Hamar saati beemar hei

This week has been good, although unfortunately my companion Elder Lee's health has gotten worse. We were in the hospital from Tuesday until Thursday doing tests and scans.Finally after getting a CT scan they found out that he has Hepatitis A. So his liver isn't doing so well and after consulting with the doctor and President Higgings they decided that he need to be quarantined in our flat for a week until his next appointment on Wednesday. This disease is pretty contagious and so he has to be all by himself and been for the past 4 nights and will be for the next couple days as well. He isn't allowed to leave the flat and so it's pretty crazy, and he is so bored. It has been hard not having a companion, but over the past week I have been just floating around from companionship to companionship doing exchanges.But it hasbeen pretty fun actually. But please make sure to please pray for Elder Lee. 

From the couple days of work we were able to get in this week we have see some really cool miracles. This week we were able to finish the lessons with Josefa and Timoci and it is so awesome seeing how prepared they are! They honestly are so excited and so are we!! Josefa was telling me some super cool insights on how the Book of Mormon goes together with the Bible! It was so awesome! Their baptism will be this Saturday! 

Well not so much time, but I love you guys and love this work as well! God is good! Have a great week fam! 

Elder Hess

May 6, 2018 Dher ahirvaad dekha ii haafta me.

This week has been really good! We have seen so many cool blessing!

The pictures of the baptism are Justin, Jason, Mohini,  and the rest of the family! They got baptized!! They are the ones that me and Elder Shin found while we were proselyting in Suva soon before I got transferred to Nausori! The whole family got baptized on Saturday and it was one of the best days of my mission! We got permission to travel back to Suva to be able to see the baptism! Crazy to think if we hadn't just said "hi" and start talking to Mohini that one day then none of this would have happened! Thankful for the Spirit to guide us to prepared families like this!

The boy wearing the green shirt in the 4th picture is Sonu!! He is the man! We set a baptismal date for him this week for the 19th of this month and he is excited and preparing great! He came to all three hours of church yesterday and then attended the YSA fireside afterwards! He is on fire and really just so prepared and learning quick! We are especially excited for his baptism because it will be Elder Ishibashi's last day in Fiji and we have talked with the AP's and we are planning on doing the baptism early in the morning so that Elder Ishibashi can be there for it just a couple hours before his bus ride to the Nadi for his flight back to Hawaii. How cool is that going to be!!

Last Monday for P day me and Elder Ishibashi went to Claudius and Violet's house along and with the rest of the family we made "Big Pancakes" with them:) It took a little experimenting but they turned out really good in the end and it was super fun! We wanted to get one picture of me flipping the crepe in the air and the pictured turned out nice, but right after this picture was taken I dropped it onto the floor haha:(

There is a branch in our Stake called Navatuyaba, and this week we were contacted by President Higgins to go down there because there are 2 boys interested in taking the lessons, but because of a shortage of missionaries we don't have any elders in that branch right now. Well the boys names are Josefa and Timoci! We got a hold of the bishop and went down there for church yesterday! It was so cool! It is a Fijian branch and I actually got up and bore my testimony in Fijian! Haha it has been a long time since I have spoken much fijian, but it was actually really special to be able to do that because I haven't ever had that opportunity in Fiji during a fast and testimony meeting. We sat down with them during second hour and got to share a message. We really focused on 'How to Begin Teaching', and it went really good! We had an idea of what we wanted to teach but first just started asking them their background and some questions they have. They were and are so prepared! It was one of the coolest first lessons I have been a part of on my mission. They had the perfect questions and were so excited to learn more about the church and where it came from. We felt the spirit so strong that we even decided to invite them to be baptized that first day(yesterday), and set a baptismal date together! They have been coming to church for a while now, they have just been waiting to hear the doctrine and so we are really excited for them. Also I didn't know this, but President Ratuvukivuki's younger brother is in that ward and knows the two boys really well, and so it is a great connection we were able to make because I knew the Ratuvukivuki family really well from my time in Suva! He was in the lesson with us yesterday and it was awesome.

We have also received a really cool referral this week! Her name is Christine and she is a hindu girl who recently got engaged to a less active member named Edwin. Her family are very strong hindus, but her father this week decided to let her become Christian!! Woohoo! Our first lesson together with her will be tomorrow night and so we are so excited! I am especially excited for two reasons, 1. We are going to be teaching her at her house and so her whole family is going to be there for the lesson, and 2. The less active family she is going to marry into hasn't been to church in a long time and I think this is going to help them get the fire back inside of their testimonies! I'll keep you guys updated, but we are really excited!!

Life is good and busy here! Sorry for my inconsistency in writing a weekly letter, but I do love you all and am thankful for the support that is given to me:)

Have a great week!!

Elder Hess

April 23, 2018 Ii haafta saab se achcha ra

Hello! This week has been really good and has really gone by so fast! Probably because we were able to spend the entire week in our area and didn't have to run around doing so much administration like in the past two weeks because of the floods and so forth. Ministering is much more enjoyable than administering. 

Oh one funny/awesome story from this week! So up until now I have been driving on my American driver's license, but I am at the point that I needed to transfer into a full Fijian license. This process requires going to the LTA which is the same as a DMV in America, and taking a written and driving test. This process can take a long time because they almost always fail you a couple of times before you can pass the test! They are very particular at the little things and so it really can take such a long time. For example when I was with Elder Christensen he took the test 5 times and never passed. Even though he has been driving his whole life. Well this past Friday was the day I was set to go take the test in Suva and I show up and see that it is an Indian man who is going to be doing my test. We start out by going to the car and doing the driving test. He was pretty cranky for the first few minutes and I was just speaking English to him. Then he asked a question about missionaries and I took that as my opportunity to start speaking Hindi and to explain to him that we are the Hindi Elders and can speak Hindi. He got such a shock, like most people do, and became super interested and happy! We were planning on driving around the whole tip of Suva all the way to Suva town and so forth, but less than one minute after I started speaking Hindi he told me to take a right turn and then another and then to pull back into the LTA. His whole whole demeanor had changed and he was laughing and smiling and we were having a great time. The driving test only lasted about 10 minutes total!! He called me to the back room and said that I was finished and I was surprised because I still hadn't taken the written test! He filled out all the paperwork and then said,"Well you're all finished Samuel! Go get your license at the front desk!" I was so surprised!! I have heard from other missionaries how it is a nightmare to try and get their license finished but it only took me 15 minutes total!! And then the coolest part is, when I was leaving after I had grabbed my license he called from the back room saying saying loudly,"Samuel, Samuel, Have you already eaten lunch? You should come have lunch with me today." I wish so badly we could've gone with him, but we had to get back to our area for some lessons, and so I explained that to him. The funny thing is that this whole conversation was in Hindi and there were a ton of people sitting in the LTA watching the whole thing, they were all looking way surprised and funny because they'd never seen a white kid speak Hindi before! It was just awesome, because what I thought was going to be a miserable day turned out to be one of the favorite moments of my mission! 

Tomasi and Fatulia both got confirmed this Sunday which was just awesome! Marica was picked up by her uncle the night before to go stay at his house for a celebration going on there and so she wasn't able to be confirmed. But their mother is awesome and we pray everything is going to work out next week:)

The investigators are doing so good right now. Like I said the past two weeks were crazy busy, but this past week was awesome because we got to spend a whole week with our investigators just teaching lessons and being real missionaries. I love this work and am so happy! 

Love you all!

Pictures: 

1-7: At Navua beach yesterday as a zone! It was so much fun! The one doing the splits is my companion Elder Ishibashi! He is such a good guy and we have so much fun together. HAHA that one is such a quality picture lol! 

8: This is Violet our recent convert. She is super cute and really smart. She reminds me a lot of Sadie! 

9-12: Found this beetle at our house haha! It was HUGE! 

April 16, 2018 Ii hafta bohut jaluum ra

Sorry it has been so long! Things have been crazy! We have had 2 cyclones in the past week and a half and with that we have had 3 areas in our zone get flooded out! That is what most of these pictures are from! We actually had to travel back up to the village 2 days after the cyclone to get the stuff that so that Elder Haderly could catch his flight the following morning because of an emergency transfer! The APs told us that we couldn't reschedule the flight and so we set out to find a way to get to the flat which was still 5 or so miles away due to water flooding the roads!! We ended up getting a boat ride from the police to a point where we could walk for an hour until we got to a point we couldn't go any further. We tried to build a raft but that didn't work out and so we said a group prayer and then just started wandering out into the water because we all felt like we should. Once out there we saw a boat in the distance and called it down. He took us up to a side of the hill where we then got out some machetes and hiked a crazy hike up the backside of the hill while 2 elders stayed behind and made sure the boat didn't leave us! Ahh it was a crazy day!! One thing I learned is also taught in Moroni 12 when we read that we do not receive the witness until after the trial of our faith. We said a prayer, but then we didn't just sit back and wait. Even though we didn't know what we to do, we did the only thing we could do even though it didn't make sense, that is walk out into the water knowing very well that it would get too deep soon. But that is the moment that we saw the miracle:) 

We had 3 more baptisms in the past couple weeks! Marica, Tomasi, and Fatulia. They are all from Waila ward and just are awesome. The hard part is that they got baptized now 3 weeks ago, but still haven't been able to be confirmed. The day after the baptisms the cyclone came and church got cancelled and then we had General Conference the week after, and just yesterday we had Ward Conference and so they weren't able to be confirmed then either. They are patiently waiting for next week when they will finally receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost! 

Another amazing experience has happened recently! I don't know if you all remember Justina. Jason, Mohini and the rest of their family, but they were a family that me and Elder Shin found during my second to last week in Suva. Before me leaving they had told me that their family lived in Waila and were members of the church, but we never knew who they were. Well just on Saturday we got a call from a really awesome family named the Singh's who live on the street over from us. They needed a blessing. We went and found out that they were members but had not been to church in over many years. They had asked for us to come over so that we could give them a blessing to have the strength to come back to church and make it back to the temple. They mentioned how they recently found the desire to come back to church through their family who had actually just recently started to investigate the church in Suva. I didn't even make the connection until after we had given the blessing. I mentioned how I had just come from Suva 1st ward and they interupted and said that is where their family is investigating the church!! When I found out it was Justina's family I was so overcome with happiness. We all gave each other hugs we were so happy! Justina and Jason, as well as Mohini who is Jason's mom and 2 others in the family will be baptized next Saturday on the 28 and I am so happy!! Who would've thought that by knocking on one door the ripple effect would do so much visible good that we would be able to witness even in just 2 months. Not only the 5 in Suva but a whole family who lives the street over from where I didn't even know I was going yet! And yes, the Singhs came to church all together yesterday and it was so amazing to see them get welcomed right back into the ward family with love. God is in control and it is so cool to see:)

Their is so much change happening here with missionaries getting shifted around! It keeps us really busy along with a lot of other times consuming things that are going. 

Oh and just one funny slash sad story before I need to go.

Right now their are 3 missionaries being trained in our mission and all 3 of them are in our zone here in Nausori! They are all doing so good and probably much better than I did at adjusting to Fiji and all that that comes with. But one of them this week instead of brushing her teeth with her toothpaste accidentally used her cortisone cream instead. It was sitting right next to where here toothpaste was and had been using it for all the bed bug bites she had been getting. She was throwing up blood for the next 3 days and she didn't tell anyone!! We finally found out on Friday and then took her to the hospital right away. She is doing way better now. To her credit she is handling everything like a champ. For all the things she is going through she has never complained once.

Things are so awesome! Sorry I just wrote a bunch of random things and stories going on here. I love it here so much!! Life is so good!! Love you all! Have a great week!

-- 

Elda Hess

April 8, 2018 random pics from throughout the week

March 25, 2018 Pictures from this fantastic week

This week has been busy and great. Highlight of the week was Saturday seeing Anjana be baptized. It was such a special day for her and the whole ward. We were able to involve the Young Women's in the baptismal program and the fellow shipping was really cool. She has been able to step right into the ward comfortably which is great to see.

We saw one of the coolest miracles I have ever witnessed on the day of the baptism!! We had a miscommunication with our ward mission leader on who would fill up the font and so with an hour before the service was suppose to start we said a prayer because we didn't know what to do, and then rushed in to start filling the font which take on average 3 hours to fill!! We quickly opened the curtain that was covering it and got the biggest shock of our lives as we looked down and saw the font already filled. We immediately started to investigate because it shocked us so bad, but after asking everyone who could have possibly filled the font, and getting a confirmation that the font was drained after the baptism last week, we just said a prayer of gratitude for the huge blessing we received. 

This Saturday we have a baptism planned for Janet. Which should be awesome. We are reviewing the lessons with her and she is really excited. 

Next week we have the baptism of Deo planned. He is working hard to drop his habits of drinking and smoking. He is doing a great job! His motivation, he told us, is so that he can be sealed with his family. 

This week we also me and Elder Ishibashi have been able to find some great new investigators. One Indian man whose wife is a member came to us and ask if we could teach the lessons. He is a Muslim, but is interested in learning about the church so that he can make a decision what to do in his life. We were able to bring Brother Naidu who is in the Naulu Bishopbrick. He was a huge help and it turned out to be one of the coolest lessons I have been a part in my whole mission. I think that is because of the sincerity of Abdul, the husband, and his willingness to listen to the Spirit. 

We are seeing so many blessing and I am so thankful for this opportunity! 

A lot of the pictures are from a day trip we got to take back to Suva because our truck was getting serviced!! It was so awesome to see all of the recent converts! They are all doing so dang good! 

Not so much time today, but things are going great and Iove you all so much! Hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Hess