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.
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
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
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
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