Hello!!

Well these last few weeks have been a little crazy. One thing we are trying to do is work with the priesthood leaders and ward members to work together as one. We had our musical fireside on Thursday and even though it was a mess trying to get everything together and running around putting together the agenda up until 5 minutes before it started, it did not crash and burn like we thought it would! Our theme was the gospel of Jesus Christ and we had 5 speakers on each principle of the gospel--Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. Unfortunately, Toa could not speak even though she was ready and really excited to speak. And 2 of our other speakers could not be there because we found out last minute that one was at a funeral and another was in Eua..another island. So we ran around to find speakers and then due to some other problems in the ward, 2 of our musical numbers couldn't be there so SIster Moala and I put 2 hymns together with a member who lives next door and thankfully,with the help of the YSA, it turned out alright! 

We've been working a lot with the YSA in the ward because we realized that even though there are only 3 active young single adults in our ward, there are TONS of less-actives and non-members in our area. So when Lika, a return-missionary in our ward, and Mafi, our ward missionary leader, got called as the parents for the YSA, we started coming up with activities that we could do every week to help fellowship our investigaters and bring the less-actives back to church. It's been AWESOME. Every week for the past we've had an activity and the less-actives and non-members LOVE it. Afterwards, they all go to the dances and Sister Moala and I feel like their mom sending them off to college or something everytime because of course we can't go but we're so excited for them. Some of them have even started coming back to church because of it. 

The work here has been a little hard this past week because an old lady that we taught died a couple weeks ago. One thing about the Tongan culture is their funerals. They just go on and on and on and on. It started a couple weeks ago and it is still going on right now. We are hoping that it will end this week or next week because lots of our investigaters are family to the lady who died and are involved with the funeral. 

A new and SUPER cool change in the mission happened a few weeks ago. But every month all of the sister training leaders and zone leaders get to go to the temple with our President and Sister Tupou and then we have MLC the next day where we talk about how we can help the mission and break our fast there. Last month was the first time we did this and it was an awesome experience. 

Also, we just got a call from Sister Tupou and we get to go to Ha'apai this week!!! Every month we go on exchanges with sisters in another area. But she wants us to go to Ha'apai this week which is another island so we'll be getting our tickets soon!! 

Well I love you lots!! God bless <3

Sister Petalisi

Hello!

This week will be a short one because lack of time, but here's a quick report of the week! One of our investigater's that we've been working with has been preparing to be baptized this Saturday. We found him at his house when we were looking for his younger sister, who really wants to join the church, but is not allowed to because she is only 10 and her mom does not approve. But Toni, our investigater, is 18 and so we could start teaching him. He has been coming to church and has a strong desire to be baptized, but we learned that his mom will kick him out of the house if he is baptized. It is a tough situation and we are doing a lot of praying for him and his mom! Another investigater we are working with is Pua, who really wants to be baptized but has a smoking and drinking problem. Whenever we show up for our appointments, he is either gone, or drunk so we have to delay it. He keeps asking--When is my baptism?--and we tell him that he cannot be baptized until we see a change. I know the desire is there, but we will have to teach him more about the word of wisdom and the meaning of commandments. 

My comp and I did a lot of studying on faith and one thing that has helped us in our work is a goal we have set for ourselves. We talked about faith with our mission president in our last district meeting and they talked about faith being a principle of power and  MASSIVE ACTION. While we thought we already knew that, we weren't applying it well enough in the work. Each day we set goals for numbers of lessons, referrals, and new investigators. So this week, we decided that each day we wouldn't come home until the goals for that day have been reached. Sometimes it requires desperate measures and awkward experiences but it has been an awesome experience so far! I know that my faith has increased after massive action. 

We will get to watch conference next week at the stake center which I'm looking forward to! Sorry I don't have much time this week either to write, it's crazy today with teachings and transfers are today also! We find out any time today whether or not we're moving or staying. There are LOTS of new people from the states coming this week so that will be interesting. Probably lots of changes but I am praying praying praying that I don't move. But we'll see! 

Love you all! Hope you all took good notes at general conference (:

Sister Petalisi