November 11th, 2013

Hey!

This week was great! We had a baptism of our investigator Tealava, he's 14 it was great. t was high tide in the ocean which was great so we didn't have to walk out far to baptize. He was baptized with his cousin Nieli who was baptized by his dad Peni Tala, which was awesome, because a lot of dads are scared to do stuff like that and they just want the elders to do it but we encouraged him to do it and man, he did awesome, he's the man! I'll have Elder Leiataua send some pics. 

So ya, going to Fiji tomorrow! Can't wait, going to Fiji is cool because you get to see more elders and when we go we usually can go to Suva and shop but we got the shaft and we're staying in Nausori which is like the arm pit of Fiji. We are going to kerekere the APs to go to Suva and get some stuff.We also can go to the mission office and get mail and other stuff. I still don't know who my comp is. Elder Leiataua hasn't even been transferred because the new intake, their visas weren't accepted or something so they are serving in the states until they get their visas so the mission is in a little pickle right now. Which also means we don't know how long we are staying there for, mission tour is first week in december but we may stay longer than that which would suck. We have a ton of work up here i want to get started on, like 5 really good investigators who have a good chance of getting baptized and i don't want to lose my Tuvaluan either. But when i do get my new comp i'll teach him Tuvaluan the best i can.

 Like a month ago i had a cold and when it went away i had a cough and i still have a cough, its been like 4 weeks so i went to the doc here and she was like if you keep going out and not rest you'll get pneumonia so this week i had to take it easy but the doctors here suck. So i'm gonna try and go to the doc in Suva, another perk about Fiji. 

Love,

Elder Cashen

November 3rd, 2013

Talofa,

  Well this week Sister Vii died from breast cancer that she had been fighting for four months. Really early tuesday morning at like three we woke up from pounding on the door and "elders elders" it was brother Vii and he told us that Milani had died and that he needed our help with the funeral. President Niko came later in the morning and gave us assignments, he told me to speak on families at the funeral service that was gonna be held in the chapel. We spent the whole day doing funeral stuff, Polynesian funerals are quite the event, its like a sad wedding, because everybody takes pictures. I spoke on families and it was a good missionary effort a lot of the people were non members and didn't know our beliefs about how the family can be together forever. A lot of members came up to me afterwards and told me i did a great job. President Niko said "Elder Cashen you speak very well thank you for the talk" he told me to do it in english haha so i did it in english.

 I also gave my first baptismal interview to this kid named Telava and he did great! He'll be baptized in Saturday. We started teaching Pres. Niko's cousin and his cousin's wife. When we started the lesson it was just his cousin but we asked if his wife wanted to join. SHe came in and we taught the lesson. After when we asked if they had any questions, she shared with us that when she saw us go in with her cousin that she really wanted to join too and felt kind of cheated that she couldn't listen, but when her husband came and told her that we wanted her there too she started crying and new it was a sign haha it was awesome. The Lord does prepare people. Me and my comp also gave a baby blessing on Sunday.

This week was kinda weird because we started the week with a funeral and the polynesian funeral services are like huge events and we were part of every stage of it, it took all day. From 3 in the morning to 9 whoa.

 Well this is my last week in Tuvalu then to Fiji and back for another 3 months.

 I'll find out my new comp on saturday.

Ya, living here is just life i'm used to it, it's not that bad but then sometimes its like am i really living here haha. I hope you guys have had a good week, Love ya guys!

Elder Cashen