8 days down and lovin' it!

Malo e lelei from the Provo MTC!

I had some camera difficulties... So i don't have that much time left to write, but hopefully i will figure out how to send my pictures next friday. I'll let you imagine the photos in your head instead- just picture me... the awkward Palangi with a bunch of fun, loud Polynesians and that's pretty much it! I had a lot of cool experiences this week... Elder Oaks came to our devotinal and I was sitting pretty close up! that was cool. I can now pray completely in Tongan! that's fun.... and I love having an hour for personal study each day. So now I'll give you a sample of some experiences-

My companion and I were teaching a lesson to our investigator "Elisapeti" who is really just our teacher pretending to be an investigator and I read a quote to her for the lesson in Tongan and i was just feeling like a failure because reading tongan takes so long for me because the words are wrong and I don't know how to pronounce some of them.. and then i said a prayer out loud to close the lesson. As soon as I said "E' Tamai Hevani" I just got this warm comforting feeling, as if someone was saying "it's okay. I'm still proud of you. You don't have to be perfect." and yep you guessed it. I lost it. the tears came and i'm pretty sure i scared "Elisapeti" because she had no idea why I was crying but I think the Spirit was definitely there so that can't be a bad thing. 

In personal study the other day, I was reading the Book Of Mormon in Mosiah  and it was talking about Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah. Mosiah 28:3 "Not they were desirous that Salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even even the very thought that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble." I thought that was pretty cool because if I really believe that missionary work is the work of salvation, AND I DO, then this is literally saving lives in a spiritual sense and that is pretty cool and SO important. There is no way I am going to be that person who meets an old friend in the next life and has to answer for why I didn't tell them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ that could have helped them in life SO much and I had it the whole time. Not gonna happen. I think we should all ponder that possibility every now and then and make a few changes if necessary. 

Other cool thing- when missionaries leave from my zone, the whole zone sings to them in every language! We sing in Tongan, Samoan, Mashallese, Kiribati, and Fijian. It is sooo beautiful. No offense to the other languages, but the tongan songs are seriously the most beautiful by far.

 Out of time. That's all for now. 

Ofa Atu <3

--

Sister Emily Bever

Tonga Nuku'alofa Mission