Dear Family

This week was a historical week for the people of Tongamama'o. We worked together with the primary president to put together a Halloween ward party for the kids (it was mainly all her but we helped with the idea) It was very new and different for everyone, many kids were confused, some were scared, but it turned out good and they hope to start a new Tongamama'o ward tradition by celebrating Halloween every year. Each auxiliary decorated their own room at the church and the kids walked around door to door asking for candy. 

After last weeks challenging week of work, losing our progressing investigators, we ended up doing a lot less teaching and a lot more walking around knocking doors and trying to find new people to teach. And for anyone who has served a mission before, it is usually not the most rewarding or loved thing. I sometimes can't help but think to myself if our knocking on doors just the two of us is actually going to pay off because half of the houses tell us never to come back and the other half sets a time for us to teach and then isn't there when we do go back to teach them. But one of the miracles we saw this week through our diligence and faith was finding a new investigator by knocking on doors. Actually not really new because they were taught once before during our stake companion exchange and they live right next door to us but we've been trying to find them ever since that first week we got here. Every morning during our studies we would see the father driving off to work and he wouldn't get home until after we got home. We visited the wife trying to schedule a time to meet with them, but she is not interested and would tell us to come back in a few weeks so were getting nowhere by visiting her. But we knew we needed to find this father and teach him, every time we saw him drive off to work I'd think to myself when are we going to be able to find a time he is available. Friday afternoon we went back to one of the houses we had met knocking doors and they weren't home but we were surprised to find the father we had been looking for and a coworker working on a car in their front-yard. He stopped his work and said the family wasn't home but asked if we could teach him right there. We taught him and committed him to baptism. He had read the Book of Mormon and said he believes it is a book from God and wants to read it more and belong to the church. He told us that only him in his family is interested, his wife and her family are strong Catholic. We went back and taught his whole family Saturday night. Right now, we are trying to help him to stop smoking and drinking. I think his wife's heart was softened a little when we taught the Word of Wisdom and when he is able to overcome his addictions and change his life he will be able to help his whole family convert to the gospel. The challenging thing will be finding the time to teach them, but I know God will help this family and help us to know how to help them convert to the gospel.  

Ofa atu!

Sister  Petalisi

                                                                  Stake service at the Wesleyan high school

                                                         Historical 1st Halloween celebrated in Eua