Week 8-November 15, 2015

Bula Vinaka! This week...this week has been something. I'll start with answering some of Mom's questions first.

My flat is way nice. Like indoor plumbing nice.  All the water is hot, but I'm not complaining. Three bedrooms and one bathroom. It's pretty rad.

The walking every where  isn't that bad. It's all just really far, but not to hilly or anything.

In Ba it's a pretty solid split between the amount of native Fijians and the amount of Indians. But both are the nicest people, especially to the Elders.

Rugby is a huge deal in Fiji. I see at least 60 All Blacks shirts daily (All Blacks is a very popular team). I have had the opportunity to play rugby with the Elders in my zone, and it is way fun.

Ba is an awesome area. The people here are SUPER humble and they are so kind and charitable.

Elder Visawaqa is actually learning English, but he's dang good at it. He's such a great guy and an even better trainer.

I didn't get to see Elder Ogden until today, but man it's been great. We are staying the night in his area and then he is coming down to my area tomorrow.

I miss home but I love it here.

I haven't seen to many tourists, like maybe five total.

I've had a lot of curry and Indian sweets, because of Diwali, so I'm kind of curryed out.

So this week has been rather difficult. I started to feel homesick for the first time this week. Like, actually homesick. It was rough just thinking about certain things that I wouldn't be able to do for two years. I tried hard to shrug it off but I just couldn't. 

We've had a lot of appointments fall through this week. Like a lot! We have an investigator named, Usaia. He's 15 and before I got here he was progressing really well and he had a baptismal date set last week. Recently though, he's stopped coming to church and he never wants to meet with us. This seems to be the case with most of our investigators. They were all progressing and then when I got here they all seemed to just stop.  This whole week I've thought, "This is my fault. I'm the reason they won't come to church and they don't want to meet with us." I've just been beating myself up. 

So today for P-Day, we went to an area called RakiRaki and we decided we would hike a mountain. I didn't think to much of it, but then when we started our guide (a 16 year old girl) took us straight up the side of the mountain. It stunk. Like it was just super hard. All the miles I had walked all seemed to catch up with me and I started falling behind. I kept thinking to myself "I can't do this, I'm not strong enough."  Everyone just kept telling me to push on so I kept going. There came a very large rock that stood between me and the rest of the trail. It was massive and it was not going to be easy to get over. I thought to myself "I can't do this, There is no way I can do this." And then as sure as the sun shines, I heard a voice say " You can do this!  You can do anything, for I am with you." I made it over the rock and up to the top of the mountain.  

As I looked out over the ocean I realized, that the experience I had wasn't just for my hike. I know that my Heavenly Father gave me reassurance that no matter how hard my mission gets, or how dark the world might seem, that we can accomplish great things because he is with us. I know that my Father in Heaven lives, and I know he is with each and everyone of us. I love you and I miss you.

Luke 12:32

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

And from one of my favorite hymns, Be Still, My Soul:

"Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side; 

With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain. 

Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In ev’ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy heav’nly Friend 

Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end."

Much Love,
Elder Dawson

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Peace Be Still

Keep it Real