August 25th, 2013

Hey everyone,

Right now, I'm in Suva. I've been here for the past week.

 We're staying with the Suva ZLs who are really cool guys and one of them served in Tuvalu as well so its been cool talking to him about it. I've had to switch back to Fijian and man i miss it. The ZLs both told me i was good, all these fijian we visited in the city were surprised with my fijian, hopefully that will be the same with Tuvaluan. Its funny because when you go into a house there are like mannerisms and things that fijians do that i've picked up pretty well and i went out with a different elder who goes home pretty soon and he was so surprised and the people in the house loved it haha. Like i asked where they are from and they said Tailevu North, and i was like oh vinaka tai, au mai tailevu south (where i started) and we knew the villages we were both from haha. I guess you'd have to be here to understand. I miss FIJI and fijians. I had mcdonalds for the first time here as well which was a nice change haha. There is also this big festival here called Hibiscus and part of it is like a beauty pageant and i met the winner last night, we went to a less actives house and her daughter was the winner, me and my ZL comp tried on her crown haha. Its awesome here. We have Zone conference tomorrow and then we go back to tuvalu on thursday. I bought a tennis raquet to play tennis with my comp in Tuvalu. Other than that we are workin! I've met some awesome people in Suva, we met three people who were like "I have always prayed that one day you people would come to visit me" and one lady was like "when you two came into the house, i felt like a light went on inside me". The gospel is true and its all of our responsibilty to share it but being a missionary is even cooler!

Love you guys,

Elder Cashen

August 14th, 2013

Hello!

This week has been great and kinda weird. Tomorrow we leave for Fiji for two weeks for Zone Conference and the cool thing about flying to and from Tuvalu is that you are told when you are leaving and when you are coming back. So when i leave Fiji to come back here, I'll know when i'm going back to Fiji the next time. 

This week we got a referral for these two ladies who wanted to be taught in English and they said they had been everywhere searching for the right church. So we gave them an intro lesson and a Book of Mormon and scheduled to come back. When we came back they had a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith and we gave an awesome lesson on the truthfullness of the book and the calling of Joseph Smith to be a prophet. It was awesome and they both were so interested. We told them to follow the example of Joseph Smith and pray about the Book of Mormon and they will know of its truthfullness and also Joseph Smith being a true prophet. Ruby (one of the girls) is very sincere and curious and she asked about the scripture in Rev. about not adding to this book and i pulled out all these scriptures how that is a misinterpretation of that scripture and helped her understand, man the spirit really helped us in the lesson.

 We are continuing to help two of our investigators stop smoking, and it amazes me that a 19 year old kid is giving this guy advice on how to stop smoking but i know that it is really the spirit and the gospel that will help this man.

 I baptized this great investigator in the lagoon yesterday and it was so cool to see her bare her testimony, even though i couldn't understand it, i know the spirit was there. 

Something hard though is that a lot of people like the past elders and you have to gain their trust and respect, i've had some people tell me to go back to Fiji and let the other elder come back haha, it tough and my comp is a cool guy but he hates the people here so that doesn't help, he gets angry cause they tease him, i tell him just let it roll off your back man who cares. 

We don't have hot water, which is okay because Tuvalu is freakin hot! And comfy bed...not really, i'm so tired by the end of the day it doesn't matter haha, the mattress is so thin i can feel the wood planks of the bed frame beneath haha. And our house is nice, but its disgusting, the elders from the past have just destroyed it and its just super dirty and nasty. We rely on rain water for everything so if no rain water, SOL my friend, here i come ocean. And our sink doesn't work so we fill a bucket up with water, put it in the sink and pump the water out to purify it haha. 

Anyways the work is great and still trying to learn this new language.

Love ya,

Elder Henry Cashen

August 11th, 2013

Talofa!

Tuvalu is the coolest, the only thing that sucks is learning a whole new language and i don't have the help of the mtc, luckily some past missionaries have written some study helps. Its awesome here because we are by ourselves and no one comes to check on us and we report to the APs, i'm happy because i feel like i don't have to impress other missionaries or mission leaders, i just gotta do the work i can up in Tuvalu. My new comp is the man, he's not the most obedient elder and pres sent him here because he was the only samoan that could go but he's the man, he's hilarious and i feel like i'm in an episode of summer heights high when i talk to him.  i'm working to learn the language which is a lot harder than fijian, working to get to know the members and gain their trust and working to find and teach people the gospel of Jesus Christ. Book of Mormon is awesome and true and Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God! The work is going great here in Tuvalu, we have a baptism next week and my comp wants me to do it so i'll be baptizing in the lagoon! 

I'm still getting acquainted with the members here. 

At dinner last night, I ate this thing that i thought was potato salad but it did't taste like potato salad and i asked the member and he's like "oh, that's coconut cream onions and raw fish" haha it was really weird, i also ate lamb neck. 

This week, we ran into a white baptist pastor from Wisconsin who has moved to Tuvalu to start the church here (Illegally) We started talking, just small talk and then he started making these comments that were like subtly bashing the church, and he said, "I think if you make a prophecy, and its wrong, than you're a false prophet" and i said, "Well what did Joseph Smith prophecy that was false>?" and he said, "Well I'd have to go back and check" and i said, "well we'd love to come over and answer your quesitons if you want." and he's like "um ya, lets just put the bible down and discuss it" I think he wants to debate instead of answering questions so we'll see what happens.

We have a lot of people to teach but the tough thing here is that my comp is Samoan and Tuvaluans and Samoans don't get along and he hates a lot of people here so it turns people off. The white elders stay here so long that the people get attached to them and when the next one comes in, its tough for them to gain the respect of the people because they feel like you were only there cause the other white elder left, thats what some lady told me haha. Anyways i love you guys and love hearing about whats going on.

 as E. Leiataua says, "latahs."

Love, Elder Cashen

August 4th, 2013

I made it to Tuvalu! I don't understand a thing haha. Its not a different dialect, its a different language, its close to samoan, so I'm back to square one, but I'll learn it!  So, i'm just trying to get settled in with my new companion who is a Samoan from Australia.  He was in a Samoan gang and was telling me about his life and I said "you sound just like the guys from Green Street Hooligans" and he's like, "you've seen that!! Ya man that was my life." haha. 

Tuvalu isn't as ghetto as it may sound on the internet, it's still ghetto though haha but B E A utiful! It's like  Fiji but a lot more westernized, and a lot more like what you see in the movie The Other Side of Heaven. I'm still getting settled in and don't have a lot to report because I have no idea what is going on haha. Apparently all the elders who serve out here get to slaughter a pig so, hopefully ill get to do that haha. Not much to report other than its beautiful here and awesome.  We are on Funafuti and its super hot and soooooooo tempting to just run into the water and go swimming haha, don't worry i won't. We baptize people in the ocean here so hopefully i'll have the chance to do that. I'm working hard and need to work harder learning this new language.

Sorry this is short, i'm really tired and i got sick on my second day. I guess i'm not used to the food and threw it all up, my stomach is still recooperating. Its cool being here but quite a shock with the new language and new people, Elder smith, the one that leaves tomorrow told me the people here are his favorite out of his whole mission, which is good because ill be here for a long long long time.

ill send pics next week cause my card reader is in fiji. Love you guys and hope all is going great!

PO Box 40 Vaiaku Road Funafuti Tuvalu is the new mailing address