Hey everyone!
Sounds like you had a pretty busy week!
Angels Landing is awesome, I have done it one time. But its beautiful at the top.
We have what is called here in Fiji a "flat" which is what they call their houses. I'll try to send you a picture of it. I don't know if it will work today though. But yeah there are grocery stores here. They are way small though and don't have a big selection like they have in America. In Rakiraki, where I'm currently serving, we have like 3 main stores and they are all about the size of your house, on the main floor of your house anyway. Maybe smaller. But we get enough food. Rakiraki town is really small. There is a block that has a bunch of small stores in a big square and everybody lives away from it. It's hard to explain.
This is kind what it looks like. Just a big square with stores on all sides. But everybody lives away from it. Its a 10 minute walk from our flat.
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l l
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l l
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l l (this is a road going in to town.)
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But this week was good. We didn't have much lessons because we have been out of our area a lot this week. We had to go to Suva on Monday which took all day to go there and back. Tuesday we had district meeting in Tavua which is an hour away. Wednesday we had to leave at 5 to come to Ba which is 2 hours away. Well I stayed in Ba and my companion and our District Leader went to Nadi which is 4 hours from Rakiraki. We didn't get back till 10ish on Friday and we had to do weekly planning that day. Had to go to Lautoka(3 hours from Rakiraki) on Sunday morning for Stake conference and we are staying in Ba right now because we have Zone p-day in Lautoka Today and Zone Training Meeting tomorrow. So we haven't even been in our area much this week.
It has been crazy. We had a couple of good lessons though.
Anyway, thanks for the update and the e-mails. I appreciate them!
Love you guys!
Love, Elder Beilman
*Sorry, I can't send a picture today. I don't have to right cord to plug in to the computer.
Elder Beilman
Sunday
April 20, 2014
Hey everyone!
Thanks for the e-mail! I really appreciate them. We had a good week this week, we were able to have sacrament and we can get authority to preside if it happens again so we will be able to have sacrament. We were watching the Sunday session of general conference and my companion realized that is was Oct 2013's session. The Stake gave everybody the wrong one haha. But the Saturday session was the right one. We previewed it. But we watched the last conference one anyway. It was actually perfect because in one of the talks, it was about the law of chastity, and one of our investigators is awesome but we can't get her baptized until her "husband"(they aren't techinically married, that's just what the fijian's say) gets divorced from his "ex-wife" who I haven't ever met or seen. And he is a member of the church. We met with them a week or so ago and talked about the Family Proclamation with them so hopefully everything can get figured out with that soon.
Thank you for sending a package! You didn't have to do that. It will probably be a while before I get it, it will take at least 2 weeks. So I'll let you know when I get it.
Thanks again! Love you guys!
Elder Beilman
Thanks for the e-mail! I really appreciate them. We had a good week this week, we were able to have sacrament and we can get authority to preside if it happens again so we will be able to have sacrament. We were watching the Sunday session of general conference and my companion realized that is was Oct 2013's session. The Stake gave everybody the wrong one haha. But the Saturday session was the right one. We previewed it. But we watched the last conference one anyway. It was actually perfect because in one of the talks, it was about the law of chastity, and one of our investigators is awesome but we can't get her baptized until her "husband"(they aren't techinically married, that's just what the fijian's say) gets divorced from his "ex-wife" who I haven't ever met or seen. And he is a member of the church. We met with them a week or so ago and talked about the Family Proclamation with them so hopefully everything can get figured out with that soon.
Thank you for sending a package! You didn't have to do that. It will probably be a while before I get it, it will take at least 2 weeks. So I'll let you know when I get it.
Thanks again! Love you guys!
Elder Beilman
April 13, 2014
Hey everyone!
Sounds like you will be busy! Yes that is the correct address. You can just mail the packages to the GPO box #215 if you want, I guess it doesn't matter. My companion got his packages sent there.
So I guess we were supposed to watch General Conference this weekend, but our Branch President is going back to his old ways. Our 2nd counselor is less active again (my companion and the Elder before me reactivated him) because our Branch President doesn't listen to him at all and he is fed up with our president. We didn't even have church yesterday because President Ratu was at work.. and he didn't tell anybody. Our 1st counselor is in a different village looking over a unit that is there in Nakorokula which is about 30 minutes away(by bus). So we usually go there on Sunday's as well to pass the sacrament, but the bus ran late and we were unable to do sacrament because all the men that were in the unit had to leave to go to a different village that some of them live in and help out with the 2 deaths that happened on Saturday. But I guess most missionaries watched General Conference this weekend. Our president was supposed to get it so everybody can watch it, but that didn't happen. We talked to him on Saturday night because we had a lesson with these 2 investigators that wanted to meet him so we told our president after the lesson they want to meet him so we were going to try to set up a lesson that he could come with us and teach them. But while we were there, he didn't tell us he would be working in the morning on Sunday. So its really frustrating here in RakiRaki. I don't want to tell our investigators to come to church if we aren't going to have church. We had a lot well, most people who showed up on Sunday are less active members some walked way way far!! And we had to tell them we can't have church. It sucks! I feel bad for them. They don't deserve to have this bad experience at church. Almost all the recent converts in the area are less active. I don't want to baptize someone and have them go less active because we don't have a good president. There are no callings in the branch at all. Only the Branch Presidency. Its really frustrating. But we'll see, it can only get better from here right? haha. I've been told "if I can survive RakiRaki, I can survive my mission." haha- coming from missionaries and our 2nd counselor who is less active.
Well, I hope things are going well!
Love, Elder Beilman
Oh and yes, I'm adjusting to the food. This is what I had for lunch with some members on Sunday. It was pretty good. There is some gray potato like food called Dalo that is really bland and starchy that I hated at first, but I'm getting used to it. It's not in the picture though.
Sounds like you will be busy! Yes that is the correct address. You can just mail the packages to the GPO box #215 if you want, I guess it doesn't matter. My companion got his packages sent there.
So I guess we were supposed to watch General Conference this weekend, but our Branch President is going back to his old ways. Our 2nd counselor is less active again (my companion and the Elder before me reactivated him) because our Branch President doesn't listen to him at all and he is fed up with our president. We didn't even have church yesterday because President Ratu was at work.. and he didn't tell anybody. Our 1st counselor is in a different village looking over a unit that is there in Nakorokula which is about 30 minutes away(by bus). So we usually go there on Sunday's as well to pass the sacrament, but the bus ran late and we were unable to do sacrament because all the men that were in the unit had to leave to go to a different village that some of them live in and help out with the 2 deaths that happened on Saturday. But I guess most missionaries watched General Conference this weekend. Our president was supposed to get it so everybody can watch it, but that didn't happen. We talked to him on Saturday night because we had a lesson with these 2 investigators that wanted to meet him so we told our president after the lesson they want to meet him so we were going to try to set up a lesson that he could come with us and teach them. But while we were there, he didn't tell us he would be working in the morning on Sunday. So its really frustrating here in RakiRaki. I don't want to tell our investigators to come to church if we aren't going to have church. We had a lot well, most people who showed up on Sunday are less active members some walked way way far!! And we had to tell them we can't have church. It sucks! I feel bad for them. They don't deserve to have this bad experience at church. Almost all the recent converts in the area are less active. I don't want to baptize someone and have them go less active because we don't have a good president. There are no callings in the branch at all. Only the Branch Presidency. Its really frustrating. But we'll see, it can only get better from here right? haha. I've been told "if I can survive RakiRaki, I can survive my mission." haha- coming from missionaries and our 2nd counselor who is less active.
Well, I hope things are going well!
Love, Elder Beilman
Oh and yes, I'm adjusting to the food. This is what I had for lunch with some members on Sunday. It was pretty good. There is some gray potato like food called Dalo that is really bland and starchy that I hated at first, but I'm getting used to it. It's not in the picture though.
My companion(Elder Leota) and I.
April 6, 2014
This is some new missionaries and their trainers. We had a training on Tuesday last week.
Hey everyone!
Thank you all for the e-mail! Before I forget!! Julie, if you send a package, don't send meat including Beef Jerky, I guess customs confiscates it and they have been having problems with that. I don't know why so many people want to send meat through the mail, but okay. I guess they don't have much beef here though.
I haven't been able to watch General Conference yet. I heard we have to wait a couple weeks to get the DVD's then we can watch it.
We have like 15 or 16 investigators right now. They are all pretty great. My companion set a goal of 15 baptisms before he leaves this area, so we are shooting for that. He has had a total of 3 so far. Hopefully we can hit that number. Before I got here, there was a general authority that challenged the mission to find the best month they had for baptisms and double it. March was the month that they were going to try to double it. The most in one month was 50 so we had to hit 100. We had 78 the 3rd week and had to get 22 to hit the 100. I guess we got 42! So we ended up getting 122 baptisms in the Month of March!! Crazy.
My Mission president leaves at the end of June and we are going to try to get 120 that month. So it will be a good challenge. I think we will do really well in our area these next coming months though so that's good. We have 2 investigators with baptismal dates around May, and one hopefully in the next 2 weeks! I'm really excited for them. One of them is Shiyal, she is an Indian woman and really really wants to be baptized! The only problem is her husband's mom, who is catholic. I guess her husbands mom is putting a lot of pressure on her husband because he is catholic as well, but he isn't active. But he doesn't want to get disowned from his parents because of the decision his wife, Shiyal, is making. Its really sad, but I think she will be baptized. Her husband really didn't want to take the lesson's at all and always avoided my companion and the one before me, but the other day, we had dinner with them and read from the Book of Mormon. It was amazing, her husband( his name is Koresi) sat with us and I had asked him if he wanted to read a verse for us from Ether chapter 2 and he did. We just went around the room reading chapter 2 and 3. It was great! But one of our investigators before I came here, was an MJ(Micheal Jordan)-Investigator with a baptismal date. And I guess someone talked to her and the next lesson, she said she had already been baptized and that she will be busy. So my companion didn't see her for a month or so and she went down to a Shaq (Investigator that isn't progressing) But she went up to a LeBron(Progressing investigator) recently and after last week, she became an MJ again. Its amazing! Her name is Vasiti. We have another investigator that is doing really good as well, his name is Isimeli, we are going to extend a baptismal date next time we see him. Its really hard though, because he lives 40 minutes away in a small village and we have to take a bus every time. So we have a 10-15 minute walk to town then we wait for the bus to leave, then when we get there and finish our lessons, we have to wait for a bus to come down the road. Which can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours. so it would be way nice if we had a truck, but that's okay.
Well that's about all that I have for today. Oh yeah, last night, we went to visit our 2nd counselor in our branch presidency, President Besetmuala who was supposed to be in a different town, well we originally went there to visit his less active sons(they are 17, 19, and 21 i think) but he came back last night. And we have to go down this way long gravel road on the bikes and it sucks a lot! The gravel roads here are terrible, a lot of the rocks are pretty big and it sucks when you hit them on the bike. My butt hurts from the seat. I'm praying that we will get a truck soon, that would be so helpful. But if not, that's okay.
Much love!
Love, Elder Beilman
*Oh! and tell Kara happy birthday for me!
This is the bridge now. It was pretty sketchy when I was going over it.
Eating after church with the members. 2 boys that are members.
Some fijian food.
A spider that i had to kill with a 2 liter fanta bottle.
They have pineapple and raspberry fanta here! It's way good!
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