Family and Friends,

This past week we've really started to see some progress in the area
and feels like the wheels are starting to spin a little faster as
planned lessons are starting to fill up our days and members are
lining up to have us come teach at their house and have family night
with them. I love this ward they are a dream.

Right now we are continuing to work with Timote who is trying to be
sealed in the temple this year with his girlfriend. Since the time we
first started working with him he has progressed so much--stopped
smoking completely, prays morning and night, and reads the Book of
Mormon almost every day. He is glowing! It is awesome to see the light
that has grown brighter in his eyes as he's grown closer to Heavenly
Father and the Savior. His initial response to the invitation to read
the Book of Mormon was, "Um I don't read." He gradually started to
read more and more every day and would kind of hide in the corner of
his room so that his family, who aren't members, wouldn't see him and
make fun of him. He recently told us he gets so excited about the
stories that he stands up and reads out loud to himself, walking
around his room.

We had a neat experience with one of the part-member families we are
working with. After watching General Conference and the Women's
Conference, I asked myself what more can I do to "make a difference"
by serving locally. Having thought about it and prayed about it for a
couple days, the mother of this part-member family approached us and
asked if we could help her kids with their English because apparently
were all failing in their English tests at school. We were able to
help them for an hour this week with their English and plan on
continuing to do so every week. The parents love it and I hope that it
may open the dad's heart, who is a non-member, to listen to our
message. You'd think that me being a missionary there are so many
opportunities to serve. And of course there are, just not in the way
that you'd expect. Like we recently heard in Conference, we can simply
serve others through our love, example and the way we treat others.
And that's pretty much the extent of our service here because NO ONE
lets you serve them or do anything to help them. This gets a bit
frustrating at times. But we felt very happy in our realizing that
this is one way we can serve the people here.

Ofa lahi atu kia moutolu xoxo
Sister Petalisi