Enos

Our missionaries are reading the Book of Mormon and looking for references to "Faith".  We are reading along with them. Yesterday I finished the Book of Enos, a book I have always thought of as a great example of mighty prayer and repentance. I was fascinated to find that I had marked more references to "Faith" in that one chapter than any chapter I have read so far.  I will now think of the Book of Enos as an example of faith, mighty prayer and repentance. Not necessarily in that order.

This week we received 3 new missionaries who have been temporarily assigned to our mission because their visas to enter Australia have not been issued. They are missionaries that are from Samoa so they will serve here until they receive their visas.

Yesterday we took a ride down to our favorite beach spot.  There is an island about 150 yards off the coast we have wanted to explore. We started to walk to it a couple of weeks ago because the coral was hard on our feet. We bought flip flops and started off again yesterday. But gave up because our feet slid our on the coral to much.  A couple of times I thought maybe a fish was trying to bite my ankle but then realized it was a pieces of coral flipping up behind me as I walked.

Afulua and her package

The Merrell's, who we replaced as the office couple, sent some packages this week.  The lady who cleans the mission home and does the cooking when we have missionaries in received a package and was delighted. She had me take this picture to send to the Merrells. She is characteristic of the Samoan people and how grateful they are for simple kindness.

I have been teaching a Family History class to the youth of our ward. I passed out pedigree charts and showed them how to fill them out. Next week we are going to the computer lab at the school so they can login to New family search and enter their information. One of the older sisters in the ward came to the class and handed me 2 family group sheets and asked me to check to see if the work had been done. Another sister came up to me in church today and asked if I was gong to teach a class on Sundays so the older members of the ward can participate. I told her I would talk to the bishop.

It is challenging to do Family History work in Samoa because people change their names based on their status in the village. The chief of a village is called the Maitai and some people take on the name of the maitai as part of their name. We have a couple here that works with the ward and stake clerks to clean up the records. They have found that it is easier to find someone in new family search if they just use the first name along with a birth date. It will be interesting to see if we can find some names the youth can take to the temple.