Week 17 - Welcome to Tuvalu!!

Well, this was another great week!!! I finally made it to my little island safely!!! But before we left on Thursday, we had a Zone Conference that was way good!!! We received a lot of training on how to use our area books and planners more effectively I think the best thing I got was President Layton said to us, "let the spirit do its job and convert people. Don't force conversion on anyone." I love that because without the spirit, we might as well stop working because it is the spirit that converts people not us. But the rest of conference was really good. 

On Wednesday we had our interviews with President Layton. Mine went way good. For most of it he talked about this family here in Tuvalu the Vi family. They have had some trials in their lives. Their mom died of cancer around the start of this year and about that time the dad got drunk and beat up a shop keeper here and got a 5 year prison sentence. His 3 kids Marilyn 10, Lillian 22 and Ben 19, live with different family's but they are all members. He was telling me about how every Sundaythe missionaries go over and see Brother Vi in the prison and how Lily and Ben are preparing to serve missions. He was also was telling me we just need to help them out as much as we can. 

But the next day we finally flew out of Fiji and landed in Tuvalu!!! It was about a 2 and half hour flight to get here. When we got close the plane circled the island so I got some pretty good pictures from the air looking at the island. We had a taxi take us to our flat (one of the 2 taxi's on the island). We just dropped our stuff and then left, going out and teaching people. I can't remember all the names and stuff because it all seemed to go together, but they are all way friendly and really welcoming. The next day we did weekly planning and I found out about all of our investigators and less actives that we are working with. There is a lot of work on this tiny island!!! The rest of the day, we walked around and saw people. We saw this little boy whose name is Atema. He is way cool. He has been being taught for about 3 weeks now and he knows a lot!!! We are working to get him baptized. He is 8 years old and he would be the first member of his family to be baptized!!! But he is way good!!! There is also Laugotau. He is a way good, a recent convert that Elder Harris (the elder before me) baptized. He and his brother are way fun to teach!!! They play basketball almost everyday at a court right next to their house. Today, I will try and play!!! We have ice cream on the game this week so it is pretty serious :) 

But life is good here. Our flat is way better than Vuna. It has 24 hour power and a fridge!!! The food that people feed us here is really good too. There is a lot of fish so normally it is fish and chips or just some type of fish. 

Well I hope everyone is doing good!!!! Love you guys, keep up the good work back on the home front!!!

Alofa atu!!

Elder Brown