No email from Elder Hanke this week.  What a bummer...

What a sick week, sara ga,

What’s up with you all?

Anyways, the week, well first your questions, ha.

Food- We eat a lot of curry which I stinkin’ hated at first, but now I stinkin’ love it, ha. Dad should learn how to make it, ha, but your gang probably wouldn't like it. It’s super oily and what not but when you have to eat it you learn to love it, ha. Elder Tafuna'i can make it way good, he is a stinkin’ chef. He's been teaching me some tricks too, so that is sweet. As for other stuff, I love the fish we eat here, there is one especially good one. We eat the fried fish or however it’s cooked with this stuff called mity that’s really good.  It’s just coconut milk with like onions that you put on fish and veggies. We also eat a ton of chicken here all differently cooked and what not, but we always have bomb dinners.

The New Training- It’s just for the intakes coming in now, I didn't have to do it and unless I train someone I never will.  It really just adds an extra hour to studies, haha, so I'm kind of glad I don't have to do it (three hours is good for me, by that time I'm just itching to get out of the house, haha). But there is another thing about it; it’s the fundamentals of Preach My Gospel. It just refines PMG to focus more on the basics but we really haven't dealt a whole lot with it here. I know what they are but I haven't used them.

Now to the week. We always have a blast each week, living with Elder Malohifo'ou is sweet, he's the bomb.  (FYI Elder Fisher trained Elder Malo, so we talk about Fisher all the time. Sounds like they had some fun times together, haha). But ya, the office is sweet but it took some getting used to. We’re still busy, just in a different way, but it’s not too bad anymore. But being able to go to Nausori last week made me miss teaching way bad. We got to go out to a couple Koro's/Villages and teach out there, that was sick. Just teaching at night with nothing but a lantern for light and all in Fijian was way sweet.  It made me realize how much I need to work on my Fijian, but all in all I felt pretty good about it.  They talked faster than the people in Suva so it was hard to understand but I caught most of it.

Dang, Utah State did really good! Ha, I know a family in Suva that has a son who goes out with us a lot, but they have ESPN, hahahaha, classic! But I just told him to watch the game and call me when it’s over, so I knew that already, ha!  I had him give me updates on the other games, so that was sweet.  I'm stoked to get updates, though, throughout the season and when Malo goes home his one job is to send me updates and what not, letting me know how it goes.

Oh ya, as for the baptism talk, I give quite a few of them. All of the people I was going to baptize in Suva 1^st Ward, so that’s just the norm, but it’s fun, I like it.

Say hi to that gang in Duchesne for me. Man, Keaton and Trey look like they have grown a ton!

The Fiji National basketball team is in New Caledonia right now for the Pacific games so we haven't played basketball with them for a while, but we will go play b-ball and volleyball in about an hour for P Day.

So Happy Father’s Day to Dad and the Gramps, also Happy Birthday to Grandma, hope you and the gang had a good day.

That’s it for now.

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Hanke

Sounds like he’s doing well.  And yes, it is Father’s Day in Fiji!  J  And by the way, "Elder Fisher" is my sweet friend Suzanne's son Brayden.... who returned from the Fiji Suva mission one week before Garrett got his call last year.  Small world.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Finally.... some pictures!!!

Kyndra found this message on Garrett’s Facebook page today:

Elder Hanke spoke at my baptism yesterday and it's awesome!! He's doing good here!! He said Hi to his family. (Posted on 8/30/11 by Jan Chen from Suva, Fiji.)

She then found the below pictures on this girl's Facebook page - which we were pretty excited to see.  (We'll take pictures however we can get them at this point!)  It's pretty apparent that Gar still likes to strike a pose, too.

Enjoy!  :)

Life goes on in the office...

Hello again,

So the week of last was pretty good, we had some fun times, but it feels kinda like the MTC because everything is blending together. Everyday we just walk on up to the office, do work in there, run some errands and what not, go make lunch, and then back to the office for more errands and more office work and upset landlords, haha.  But all is still well.  We still get to go to dinner with some sweet family each night which is fun, last night was especially fun. We were just at this family’s house, the Racule’s house, and every time we eat there the AP’s come with us and we just eat some really good food and sit there and talk to them ‘til it's time to go. People here have a really different sense of humor, it’s nothing like home but once you understand what they are talking about or making fun of it’s so classic. So last night we were all just laughing super hard, my companion’s laugh is the funniest thing ever, so whenever he laughs I automatically just start busting up! It was a good time; that happens a lot.

Other than that we were able to teach four lessons last week.  That’s the biggest problem, I stinkin’ hate not being able to go out and be with people.  As for that person saying think of who I might be able to see while I’m in the office rather than out, this is what I have to say about that: Instead of maybe seeing one person that might be important, I'm missing time to let a lot of new people become important in my life so I kind of understand what he was trying to say but I would still rather be out there, no doubt. Anyways, that’s about it for this week.

But this upcoming week should be the bomb. Since I live with the AP’s and I work closely with the mission president a lot of opportunities come up.  This upcoming weekend I should be going out on this exchange deal with the Zone Leaders from Nausori, which is the bomb, haha.  I'm so stoked, it’s supposed to be a cool area and it will be so nice to be a normal missionary again for a couple days. The elder I will be with  is way sweet, so I'm super duper freakin’ stoked. Sara ga, wooooooh baby, haha!

But that is about it, but next week should be the bomb.com though.

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Tavoi

Mama's thoughts:

Hmmmmm… I think that Garrett is really getting a taste of what he thinks is the “mundane office life”!  I highly doubt he will ever want to work in an office when he “grows up”, but at least he will have had a good dose of it so he knows what it's like. 

I’m glad to see that he seems to be getting squared away in this assignment, though, and that he hasn’t lost his own unique sense of humor.  (For the record, I delete about 20 of the “haha’s” before I post his letter each week… there, I’ve admitted it… you all know that I’m doing a little editing.  Also adding a bit of punctuation, too.)

Hope everyone has a great week.  Thank you so much for your love and support of Elder Hanke!

Bula Vinaka

Wow, what a sweet week, haha, I don't even really remember anything because it was so fun. I'm not sure what to talk about. Right now in Suva is like the biggest event in the whole Pacific besides the Rugby World Cup.  It’s called Hibiscus, it’s like a really ghetto carnival that goes on for the whole week, so there are about twice as many people as normal.  It’s pretty fun, we can go today since it’s P-day, but just for a little while though. Other than that though, things are pretty much the same, life is just really good.  I was able to teach a little bit more this week, but other than that it was pretty much the same. It’s just getting easier in the office and what not so I'm super stoked about that. I wish I had cool stories about investigators for you but not really right now. They are all doing good, progressing a bunch so that is good.

  

So as for your questions, my companion Elder Tafuna'i goes home on the 12th of next month.  He is getting pretty trunky, even though his home is only about an hour away.  He is still doing really good, and he is freakin’ funny. Yes, I do live with the AP’s and we usually make our own breakfasts and lunches but we still get dinner every night, usually two actually. We tell the people feeding us that there will be four of us so that there is more food hopefully. By the time I leave here I might be 210 pounds, but we'll see, haha.  Laundry…. every flat in the mission has a little washer deal, and ours actually has a dryer, too.  I'm freakin’ spoiled here, if I go to the bush it will be a big adjustment, but that is just fine. As for the camera, I feel like crap for it but yes it is kabasu for sure. The one here I am looking at will be like 300 Fijian, so sorry, vosoti au sara ga. The whole picture deal is that I just have very little time to do that but what I'm gonna do this week is send you a small package deal with a CD that has all of the pictures on it then when I know you received it I will delete the pictures off the card.  That way I will just use the 2 cards my whole mission.

Oh, Nova, happy b-day mum, haha. I freakin’ love you mom, you’re da bomb. Everyone in Fiji loves your name as well, some people ask me here how you are doing all the time, they say "vacava nomu na, o Nova" (haha, that just means how are you?).

Man, Dad, I am so glad I got to go out and camp/hunt with you for that week. I should've gone longer, I'm sorry about that, but I can't wait to come back and do it some more. Sounds like it will be really cold! I'm very much used to the weather here now so switching back will take me a while I'm sure, but no worries. How’s work going?  Also I hope that my grandparents are all doing good.

I drove out to the airport in Nasinu today, that is the one close to Suva.  On the way I saw some dairy cows, they are they biggest animals in Fiji, but that kind of reminded me of home. We just went out there to pick up a senior couple coming from New Caledonia. Also last night we were eating at this member’s house and the Father wasn't eating with us but I could see he was watching a movie and guess what it was? "A River runs through it", haha, talk about home. It was funny, sara ga, that fella said it was his favorite movie.

That’s about it from my end, sorry so short, but that’s how it is sometimes.

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Tavoi  (Hanke in Fijian)

Very happy to read that Garrett is sounding more like his old self again, a lot more upbeat!  He seems to be learning to accept and understand his duties in the office with a better attitude.  This past week I heard about a missionary that is in Fiji who is also from Cache Valley, Elder Harmon.  He is currently assigned to an outer island that is very remote… no electricity, no plumbing, no mail service.  He and his companion are flown in to the main island every six weeks to get supplies and email their families.  So… we will keep this in the back of our minds so we’re prepared, just in case Garrett is sent to such an island.  (Every six weeks??? Yikes…)

Hope that everyone has a great week.  As always, thank you for your love and support.

The weeks are cruisin' by....

Why hello again, haha…

Weeks are just cruisin’ by.

Crazy, anyway this week was an adventurous one for sure, we did a lot of driving to run errands and do all the yish-yash that we are asked to do. Basically what I'm trying to say is that we only taught two lessons during the week and they were both on Sunday. It’s pretty hard doing this because everyone I work with has taught so many lessons they all know Fijian way good and they're towards the end of their missions.  Then there is little old me still fresh, not knowing Fijian because I can't speak to anyone in the office so basically I'm asking way hard to get out of this area as soon as possible. But the word on the street is that I will be here for a dang long time, so since I know that, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea now, even though it’s definitely not the situation that I wanted to be in.

Anyways, Lini... we haven't seen her all week. We always teach her at one member’s house but the member’s landlord is some Indian who isn't a fan of us coming over. She didn't show up to church yesterday which is crazy cuz that never happens supposedly, but hopefully somehow it will all work out with her. Other than that we don't really have any other investigators. There are a couple of Indian kids we go see but they can't come to church so that won't really work out.

Story for the week, haha. Like on Tuesday or something the two of us were just minding our own business when we got called by someone in the hospital to give a priesthood blessing, so we jetted on over there then we called the lady back and were like whereabouts is the place you’re at and she said the maternity wing part deal. So then we were like, “great”, haha.  We walk over there and there were about 15 rooms with 15 pregnant ladies in each room, so weird, with like pregnancy posters all over the walls with little bits of helpful tips for the new mums, pretty nasty.  Ater we finally found her we gave her a good blessing of comfort because she was really freaking stressed about the whole dealio.  I'm so stoked that I don't have to give birth! Props to the women out there. Anyways, were walking out when another lady comes up to us saying she wants a blessing and that she was from the Lami Ward.  The funny part is that she gave us a detailed description was about what the problem was that she was facing and we were like lady we don't need to know everything for a blessing to work, haha.  Then she was like, oh you don't. Nope. Anyways, one of the many crazy things that goes down in a missionary’s life.

Its so fun being out here, especially when people immediately recognize us as servants of the Lord and they call on us to help them.  It’s especially bomb when it’s to help them receive eternal life with their Heavenly Father, I can do that all day (if I could I mean I would).  For now though the office is running pretty smoothly, hopefully there will be some sweet blessings that come from this.  I'm thinking Kadavu, haha, we'll see.

Love you all!

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Hanke

So…a bit of an update from Mama’s end of things.  I emailed with Garrett several times this past week in an effort to get his bank card up and running (with full permission from the Mission Pres.).  Suffice it to say, however, that I’m not a big fan of Wells Fargo at the moment.  Anyway, the card is now working and Garrett is finally able to access his account.  Woo hoo!!!

There were a couple of things I want to share with everyone that Garrett wrote in the emails from last week.  Here’s the first one:

Quick funny story for you. Like five minutes ago I walked outside the office to grab something (quick behind -the-story explanation: next to the office are some apartments for members to stay in while they are in Fiji. It’s like a cheap hotel for members where they can be in a good environment).  Anyways, I walked out there and I saw some white people and one of the girls looked really familiar. With a closer look I realized that I knew her, it was a girl from my class at Logan, haha, Rachel something. But she is here on a study abroad for BYU, classic.  I got to talk to her a bit and what not but pretty funny.

After last week’s email when Garrett said that he wasn’t feeling very well, I’ll admit I was pretty concerned given his history with stomach problems.  When I emailed him about the bank card I asked him a few times how he was feeling and if it was only food poisoning.  Here is his response:

I forgot that I haven't told you yet but ever since the MTC I haven't taken my medicine because I haven’t felt sick at all.  I just had some food poisoning, but besides that no stomach aches except when I eat too much at a member’s house, haha.

I'll admit, that message caused tears of joy and relief to run down my face. Another amazing blessing from the mission, we are so grateful for this!

Thanks to everyone for your love and support!!

Bula,

Sounds like you all have had a good week with all of the stuff you have done.

As for me everything is grand, but I'm not feeling too hot right now. I think something I ate isn't really cooperating with me right now, so this might be a short e-mail, haha.

Lini is still doing way good. We'll set a baptismal date with her tomorrow for the 27^th I think, so that is good. No worries with her, I don't think she has missed a Sunday since she started taking the lessons.

We did a missionary fireside last night that went way good. There were about 20 investigators there, so there is a lot of work to be done. Most of it will be done by the sisters that we share this area with, so that will be good.

As for the office it is getting less and less frustrating as the days go by. I still have a bunch to learn but it doesn't bug me anymore, haha.  It will come in time. There are two senior couples coming in like a month, one is going to Vanua Levu and the other was supposed to go to Taveuni, but President Klingler switched their assignment to come work in the office. So, when they get here I'll train them for a bit then hopefully after one or two more months I can get transferred somewhere cool where they actually speak Fijian. Because so far all of the wards I have served in have all been English speaking and most of the people I'm around aren't Fijian, therefore my Fijian hasn't really improved. So I'm praying for an outer island where they only speak Fijian.

Anyway, I'm not feeling too hot, so…

Peace and Blessings,

Elder Hanke

Short letter this week.  I hope Garrett has access to his favorite pink beverage, Pepto Bismol.  Very glad to hear that he is adjusting to the office - but of course he's still holding on to the hope of being transferred to the jungle.  I don't think he'll ever let go of that dream! 

Thanks to all of for your support, love to everyone.