Elder Sam Hess

Some great things have happened this week! We have found a lot of new people to teach and just seen a lot of good things happen. One of the best things that has happened this week was Janand and Joyreen coming to church and being able to meet with President Gounder who is in our Stake Presidency. President Gounder is a great fellow shipper, and sat down with them and have figured out all the details so that they will be able to have a their marriage in the church hopefully next week!! We are so excited! It's funny, sometimes I feel like I have gotten more people married on my mission than baptized. Jokes! I guess temple marriage is the end goal though. But first I think we will just focus on the baptismal service:)

This week we were out in Baulevu and after having a lesson fall through, we felt like we needed to go see the Gounder family. We did and after a few minutes guess who walked by!? Anji!! She told us that she has been waiting for another opportunity to see us so that we could meet again. Last time we talked to Anji was as her husband told us to never come back. It was heartbreaking, but when we saw her we were so excited and asked the Gounders if we could use their house to meet with Anji. They agreed and we were able to finally sit down with her and hear her powerful testimony of the past 2 months since we hadn't seen her! Even though she right now isn't able to come to church, she has been following the word of wisdom, reading the Book of Mormon, and following all the other commandments we have already shared with her. She said that her life is different since she started taking the lessons!  We read together Mosiah 24 and it was a sweet moment to be there together and feel the Spirit testify of the hope of Christ in our trials. Right now it's hard to know what will happen in the short term, but one miracle from this story is that her husband found out she was coming to see us and didn't say anything. So he is allowing her to at least come and talk with us and the Gounders at the Gounder's home. For now, up until another way is made for her to come to church and be baptized this is a huge blessing. I know that with strong faith and hope in the future she will be able to one day be able to receive the full blessings of the gospel.

Here are some pictures of some things from the week! 

Pictures:

1. This was a cottage meeting we had at the Gounder's house yesterday. Anji is the one on the very right who is barely fitting inside the photo. 

2-4. The other night we were helping Aunti our landlord peel peas with a bunch of other ladies from around the neighborhood. It was definitely a highlight of the week.

5-6. Found these both this week. The centapede is about the 15th I've killed in this flat alone. That's gotta be a record or something. The Spider was about a big as my palm although it doesn't look as big in the photo bc I copied it from a video.

7-8. Two quotes I found on Saturday! Such great messages! 

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Elda Hess