MOANA’S FAMILY

February 17, 2011 Thursday

Tonight we met with Moana and her family. She’s from New Zealand; we met her about 2 weeks ago and set up to go back to teach her and her girls about the Gospel. She’s been inactive most of her life. She postponed once and then we had to, but tonight we got together. Her 3 girls are Ebony-13, Sasha-9, and Ja-4. We took our dominoes to break the ice with them and it worked well. And her partner sat in for almost the whole time! His name is Rob and is really a nice guy. We gave them a short lesson on prayer and it’s importance and gave each of the girls a 5x7 picture of the Savior. And they marked so we can go back next week. Ebony went to YW a couple of weeks ago for the first time. The YW president picked her up. Moana is the only member of the church; the girls haven’t even been blessed. What a neat family. It would be so cool if we can unite them in the Gospel.
To catch up: We had Zone Conference with Elder and Sister Callister on Tuesday. What great teachers they are! He’s been a mission president in Toronto, Canada, and had lots of great suggestions. He also taught about the Atonement. He explained that many people think that because Christ was part god, he was able to withstand the suffering he went through easier than a normal person would. But he explained that when a person experiences too much pain, our bodies are built so that either we pass out or we die. Christ used his divinity to “switch off” that bypass so that he could suffer ALL things and not die or pass out. It made me appreciate even more what He did for us. Elder Callister also taught about becoming a “consecrated missionary.” It was a great learning experience.
That night we had a BBQ with the other senior missionaries at the Crawford’s flat. We ate, played a few games, talked and laughed a lot. It’s good to be able to associate with such good people. We found out that Sister Orth has diabetes and a form of leukemia. Right now, she just has to make sure she eats a really healthy diet and it will remain in check. What a trooper to come on a mission like that!
Wednesday we turned the teaching of Yingping over to the Zone Leaders with whom we traded areas, wards and flats. There’s just no way we could arrange for the fellowshipping and stuff not living in the same ward. We will still see her from time to time. She’s a good girl. After the lesson, the elders suggested we eat lunch with them at the International Food House in St James. We had kebabs that were really good. (They are like big wraps in the states.) It was fun to just sit and visit with the elders. They are such good guys.
We’ve also taught the Sotos twice this week. Today we covered the plan of salvation with them. Rod just got more and more excited as we answered many questions and filled in the gaps for him. It is so fun to teach them. They’ve both struggled with smoking and have been on the patch for the last couple of weeks. Rod has weaned himself off that and Pauline is still using it, but neither has smoked for almost 2 weeks. They had quit before baptism, but it grabbed them later. They are working really hard to make it stick this time.