A little bit of rain in Fiji...

So you heard about the flooding? Ha, it was bad on parts of Viti Levu but up north here it wasn't nearly as bad.  There was some flooding but it didn't last more than a day or two. I heard the Chapel out in the Ba area had water up to the microphone of the pulpit! Crazy stuff, haha.

The week was so bomb, you gang have no idea. So we had some way good lessons with our investigators in the beginning of the week, and then on Wed. Elder Mecham went to Suva for some dealio and I got to go on Splits with the most FOB Elder in the mission. (FYI, “FOB” stands for “fresh off the boat”, meaning someone is a jungle baby and only knows their native tongue and the jungle life, ha.)

But ya, his name is Elder Kaneko, he is from the Marshall Islands and is about 4 and a half feet tall. Ha, a little Marshallese ooompa looompa. He is a great guy, though, he has been out about 4 months longer than me and we had some classic times together, ha. His English and Fijian are really hard to understand, but that doesn't stop him one bit from talking, ha! He never stops, it’s getting him to shutup that’s the trick, ha. People in Fiji love him like their own son and I think it’s mostly because 1) he acts like a little kid, and 2) because he is the same size as their kids. But while we were together we set 2 Baptismal dates and got a ton of work done.

I truly believe Heavenly Father brings us low so that he can lift us higher, here is an example. Elder Mecham and I have been struggling with not having a lot of lessons lately. It was hard for us to be busy, and most of the time we would just get upset cuz we have nothing to do and no one is answering our calls. The worst of the worst happened on Saturday. The two of us had a lesson at 4 o'clock, so we got on the 3 o'clock bus to make sure we would make it in time. Well with the crazy bus driver and a big ol' mess at the station it didn't take off until 4 and we knew the last bus was at 5 o'clock and we had to be on it to get home. By this time our investigator had called a few times asking where we were, after explaining the situation and realizing we would have to run the mile and a half to his house teach a 10 min. lesson then run back (we were just a little discouraged at this point). But after understanding everything he just cancelled the appt. and told us to come back on Monday. So, we then had to stay on the bus for the round trip of 2 and a half hours. After that we just walked the rest of the way home from the bus stand without talking because we were both dead tired and ticked about the whole deal.

But then He lifted us higher on Sunday, I'll list all the events in chronological order:

1-    It had been raining in Naduna all day, but for the whole church service no rain, then right after it started pouring.

2-    Our investigator who loves the church and its teachings told off her husband who hates it, so he left and she was able to come to church for the first time which is about 1/2 a mile but for her in her old weak condition it takes about 2 hours.

3-    Naduna got set apart as the newest Branch of the church and everyone who was called to leadership except one came to church.

4-    We had our first official branch council.

5-    After returning back to Labasa we realized that 2 of our other investigators from another area came to church in jeans and t-shirts, but they still came.

6-    Eight of the less-actives we visited this week made it to church. They sacrificed to make it, and trust me when I say it was a huge sacrifice.

7-    I helped one of them fill out her first Tithing slip in 10 years where she put 40 cents inside.

8-    We got 2 referrals of Families that want to be baptized.

After all the goodness and crazy awesomeness that happened He brought us low again when we realized that for lunch all we had to eat was 1 can of corned beef, 1 can of baked beans and 1 onion with some Tang for dessert. But then AGAIN He brought us higher when all of it put together was delicious, haha!

Life’s Good!

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Hanke

Pretty good letter this week, sometimes he almost sounds grown up.  J  I was able to email back and forth with him a little bit, so here are a few more responses I got out of him:

In response to a picture of Steve with his new gun:

That gun looks like a piece of art baby, yeah.

In response to a picture of Dallon and Natalie’s wedding announcement:

Tell Dallon and Natalie I said Congrats!

I asked how he’s been feeling, and if everything is good with his health:

I feel sooooo good, ha, no worries there Mom.

*********************************

So….there you go, the weekly letter, and like Garrett says, “Life is Good”. J

Chilly in Fiji....?

Ni sa Bula Vinaka people,

Weather forecast is cloudy with a chance of flooding, don't drive your trucks on flooded bridges and cover your windows so no rain comes in. Hahahahaha, classic.

Monday/P-Day- Had a great day of volleyball and food, with a sweet family home evening night that was both hilarious and spiritual, with people who don't speak English or Fijian, ha.  They made us some curry for dinner and I'm the kinda guy who can handle some chilis if needed, but eating a whole one the size of my thumb without any warning can be dangerous!  (And it hurt, haha, but it was still very good.)

Tuesday- District meeting, normal, but after we went to lunch and I ate all the fried chicken they had in the place, great food.  Afterwards we went to Naduna, got soaking wet and taught some lessons to our investigator Salote and the recent converts Ili and Te. Very good lessons. Salote is having a hard time and I really see that the gospel is helping her become a better person.

Wednesday- Pretty slow, Elder Seila’s last day so we just visited some people in Labasa and had some good food.

Thursday- Seila leaves and the whole day is spent with Elder Callahan the ZL (Zone Leader) running to the airport. Pretty lame day but what can ya do.

Friday- Elder Mecham and I's first day,  weekly planning until 4 then the rest of the day was spent showing the new sisters around Labasa and the members here....... kind of lame.

Saturday- With our areas Naduna and Bulileka, because they are so far away and the weeks we don't have the truck we have to take a bus or cab out to the area (there are only 2 buses that run to these places a day). And before we leave we need to get a hold of either 1 of the 2 people that own cell phones in these areas to check and see if the people we need to visit are there. Well guess what, we couldn't get a hold of either one of them all day so we couldn't go do any teaching all day.  It was the worst.

Sunday- hahahaha classic jungle Naduna church is supposed to start at 10 but it was like typhoon weather.  The rain and wind was crazy so we are there by ourselves just waiting to see if anyone would show up. Around 10:30 the Unit Leader showed up in shorts and a t-shirt all soaked and we spent the first hour with him putting a tarp up so people could sit inside, ha. I don't know if you've ever tried to put a tarp up in crazy wind but if you haven't then I will let you know now it ain't easy. After we finally finished that, all muddy and soaked, people showed up and we did a small sacrament meeting. It was cool to see all the ladies come even though the weather was so bad.

After we went to lunch at a member’s house in Labasa. When we showed up their whole house on the inside was wet from how crazy the storm was, so I went out there with another guy and we spent an hour hangin’ up a tarp to cover up their windows.  It was freezing but classic at the same time. So my church clothes got drenched twice yesterday, but now it’s just a great memory, hahaha.

How are you doing this wonderful day?

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Hanke

Is anyone else thinking “freezing”…?  J

Can I throw in my own “ha-ha”….? Sounds like he’s doing well, but had a couple of frustrating days this past week, which is all part of life. I guess we’ll need to be prepared to wrap him up in lots of blankets when he gets home. 

Hope everyone has a nice week. Thanks so much for your support of Elder Hanke.

Today when I emailed Garrett I said something about really missing an email from him last week.  He said, “I did send one!”, then he sent the below email from last week right over.  So, today ended up being a “two-for-one”, which I’ll take any time!

Garrett mentions “Elder Malo” in his email below, who is Logan Malohifo’ou.  As you’ll read, Elder Malo served in Fiji with Garrett.  He finished his mission last October, and just recently signed to play football at USU in Logan.  His girlfriend is related to a family in our ward, and her Aunt had told me that he would be visiting our ward this weekend for a missionary homecoming.  So… yes, we were pretty anxious to meet him, it was awesome to talk to him and hear how much fun he and Garrett had together.  (This pic is Elder Malo and his girlfriend.)

Letter from January 8, 2012

First of all what’s up my family? How is it?

Over here it is just fan-freakin-tastic,  ha.

Second-of-all,  haha,  the shorts are for my boy over here in Labasa, he is the man.  His name is Pita Vakalala, but he grew up in Cali and we always just talk in like thug English just like us boys from the hood do, ha. But he was saying how he misses stuff from America, especially b-ball shorts and I owe him some because we eat at his house about 5 times a week! When I come back to Fiji I will stay at his house because we are like family, so pretty much you’re sending them to a relative that you haven't met yet. He is around 28 with 3 kids; he and his wife and the rest of the family all got sealed together in October while I was still in Suva, so I got to be there.

Now the whole deal with Elder Malo is stinkin’ funny, ha.   He was the AP (Assistant to the President) when I worked in the office,  so we lived in the same flat for the last 3 months of his mission.  He was kind of like my “older brother”.  And I knew that he would go to USU, ha, the whole time he would talk down on UTAH and USU saying how when he is in a BYU jersey he will smoke them, but I guess not. It will be easy to recognize him, he is like 6'8”, big guy, definitely the biggest in the room kind of a deal. Tell him to e-mail me, okay?  He sent one but haven't heard from him since, ha, he’s probably focused on that girl.

Now for the week , it was what we call LEGIT!  We got some serious work done and had a great time doing it. It has been raining here like you wouldn't believe and we’ve had some flood warnings but it has cooled down the last couple days. But earlier in the week we had 2 lessons planned out in Naduna, and when we went out it was just pouring and we just had to trudge through it. Carrying an umbrella here really isn't worth while because you'll end up giving it to someone who needs it more anyway. So long story short, we were soaked, like UN-believabley soaked, ha, after crossing a river up to our belly buttons and a few more creeks to ours knees, and then walking the trail that was mud up to our shins.  We ended up getting the lessons in and were able to bring the Gospel into those people’s lives that night, so it was definitely worth it (not to mention we got some Bomb food out of it as well).

There is a bucket-load of stuff happening over here and it is just crazy!  If you really wanna see crazy stuff happen come to Fiji and share the Gospel. You'll see miracles, it’s so true.

We went on splits with the zone-leaders on Tuesday.  We went to an area called Boca, and we prayed before we left that we would be able to find someone out there to talk to and show us where a member lived. Well guess what? We found a lot more than that! We go out and as we were driving around we decided just to pull over and ask these 3 guys, and what would you know but one guy was wearing a CTR ring.  He told us that the Elders haven't been there for like 10 years, since he was baptized, and that he and his family along with some of the other members in the area wanted to go to church but could only afford to go about 2 times a year, Christmas and some other time, because the taxi into town is 11 dollars (remember that is only like 6 dollars US). The other 2 guys he was with said that they used to be taught by the missionaries and that they wanted to get baptized so we got out of the truck and introduced ourselves, and he then proceeded to tell us about like 5 families who lived in the area who wanted to come to church. So this last week we've gone out there as much as possible teaching to our new investigators and helping less active members rekindle their testimonies.   We have a combined family home evening tonight with a few of the families so I'm stoked, we should be able to start a whole new unit out there within a couple months. Us and the senior couple here are really excited for this area, so stoked , yyyyeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahahhhh, BOOM!

So if you don't believe in Fijian Miracles.........Start believing.

Anyway, the work is good if you can't tell. Transfers come in this Saturday and I really hope Elder Seila doesn't leave, but he thinks he will.  We'll see.

Shout out to Aunt Bev and Uncle Jim, Happy Anniversary, and Happy Birthday to Audra and Savannah.

Peace and Blessings ,

Elder Hanke

Letter from January 15, 2012

What’s up fam?

It’s a bummer because all of the really good stuff this last week happened on Monday and Tuesday.  The rest of the week Elder Seila was sick, he had pink-eye in both eyes, which gave him a bad headache. So, we moved the whole birthday deal to this weekend, and there’s not a whole lot to report.

One thing though, transfers.  Bummer, Elder Seila is leaving me, and I was ticked when I found out, ha. He helped me a ton with being a missionary, with teaching, and a ton on the language. My new comp. is Elder Mecham, he is a Mauri Elder from New Zealand. He's tight, but he’s finished in 1 month, so I'll get a new comp. again in the middle of February when he goes home, ha.  He’s trunky, and very ready to be finished, so I'll be hearing all month about how bad he wants to go home, ha.

Anyway, I'm really tired right now for some reason, probably from being so bored and doing nothing the last few days while Elder Seila has been sick. That’s how it is now, if we don't do anything I get so tired, but if we work our butts off then I'm o.k., ha, oh well.

Sorry for the short e-mail but you get last week’s anyway, ha.

If you see Elder Malo tell him to start finding my Poly wife, haha!

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Hanke

Happy, Happy Birthday Elder Hanke...

Garrett is turning the big 2-0 this coming Saturday, January 14th.... can't believe he'll be 20.  So strange not to have him around to celebrate with, but I'm sure he and the Elders will take care of things - no worries there.

So... I didn't get an email from Garrett (bummer)... but Kyndra did!  She sent him a quick "Happy Birthday" message, and told him that she was getting ready to go snowboarding.  He replied telling her good luck, then asked her to wish him luck as well, because he was going to go climb a coconut tree.  (20 going on... 8...?)  :)

And that's all he wrote...

Hope everyone has a good week!

Holiday update.....

Finally catching up from the holidays and taking some time to post our interactions with Elder Hanke from the last couple of weeks.  The “sequence of events” is detailed below, and might I add, it was beyond GREAT to get to talk with Garrett... it was AWESOME!

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday season!  Ours was definitely different, but that's what makes them memorable, right?

MONDAY, DECEMBER 19^TH:

Kyndra and I were at Kneaders having some dinner when we got the first email from Garrett (below).  He really threw us off!

From: Garrett Hanke [mailto:garrett.hanke@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 7:00 PM

Nova quick i need the last 4 digits of my social security number so i can activate this skype deal

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Nova Hanke <nhanke@iconfitness.com> wrote:

I will only tell you that # if you tell me how you’re really doing!  Ha ha ha…..

From: Garrett Hanke [mailto:garrett.hanke@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 7:07 PM

Give me your phone number quick and i'm doing great

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 2:08 PM, Nova Hanke <nhanke@iconfitness.com> wrote:

435-232-5029

From: Garrett Hanke [mailto:garrett.hanke@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 7:18 PM

answer your phone

I thought it was a Sears store calling my phone… and I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with that at dinner, but the joke was on me.   After calling three times he sent the “answer your phone” email .   The zone leader let the missionaries call home to confirm what time they would get to Skype on Christmas day.   Kyn was with me, so we both got to talk for a couple of minutes, it was so fun to get to talk to him.

CHRISTMAS DAY!!

After a lot of “technical support” from Kyndra, Dallon, and Steve’s co-worker (thank you!), we were able to set up a three-way Skype (we tried four-way, but couldn’t get it to work).   It was so great to see and talk to Garrett…. He looked and sounded so good, said he is feeling so much better.  We were very fortunate in that we were able to Skype with him for about 2 ½ hours, then he took a break and let another missionary use the computer, and then two hours later he called us back and we got to talk for another hour.  What an amazing Christmas gift!  I’ve inserted a “snapshot” of the Skype screen, not the best, but you get the idea.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 1^ST:

Back to the “regular” weekly email.  He really sounds like his old self (a lot of adjectives could be used here, so pick your own), just so grateful that he’s back to being healthy and goofy in his own special way.  J

This week was stinkin’ legit for us, ha, we did a ton of work and got some serious sweat on the old brow. Being out here is so flippin’ fun when you’re busy as a beaver, ha.  We went out and visited a lot of people and learned a lot about the area. It’s also such a huge blessing to have the truck, we split every other week with the Elders in Seqaqa.

So some new news, the branch is going good and all in Naduna, but there really isn't a whole lot of work out there for us and we only have one investigator and it has been way hard to make contact with the chief so he is no longer top priority. Now we will focus on an area called Vunivau.  That area has 80 less active members and when we went around this week to see some of them they told us the only reason that they are inactive is because the taxi costs 30 dollars to get to Labasa, and since like 90% of those people don't have jobs that’s pretty much not an option to go to church (I mean their testimonies aren't very strong so how could you really expect them to go?). But what I'm getting at is that we had a meeting with the senior couple here and they said for us to work on that area and hopefully we can open another little unit there and if we do it will hopefully be bigger than Naduna, haah. But ya, we are stoked and we still need to get organized ...... or, we’ve REALLY gotta get organized, and we don't have the truck this week so it’s rough, but oh well, haha.

Today was way awesome as well, we had a member here who wanted to feed us on Christmas, but we already had 3 dinner appts. so he said he would do it for New Years. So yesterday we took 4 chickens and some Roro and some Dalo out to his house, then this morning he cooked it all in the Lovo/earth oven and at 11 we went and picked it up and took it to this way sweet beach called Korovatu.  So for P-Day we chowed down and played some serious volleyball with all these Fijians, ha, man, it was so cool.  I hope you guys aren't too cold right now! I went down to rinse my feet off in the ocean and another Elder came and shoved me in, haha, no big deal. But while you guys have that wonderful snow I've been chillin’ in the ocean.

So this New Year season is pretty awesome because of a tradition here in Fiji. It’s totally “game on” to throw a bucket of water on people and even when we are just in our proselyting clothes we will get drenched, it’s so fun and lasts for like the whole month. So the last lesson I taught yesterday I was soaked.  Good times.

Love you all! Always remember to have fun and laugh.

Peace and blessings.

Your son, brother, grandson, cousin, nephew, friend, best friend, and missionary,


ELDER HANKE

So…there you go, sorry it took me so long to get this all updated.  There’s been a lot going on with the holidays, etc. Most of you probably know that we lost our sweet Grandpa Ed on Christmas day, so thanks to everyone for your support through that.  He was an amazing man and we were so blessed to have him in our lives for such a long time. 

Happy New Year to everyone, may 2012 bring you all the best!

(By the way... as of January 2nd, Garrett is 10 months in... 14 months to go.... time seems to be flying by.)