sit outside because there wasn't enough room, but it was still a really cool experience. We got to hear them singing with the drums and everything and I could kinda see what they were doing.  We had to leave early because of curfew, but the family was very grateful for our support and sent us home with a ton of yummy Indian treats.

Those are the biggest things for this week. I just want to thank everyone for their love, support and prayers.  I feel so much gratitude whenever I think about you back at home and hope you know that I couldn't do this great work without you. I have no doubt that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true and I'm so grateful for the many blessings I have received in my life by following the doctrines and teachings. I have learned so much as I have been inviting others to come unto Christ.  The change that you see as people learn and begin to follow the principles of this gospel is unlike anything else.  I know that only faith in Christ and acting on that faith can bring such change of heart. I know the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God.   Everytime I read it I learn something new that increases my understanding of Christ's great love for us. I found a scripture the other day that perfectly phrases my feelings. Moroni 8:16 says "I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear."  Christ's perfect love for me calms my heart when I'm afraid or don't know what to do. He is always there for me, and I know that he will never lead me astray. I know that everything we go through in this life is for our benefit and learning, as long as we trust in him and keep moving, there is nothing that can bring us down. I know Christ lives and that he is my Savior.  I know Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God called to restore Christ's church to the earth.  I know my Heavenly Father loves all of us and he has hastened this work to give all of his children the opportunity to hear and accept the truth.  I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to learn and grow as an instrument in the hands of my God and serve the people of Fiji. I send my prayers to all of you at home and am always thinking of you.

I love you all and hope you are all well!! 

Sister Pyne

This is the path to the house of one of our investigators.  It.doesn't look too bad,
but it's steep and the blocks are covered in moss!! Super scetch!!

My news is boring. The people who were getting baptized aren't ready, they still have problems with the word of wisdom and law of chastity.  So.... no baptisms.  It's disappointing, but I'm glad we found out beforehand.

Cool story, one of them is in the TB rehab and gets to go home for the weekends so it's been hard to keep track of him and keep him going to church because he's out of our area.  After our lesson on Tuesday, Sister Maile gave me this look like she was gonna say something weird, and then she asked him if he's been keeping the word of wisdom. It was totally off topic and we hadn't talked about it for a few weeks because he wasn't having any problems. Turns out that he drank coffee and tea with his family this past weekend.  It was the first time since we taught him about the word of wisdom, and he didn't want to insult his family by saying no.  He thought it wouldn't be a big deal.  You should have seen the look on his face when she asked, he was totally shocked and knew that we had found out about it "somehow".  Hopefully it was a learning experience for him. Don't keep secrets from the missionaries!! :D

And now for the funny experience of the week.  We were teaching  an Indian family on Friday, and I've gotten to know one of the little boys really well.  He's probably about my neice Zadiees age (almost 2).  He always wants me to play with him, so as usual, he was on my lap and we were reading a book, when out of the blue he PEED on me!!!  He just let it rip while we were sitting down!! hahahaha!!  The mom was so embarrassed but Sister Maile and I couldn't stop laughing!  Luckily it was raining when we left, so I just walked around without my umbrella until it washed out, hahahah!!  The next time we went over  his mom said he had done that to one of the elders too.  Wasn't the first time..... and it wont be the last.

We also spent a lot of time with the zone leaders this week.  They're the elders that cover the same area as us, and they've had a lot of trouble finding people because they drive everywhere instead of street contacting. so they called and asked if we had any referrals for them.  Little did they know, we were already planning on handing some investigators over  and had been OYMing people for them all week. so when they called we had a list of about 15 people for them to check up on.  We spent the rest of the day driving around and introducing them to people and showing them where the referral houses were.
 

You're all going to be super jealous about my dinner last night, fresh crab curry!!! It was sooo good!!! and Sister Maile didn't swell up because it was a different kind of crab :D  yay!  So yea, thought I'd rub that it :D loL!  I'll have to learn the recipe and make a bunch of delicious Indian food for you all when I get back.

We find these millipedes all over our flat! 

Our first baptism, a 13-year-old named Kelly Yuen.

"Cat" is still hanging out around our flat.

Suva Temple

Nothing too exciting this week, we had a lot of fall- throughs so we had some time to OYM and get new investigators. This week alone we have 7 new people to talk to and 3 new investigators.  We have so many people we've been giving them to the elders who share our area.  They have a car and don't stop and talk with people so they're running out of people to teach lol!  Those lazy elders :D

 The picture above is of our first baptism, Kelly Yuen.  She's 13 and  really "cheeky"!  We have three more planned for the 20th, hopefully they'll go smoother than Kellys' did!

We had a new intake (new missionaries coming to Suva)  this week.  The sister that I met at the MTC from California came in with them,  so I'm no longer the only white sister here!   I didn't have time to sit and chat with her, but we got to say hi.   Two of the other sisters stayed in our flat for a few days while they were waiting for their assignments.  It was super fun!!  

Still super rainy, but it's "winter" here right now, so the weather  isn't that hot actually, only 70-80 degrees lol!.   People have been walking around in sweaters and ski hats, lol!   Not that I'm much better,  I've gotten so used to the heat and humidity that when we have a "cool streak" I freeze to death!!  The only jacket i brought is my dad's rain slicker and it's not very good for snuggling up in bed. :P  We'll see if i can find a cheap hoodie somewhere.  The seasons are pretty much backwards. So when it starts getting chilly there it will be burning hot here.  Probably around September, which  is also the beginning of cyclone season. Yay!!

Love you so much!! 

sister pyne

Hello Hello Hello!!

Biggest news of the week is that our first baptism was Saturday!  The Elders before us had started the lessons so they did most of the work on this one, but we have three more on the 20th that we started with, so exciting!  So the baptism was crazy!!  We called to double check the plans the night before and the bishop and 1st counselor both said they were busy!!  We had to change the program, almost no one from the ward showed up, someone pulled the plug on the font so we had to refill it, and the guy who was supposed to baptize her never showed up so we had to post pone for about an hour so the elders could run home a get a white sulu and baptize her.  It was insane!!   But we got everything worked out, and she was confirmed a member of the church yesterday!  :D   Walking home after the baptism, there was a huge rainbow across the whole sky!  The first one I've seen in Fiji.  I thought it was a nice touch.

Cool story of the week.  There are two huge German shepherds on our street who are always out and we've been having a lot of problems with them on.  On Wednesday we were trying to get by them and they started chasing us!  Right when they got close a senior missionary couple in a car pulled up and saved us lol!  They had driven by and seen us running and decided it was time for a rescue.  The next day we were having problems with the same dogs . We couldn't get by and had forgotten the phone so we couldn't call a cab to pick us  up. We decided to walk back home and get it, but when we got to the flat there was a cab waiting already!  He said someone had called from our address,  but it wasn't us and it wasn't the people upstairs.  It was a cab sent from heaven!!   Nice to know we are being looked after.

Things here are going well!!  Not much else to report and my times almost up. .

Love you all and miss you!!

Sister Pyne