Dear Family,                                                                                                  August 16th.  

This week was exciting for a couple of reasons..One being that Fapiola was baptized yesterday! The service was beautiful and my experience with meeting and teaching her taught me a lot! It taught me that the Lord really does prepare people to receive the gospel and that I must do all I can to find those people. It also taught me that I must be patient and let everything happen in the Lord's timing. We were doing all we could to find people with no luck and when we asked God to help us find those ready to receive the message, He gave us Fapiola who was already waiting to be taught. He prepared her by giving her that desire to learn English. And he prepared her through her uncle, who her family has deep respect for. Her uncle, who is a member of the church, lives in New Zealand and came to visit for the weekend. It's a miracle that the weekend her uncle was planning on coming to visit from New Zealand is the weekend that she is ready to be baptized because her Mom didn't want her to be baptized otherwise. I hope and pray that all of her family will also be receptive to the gospel, but I also must be patient because everyone has their agency. Fapiola stood up to bear her testimony after she was baptized. Her emotional and simple testimony was SO powerful. I sometimes forget how blessed I am to have the gospel in my life. Seeing others receive it reminds me of how much it blesses me and how much it changes lives. It also makes me even more excited to share it with everyone. 

Another exciting event of this week was with one of our other investigators. Dominika has wanted to be baptized since we first started talking to her, but her parents are anti-Mormon so we haven't been able to teach her because she's 17. So we've just been visiting whenever we see her on the street and checking up on our commitment to talk to her parents. Other than that, we've kept our distance so she isn't hurt by her parents. We walked by the house and her mom smiled at us and acknowledged us. That was very strange and so we felt like we should go talk to her and ask about Dominika. Dominika came out and said her mom gave her permission to talk with us! She still needs to talk to her Father about it, but we are very happy with each baby step!

Well I love you all and I love this gospel! The message of the gospel is so amazing and beautiful and TRUE. 

Sister Petalisi

(Sorry I'd send a picture of the baptism but we can't where we are emailing)