JANUARY 1st

I feel like the subject of this email is something an Elder would right so I wrote it haha.
BUT IT REALLY HAS BEEN AN AMAZING WEEK!

Malo e lelei, mou fefe?

Kataki, na'e ikai tohi kiate kimoutolu. 

Recently, it was brought to my attention by the fam that I have changed. And over the past couple of weeks it's been like killing me because I've been trying to figure out what it is specifically and how I could change it.

A couple of weeks ago it was brought up and since then I've been striving to be that obedient missionary. But I still felt towards the beginning of last week I was like...changed? 

SO I prayed to know what it was or for the Lord to give me some direction and I felt prompted to go and print off my patriarchal blessing. 

And let me tell you, the two-sided piece of paper helped me so much to realize who I am, the blessings I will receive, the missionary the Lord will make me to be...all this stuff, but at the end it said, "all blessings are predicated upon my faithfulness..." 

Right there was my answer! 

I need to be the person I am naturally. I'm naturally a good missionary, naturally a good listener, it says in there also I'm naturally blessed with compassion, and I have the desire already in me to follow the example of Christ. But because I fell short of being obedient and faithful, I fell short of receiving those things - therefore changing my attitude...in a way.

I don't know how interesting this is to all of you but this is a huge moment for me haha - CAUSE I FIGURED IT OUT!!

I've learned to be me and not anyone else. To not mimic other missionaries that are disobedient, to follow the white handbook and to strive to have the Holy Ghost with me at all times. I know what's right and what's not,  so I need to just follow that natural drive I have to be better. 

I was so scared I'd change on the mission. Like become hard and crass, but looking at the blessings I am given in my patriarchal blessing it comforts me to know I won't change into a person I won't like, and I'll be the person I WANT to be and that I need not worry because God won't let that happen if I stay faithful and obedient. 

BUT YA!!!

We also have a baptism...what?!? YUUUUP. This week on Wednesday, your Tuesday. 

What else...I did a lot of drawing this week. I drew out The Plan of Salvation to help our fiefanongo with lesson two.  AND I found a uke and I recorded a bunch of songs but they"ll come another week maybe....and I took some pictures of myself while I was sitting in the bishop's office...waiting for my comp to finish his emailing. 

Wow! I have so much to tell you all. I also had this crazy realization about the Book of Mormon but that'll be for another week cause thats also really long....

OH our water was out so we had no water for four days, BUT THEN IT RAINED AND IT FILLED UP THE TANK ENOUGH SO WE CAN ATLEAST FLUSH THE TOILET AND WASH OUR HANDS. 

And I just wanna thank dad for teaching me that you can use a bucket to flush the toilet!  hahaha.

I washed the bed sheets that were there in the mq already and freaking it was nast. Like they havn't been washed since the great depression. BUT now I have clean sheets hahaha I will include a pic of the dirty water.

 But more to come next week!

I love thou all you. 

Elder Kalisi Mafi

Ps if you would like to, email me because I would love to hear about all your guys' lives. (kalisi.mafi@myldsmail)

JANUARY 8th

This week has been great!

The Lord has blessed me so much!

So I've been in my area, Pangai Motu for...let's see...o that's right four hundred years!!!! and nothing was happening. The ward wasn't helping and the Bishop wasn't helping us so it was just kinda lame. But then I realized, maybe I just need to kick start these people and kinda like do it myself because maybe I was the problem, you know? So that's what I did! With my last comps I kinda just let them do stuff and show me, but nothing was really happening and I don't know I just felt like I could be doing more and like just working. Always be working regardless if I can't go out and proselyte. Just always be doing something. And like if nothing happened at least we tried to go out. 

So with my new comp, Elder Fuma, I decided to just like step it up. And try to get the members and the bishop and all of them to help out. So what we did was, we made this family plan and what it is, is it kinda moves the family to doing missionary work. SO,  they'll make a daily goal, weekly goal, monthly goal and the whole point is to unite the families of the ward and to strengthen the work. You mighta heard about something similar before. 

Anyway we brought this up to bishop and his counselors and they were super into it AND because of it, we now have two maybe three teachings this coming week which is MONEYYYYYYYYYY (awesome).

So I'm super thankful for the Lord and for Him giving me some motivation and helping me be the missionary he needs me to be for Him. The spirit is really working in the hearts of the people here so hopefully if not me the next missionaries will have a lot of referrals haha. 

I baptized a little girl this past week which was a great experience! You could see her aura change. Like countenance, yeah countenance,haha. It was really cool. And as she bore her testimony you could see like the spirit within her. It was really cool. 

But yeah! 

Hopefully we'll be teaching peolpe this coming week and ya! I'm super excited!

Thank you all for you prayers and your fastings and all the mebers of my ward and stake for their prayers. 

I love all you guys!

Love Elder Mafi

(Kalisi sent pictures this week, but unfortunately we couldn't open them...stay tuned, we'll get em)