JANUARY 15th 2017
Whats up fam!
Thank you all so so much for your emails and letters you have sent me. I love to hear about all what you all are doing and it's nice to know someone cares at the other end of the line haha.
So thank yall guys (good English right? haha (my English is getting really fob now so forgive me haha))
This week hasn't been the greatest of weeks to be real. No teachings or anything, BUT I invited this group of girls to come to church and two of the four did SO THATS GREAT! Hopefully I get the chance to teach them this coming week!
ALSO I've found some people that know English so they will be able to help with my tongan which is doooooope.
I was trying to figure out what I was going to write this week but I didn't know what to say cuz nothing really interesting happened so I thought maybe this time I'd share just like a thought.
Cool? Cool. haha
One thing I want to share first is just like a quick little thought and it is, listen to what the Spirit tells you on your highs, so you know what to do on your lows. Meaning to not discredit what you felt or what the Spirit told you as something inapplicable when life gets hard. And more of like listen to and remember always what the spirit tells you because the Lord knows you better than anyone else. You know?
Ok.
Next thing.
So I was thinking about goals and like things I want to accomplish or do, you know?
And a story/experience came to mind.
I was on a hike along the coast this one time and it had been three days into the five-day trip and you know I was real tired from waking up early haha but anyway as we descended from a hill, we stepped right into this bank of fog. The beach was completely shrouded in this thick pea soup of fog. It's like the kind of fog where as you look forward you see nothing and it feels like it expands on forever. As I stared into this wall of fog I kinda felt a little weak almost and intimidated by how immense it was. Never the less I took a step into the abyss. My goal was to get to camp before it got too late and I wanted to get there as soon as possible ( mostly because I was hungry haha). It almost seemed like the further I walked, the less I could see in front of me. Still, I walked and walked and walked and walked, not knowing what to expect and even at times doubting the direction I was walking was correct. But forward I trudged. I had a goal to get to the camp-site and I was going to move forward till I got there. Finally, after years of walking, we all made it to the place. Looking back on this experience it showed me what a good trait to have should be. That is, to not shy away from a goal that you make. Although walking through the fog felt like I was stuck in a never ending loop and even at times feeling like I should turn back, I pushed forward with my pack tightly strapped to my back, determined to accomplish what I had set out to do.
If you believe you can do or accomplish something then try the best you can to get there. As long as the goal is logical and well thought out it can be achievable. When it gets hard, remember that because you planned it out and it seemed logical to you it's still achievable. The fog will come. It will make things hard to see. But in the time you want to give up, when all seems lost, when the fog becomes too thick, you must continue on and have faith in yourself. Because if you give up, you'll never know if the next step you would have taken would have gotten you through the fog and maybe would have brought you right to the feet of your goal.
I want to close with some words from President Eyring about having faith and apply it to making and accomplishing goals.
He said, "If the foundation of faith is not embedded in our hearts, the power to endure will crumble...(in the words of Moroni)...acting on even a twig of faith, allows God to grow it...If we have faith in Jesus Christ, we never need feel we are alone or unloved in the Lord's service because we never are. We can feel the love of God. The savior has promised angels on our left and our right to bear us up and he always keeps his word. His love is unfailing."
The last words really stuck out to me. How he will send us angels on our left and right to bear us up. I know I'm just a kid, serving a mission, but I know what I speak is true. I believe that if we make goals or want to accomplish something hard, we can and are able to do it with our determination coupled with the help of the Lord and with those two things hand in hand you will have the potential to move mountains, for we are promised we are able to do all things through the Lord.
So that's my thing for this week!
Hope you all are doing great in America...with your warm showers and your soft couches hahaha jkjk
Always good to hear from you all tho so email when you can. Ofa Lahi Atu!
teu tohi a kitautolu monite ka ha'u
lotu lahi, satiako, kai ke feti hahaha
malomalo
JANUARY 22, 2017
Malo e lelei
Fefe hake?
Oku ou feifia he oku pday ahoni haha
This week's email will be short, kataki haha.
So this week hasn't been great like the week before, investigator wise, but I've done a lot of learning and what not. Anyway, I've been thinking about like lying and lying to yourself.
So when I was back at home I watched this video about lies, and in it, it said we hear from 10 to 200 lies a day and the person we lie to the most is ourselves to create a better image of who we are.
So then i thought, "but what if we want to be better at something?" you know? Say I want to be more patient right? Sometimes we tell ourselves we are something until we cloak and become it. Know what I mean? I can lie to myself and tell myself I'm patient and that would make me seem patient, but really we're not because we are lying to ourselves that we are. You know? If the Lord wants us to be better, then what do we say to ourselves without lying?
I think that we should say we are working on something. Say I'm working on being patient and stuff like that. That way you're not lying to yourself and you're improving becasue it's still on your mind. you know?
So yeah, hope that makes sense.
Here are some random things that happened this week:
Zone conference
Food poisoning
New missionary rules (yay)
We got invited to a party with a bunch of drunk people. It was really awkward but they started singing and I acted like I knew the words and sang with them hahaha
There was a pig that layed down by us so I scratched his belly with my slipper
(o.k. as his mom, I just have to say, this is sooo Kalisi, haha).
I made up two games. One called match-ketball and slap cap. For match-ketball you have a bowl of water and matches and you light the match and as fast as you can, throw it in the bowl and see if you can get it in. And for slap cap you have bottles lined up and you flick a cap at them and try to knock down the bottles.
So yeah, that's it hahaha
Just tryna make fun haha
Anyway, Ofa atu!
Thank you for you love and support and emails!
Elda Mafi
JANUARY 29th 2017
Elder Mafi's Baptism (the girl) from a few weeks ago:) #shoelesslifestyle
Mafi in slow-mo
Classic Kalisi (Elder Mafi). Pizza? Yes, even in Tonga!
Malo e lelei Famili mo kau ngamea. Oku ou fieifia ke tohi a kimoutolu ahoni. Ko e uike osi na'a ku fai hala pe, kataki. Kae oku ne sai koe'uhi naa ako lahi i he tohi a molomona moe ako ae tefito oe faith mo charity mo hope.
In my studies this week I watched this video about Jesus walking on water and it's called, "Wherefore Didst Thou Doubt." In the video, Peter sees Christ on the water and Peter is like, "Bid me come unto you" and Christ says, "come." And so he starts to walk and as he is walking he's focused on Christ but as the storm around him rages and the winds are blowing he breaks sight of Christ and starts to sink and he says "Lord save me!" So Christ comes over and lifts him up and as he's getting into the boat he says. "Oh ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" This whole story made me think of a question and it was, where is my doubt that prevents me from walking out on the water (in a sense) where are my doubts, you know? I want to walk on the water and walk to Christ and do amazing things like that, where are my doubts?
And so that's what I've been thinking about this week. Is where are my doubts and do I have faith enough to walk on the water?
Maybe this might help some of you, where are your doubts that hold you back from doing extrodinary things? I mean I don't mean to be all preachy, just kinda think about it, ya?
Thats one of the main things I've been thinking about. I've been studying hope love and charity a lot but I'll save that for another time maybe haha.
Here are some pics of me and Tonga.
We don't get pizza a lot so this is me eating pizza (pizza is hecka mamafa haha it's like 49$)
Then one is a baptism I had and then I did my name in a fancy way haha its cursive so it looks like not an f but its an f haha. Then a rainbow i saw....thats all.
Ofa Atu to all of you, Elder Mafi
