November 18, 2013 - Another Week in Samoa Gone By

Talofa Family. This week was good. During our weekly planning session pretty much all of our investigators had to be moved to Former Investigators so that was disappointing. We seem to be struggling a bit to find people who are willing to progress. Or willing to hear our message. At least Samoan wise. When we go tracting we find quite a few referrals so at least that's good. I know that Heavenly Father will bless us for our diligence and effort though. The work will pick up. An experience from tracting though--we met Joe and Stan Omar. They are brothers from Saipan. They immediately invited us in and let us share a message with them. That's just the way of their culture I guess. Anyway, they were so nice. I really liked them. They were asking great questions and really listening to what we were saying. Stan said that he's been waiting for this. He thinks this might be his answer. He's been thinking about religion off and on for his whole life and looked into a few different things but nothing felt right. At the end of the lesson he prayed. It was his first time praying and he said he really liked it. Also, when we were talking to them about the Book of Mormon we read a few verses with them and they really liked it. Stan was even highlighting and taking notes. He said he's really excited to read it. It was such a cool experience. They were great. I'm really, really sad that we don't get to teach them. They almost look Samoan... at first I was really excited when I saw them. But no worries. The Burien elders are just really lucky! haha.

We were really blessed last week though. I can't remember if I told you or not. But Roy, the one who's leaving for Portland on his mission in a couple weeks went through the white pages one day at the library and made us a list of all the Samoan names he could find. 26 referrals!!! We've been trying them the last two weeks. Some of them the people have moved but we've been able to find out about more Samoan houses that we didn't know about so this is a huge blessing. Funny experience. One of them was pretty mean to us. We go and knock on the door and this fourteen year old kid answers the door. He told us his family doesn't go to church right now but he thinks he would like to. He was a nice kid. We asked him if there was a time we could come and talk to his family. Right as we asked that his mom who was downstairs asked who was at the door. He told them it was people from church. She just yelled "Not interested." Sister Smalley was in the middle of asking if we could just leave them a picture of Jesus when she comes and slams the door on us. We never actually saw her face. I felt bad for the kid though. So yeah, some Samoans are a little bit mean. Also, don't ever try and interrupt the Seahawks game. Nothing is worthy of interrupting the game when it's on. haha.

The Lord really is in our work though. His hand is over everything. We were able to get in contact with Olo twice in the last two weeks. He's a man who is really, really hard to get ahold of. But both times we went over there he was coming out the door. Even though it was to smoke. But hey, we'll teach him about the Word of Wisdom soon and all will be well. We're doing a church tour with Brother Toso, from the ward. Olo used to know him back in Samoa. They worked together. So this'll be really good. We're excited to do our church tour this week with him and Brother Toso and put him on date for baptism, yeah?!

Things are good. I love my Samoan ward. So much. The ward members are great. I'm so blessed to be out here serving. This is the Lord's work and the gospel is so true! Read your scriptures everyday! They're wonderful. Do good things. Make good decisions. CTR. Love you all!

Fasoifua!

Sister Veronica White