Cola Vina! (Nadroga dialect for Bula Vinaka)
I've been learning a little bit of the Dialect here in Tavua, and man... Its not just a dialect, its a completely different language! If you want to say 'I want to eat'(which is the closest translation for I'm hungry) you would say "Au via Kana" in the Bau Dialect which is the dialect that everybody knows. In Nadroga you would say "Qi mata Kana" but you say the K's differently, its just ridiculous.
But! This week was crazy! Tuesday after our District meeting, I went on exchanges with Elder Carter(From Australia, in my intake) who is currently serving in Rakiraki! So I got to see a lot of people from Rakiraki again! It was one of the best days I've had on my mission. One of my Recent Converts, Buka, is taking people to church in a van that he is using to drive people to Suva. On Sundays, pretty much nobody works, except for some Taxi drivers, and Bus drivers. But he is off on Sunday so he picks up investigators and members on Sunday to take them to church! That was so good to hear! Its just amazing to see how the area is going after I left. I'm just super happy to see that he is still coming to church and helping others come to church as well! And they are planning on Baptizing a man named Ratu Luke who my first companion and I started teaching back in May! It was amazing!
We had a funeral for one of our members on Saturday morning, which was kind of sad. He had stepped on something and it got infected really bad, so they took him to the hospital in Lautoka and they said they would have to cut his leg off from the knee down or something, so they didn't want to do that. They came back and he didn't really do anything because he was getting sick and his diabetes didn't help either. He passed away on Monday last week. We are planning on visiting the daughter and mother and try to strengthen their testimonies of the Plan of Salvation and try to help them come back to church again. We had visited them about once a week since I've been here, so hopefully we can see them soon and more often.
Transfers are this week, we'll see what happens. I feel like my companion might train here soon. He finished in April. But we wont know till Saturday night. Hopefully we both stay!
Vinaka valevu na loloma kei ne ka kece!
Loloma Levu!
Elder Beilman
Elder Beilman
Sunday
November 16, 2014
Hey everyone,
This week was the best! Elder Haleck from the Seventy came for our mission tour. We got to go to Nadi on Tuesday last week(which I might add has one of the only 3 McDonalds in Fiji, so we went to McDonalds right before it started and had some breakfast). But he gave a great talk/discussion on how this time as a missionary shapes you for the rest of your life. It was way good! He talked a lot about being exactly obedient and how it will help/bless us when we return from the mission field. It reminded me a lot of a talk that Jessica gave me called "The Fourth Missionary".
So because we had to be in Nadi on Tuesday, we weren't able to proselyte on Monday or Tuesday in our area. But that's okay. We have this one investigator named George(Joji is the Fijian name) but he is a Rotuman man in his 50's probably. He is awesome, he wants to be baptized but he needs to get something figured out with some court case that is in the beginning of December. But he has been coming to church every week for like 4 or 5 months. He isn't 100% there mentally, we have to make things really simple for him, but he is really good.
We have a lot of less actives we are working with right now. And we've been able to have a lot of success with getting them to church, which is really good! We don't have a lot of investigators, but we have 2 good ones we are planning on inviting to baptism soon! Praying for them!
Anyway, Thanks for everything!
Loloma Levu!
Elder Beilman
This week was the best! Elder Haleck from the Seventy came for our mission tour. We got to go to Nadi on Tuesday last week(which I might add has one of the only 3 McDonalds in Fiji, so we went to McDonalds right before it started and had some breakfast). But he gave a great talk/discussion on how this time as a missionary shapes you for the rest of your life. It was way good! He talked a lot about being exactly obedient and how it will help/bless us when we return from the mission field. It reminded me a lot of a talk that Jessica gave me called "The Fourth Missionary".
So because we had to be in Nadi on Tuesday, we weren't able to proselyte on Monday or Tuesday in our area. But that's okay. We have this one investigator named George(Joji is the Fijian name) but he is a Rotuman man in his 50's probably. He is awesome, he wants to be baptized but he needs to get something figured out with some court case that is in the beginning of December. But he has been coming to church every week for like 4 or 5 months. He isn't 100% there mentally, we have to make things really simple for him, but he is really good.
We have a lot of less actives we are working with right now. And we've been able to have a lot of success with getting them to church, which is really good! We don't have a lot of investigators, but we have 2 good ones we are planning on inviting to baptism soon! Praying for them!
Anyway, Thanks for everything!
Loloma Levu!
Elder Beilman
Monday
November 9, 2014
Hey Everyone!
The new area is great! I don't know if they are doing this everywhere, but we have been focusing on Less Active work just as much as we are baptisms. there are a lot of less actives here in the area, so we visit a lot of them! Anyway, we had about 16 or so less active members come to church this week! It was amazing! When my companion and I walked into the chapel, we had to try to find a find a seat, because it was almost completely full! The chapel isn't by any means the size of a chapel in Utah, but its not small either. We have a lot of work right now, which is really good. Its not very fun OYM'ing or tracting. I don't think I've done much tracting at all. So its just really nice to be able to have people to work with whether they be inactive members or investigators. I love going out and teaching. when I'm busy time just flies by, but when I was in my last area, it was kind of harder because we didn't have as much lessons as I had in Rakiraki or in my new area.
Before I was baptized, I never read anything from the Bible. And even after my baptism, I read pretty much only from the Book of Mormon and D&C. But I was able to continue reading the New Testament after we did the Gospel read starting in August? Well anyway, I was able to finish the New Testament the other day, and I loved the it! Hopefully I'll read it again before I finish my mission in 2016. But, to the point, I still haven't been able to finish/read much from the Old Testament. But we have this book that has stories from the Old Testament in it. And I read about Job and how he lost everything, but still worshipped and thanked God for everything he has been given. some things that have been happening back home just made me think about how God tests our faith sometimes, and if we put our trust in him, we will be given so much. Maybe not immediately or even in this earthly life, but for sure in the Celestial Kingdom, because he promises us everything he has. We just have to trust him and do what he asks. Just something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Thanks for everything!
Loloma Levu!
Elder Beilman
*Oh, and I'm pretty sure they don't celebrate thanksgiving here.. I haven't heard anything about it anyway.
And I'm learning how to play the piano! My companion is teaching me! I'm pretty excited about it.
If you send me another package, could you send a CD with the Piano Guys? I want some of their songs. Mainly the Waterfall one, and the other cool piano one.
Vinaka! (Thanks!)
The new area is great! I don't know if they are doing this everywhere, but we have been focusing on Less Active work just as much as we are baptisms. there are a lot of less actives here in the area, so we visit a lot of them! Anyway, we had about 16 or so less active members come to church this week! It was amazing! When my companion and I walked into the chapel, we had to try to find a find a seat, because it was almost completely full! The chapel isn't by any means the size of a chapel in Utah, but its not small either. We have a lot of work right now, which is really good. Its not very fun OYM'ing or tracting. I don't think I've done much tracting at all. So its just really nice to be able to have people to work with whether they be inactive members or investigators. I love going out and teaching. when I'm busy time just flies by, but when I was in my last area, it was kind of harder because we didn't have as much lessons as I had in Rakiraki or in my new area.
Before I was baptized, I never read anything from the Bible. And even after my baptism, I read pretty much only from the Book of Mormon and D&C. But I was able to continue reading the New Testament after we did the Gospel read starting in August? Well anyway, I was able to finish the New Testament the other day, and I loved the it! Hopefully I'll read it again before I finish my mission in 2016. But, to the point, I still haven't been able to finish/read much from the Old Testament. But we have this book that has stories from the Old Testament in it. And I read about Job and how he lost everything, but still worshipped and thanked God for everything he has been given. some things that have been happening back home just made me think about how God tests our faith sometimes, and if we put our trust in him, we will be given so much. Maybe not immediately or even in this earthly life, but for sure in the Celestial Kingdom, because he promises us everything he has. We just have to trust him and do what he asks. Just something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Thanks for everything!
Loloma Levu!
Elder Beilman
*Oh, and I'm pretty sure they don't celebrate thanksgiving here.. I haven't heard anything about it anyway.
And I'm learning how to play the piano! My companion is teaching me! I'm pretty excited about it.
If you send me another package, could you send a CD with the Piano Guys? I want some of their songs. Mainly the Waterfall one, and the other cool piano one.
Vinaka! (Thanks!)
Sunday
November 2, 2014
Hey Everyone!
Tavua is great! Even though it is really really close to my first area, I love it! During Sacrament meeting on Sunday, I went to bear my testimony but I wanted to introduce myself a little before that. So I told everybody that I served in Rakiraki before and I used to come to Tavua every Tuesday(for District Meeting) and said if any of the members from the ward ever saw me before that is why. And as I said that, I saw a couple of people looking over to the person next to them smiling and talking to the other. It was kind of funny. But its great in Tavua, we have been really busy! We were teaching this girl named Meredani(she has been taught since April) and she was supposed to be baptized on the 18th of Oct. But she missed the Baptismal Interview. Anyway, she has been going to church with her brother who used to be a bishop in Lautoka(2hours away) and when we saw her on the 25th of Oct. She said that the Zone Leaders were going to baptize her in Lautoka on the 1st of Nov. But we had no idea about it. So we called the ZL's in Lautoka and they said they didn't know anything about it. We called Meredani the next day and got it all figured out. But she was set on being baptized on Nov. 1st(her birthday) so we had about 5 days to plan a baptismal interview and everything else. Everything went smoothly and she was baptized. Her parents(nonmembers) came to the baptism. It was great! I'm really praying that her parents will soon want to take the lessons and her whole family can get baptized. But what ever happens is in the Lord's time.
Well, I don't have much time!
Love you guys! Thanks for everything!
Loloma Levu!
Elder Beilman
Tavua is great! Even though it is really really close to my first area, I love it! During Sacrament meeting on Sunday, I went to bear my testimony but I wanted to introduce myself a little before that. So I told everybody that I served in Rakiraki before and I used to come to Tavua every Tuesday(for District Meeting) and said if any of the members from the ward ever saw me before that is why. And as I said that, I saw a couple of people looking over to the person next to them smiling and talking to the other. It was kind of funny. But its great in Tavua, we have been really busy! We were teaching this girl named Meredani(she has been taught since April) and she was supposed to be baptized on the 18th of Oct. But she missed the Baptismal Interview. Anyway, she has been going to church with her brother who used to be a bishop in Lautoka(2hours away) and when we saw her on the 25th of Oct. She said that the Zone Leaders were going to baptize her in Lautoka on the 1st of Nov. But we had no idea about it. So we called the ZL's in Lautoka and they said they didn't know anything about it. We called Meredani the next day and got it all figured out. But she was set on being baptized on Nov. 1st(her birthday) so we had about 5 days to plan a baptismal interview and everything else. Everything went smoothly and she was baptized. Her parents(nonmembers) came to the baptism. It was great! I'm really praying that her parents will soon want to take the lessons and her whole family can get baptized. But what ever happens is in the Lord's time.
Well, I don't have much time!
Love you guys! Thanks for everything!
Loloma Levu!
Elder Beilman
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