Faithful Members

I don't really have much to say about this week, sorry!

It was a normal week in our area. We went and mostly taught less actives and recent converts this week. it is really cool because usually when we go and visit the less actives, they end up coming to church the next week! haha. A lot of them are really old and they have bad knees so that is why they don't come. Because they cant walk down to church and they don't have money for a taxi down to church. But a lot of them show a ton of faith, and come when they can find a way.

We are still teaching Shalom :) She is growing in faith. She said she is going to start reading the Book of Mormon and then when we come, she will ask us about any questions that she might have. She says the BOM is a little difficult for her to understand, so we will try and help her with that :) But she is also reading her bible and really trying to understand each verse. That is her new years resolution, to understand the bible. I really hope that we can get the opportunity to work with her husband and try to gain his trust. We pray that the Lord might soften his heart so that he will allow his wife to get more into this church. As for now, we can just try and help her increase in faith.

mangali will be getting baptized on Feb 1st and guess what, she also asked me if I will speak!! haha so I will be talking on baptism and the Holy Ghost :) I will speak for Kaden as well :) One of our investigators, maita is getting baptized too. She is 15 and in a part member family. She is excited! We are too! She is the first investigator that I have had from start to finish!

Well, the work is continuing on! I am striving each day to fulfill all that the Lord requires of me. I am no where near perfect, but I know as I put my faith in Christ, He will help me each day. I want to please Him and do my best each day.

I love you all and am so grateful for your prayers and support! I miss you! Stay safe. My prayers are with you! Mi lavem yufala evriwan!!

Love Sista Alfin

Musical Fireside..

Today we are going to go to the church at 1 and doing a singing practice with some of the YSA. We are organizing a musical fireside for Feruary! It is on the Restoration. It will hopefully be good :) Then we will just play sports after that. And do our wash and stuff. Nothing very exciting.

Yes he said he would send the picture. haha the Dr always comes with flowers for us. The lessons are going... ok. He doesn't understand bislama and so we are teaching in English. But then again, he doesn't understand too much English either. So we have to go really slow. But he has A LOT to say... So we start going into the lesson and he gets so off topic with many other ideas. We tried teaching the Restoration lesson the first time and I don't know how much got through to him. The second lesson was even worse... haha. He just discusses with us some of his philosophies and things. We really need to just go in with a plan and try our best to not get distracted I think... he just wants everyone to believe it if it is true. He wants to know how he can make everyone believe it. He is a communist leader in China I guess, so I think that is where it comes from. We will keep working with him and hope things go well next time.

Flowers for Our Hair!

Sister Allphin,

Sister Kerns and I have twice invited the sister missionaries to dinner and a discussion  with our Chinese doctor friend, Dr. Wang.  Dr. Wang is part of the 8-man medical team sent from China to man the hospital above us. I'm so grateful to know him.  I take our sick missionaries to him, and he performs miracles.  When he comes to the discussions, he always brings flowers to put in the girls' hair.  

All is well in paradise.

Elder Kerns

Fun Times!

Sister Natto and i with the Elders from the island of Ambae on Christmas. This is at Beachfront resort. 

Sister Takuvaka, me, sister Ipu, and Sister Nisa walking in Pepsi area. I was showing Ipu and Nisa around the area and we stopped to look at the amazing river that runs throughout Pepsi. 

Dr Wang

Hello mom! :)

Wow, Linda will finally be going out then!! That is wonderful :)  I got a letter from Sis Squires. I got a whole bunch of letters yesterday!! THey were all the ones that people sent for Christmas, and i just got them! :) It was wonderful to receive! And i got your letter that you sent on the 30th of November!! Thank you! i loved reading it :)

Yes, this last week has been very stormy!! It wasn't scary though. It just was raining all day for 4 days strait. It would be light, and then all of a sudden just start POURING!!! So strong!! It was really cool but also not good for missionary work... If we were to go out when it was pouring all our books would be wet. and also, the roads aren't good. We would be hiking in mud. So we would wait until there was an opportunity to go out when it was just lightly raining. Then as we were out, it would pour again. We got stuck a few times and tired to find shelter under peoples kitchen houses. It was fun though!! :) And it was a lot cooler than it has been!! But now that it isn't raining anymore, it is so hot and humid!! :P

Haha when i saw Elder Kerns on Sunday, he told me you emailed and asked about the storm. I honestly was just wondering when the cyclone was going to hit! I thought we would experience one. I have heard that story about President Hinkley too. That is really neat. I heard though that it was just for a period of 10 years or something. But i have only heard that from other missionaries, so its probably not true.

Yes, Elder Kerns is very excited about that investigator, Dr Wang! haha we have only met him but haven't been able to talk with him very much. That dinner appointment was interesting. Sis Takuvaka and i went over at 5 and it was supposed to begin at 5:30. So close to 5:30 elder kerns goes to pick up the Dr. We wait for about 20 mins and they come back without him and say he wasn't there. So we wait a little longer and they go back to try again. Now we sisters wait for about 40 minutes. Finally they come with the Dr. By this point, we are starving and the food is getting cold haha. But Dr Wang and Elder Williams begin to talk about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Sis kerns tells my comp and i to dish up our plates so it would hurry them along, because time was going and we would be talking about all of that during our lesson after dinner! So we finally begin to eat and Dr Wangs phone keeps ringing. He shoves in all his food and then gets up and says he has to leave.. So Elder Kerns takes him back... hahaha so that was quite the experience. Unfortunately we didn't get to teach him, but at least him and elder kerns talked before after all! :) But, we have another dinner app tomorrow night! haha so we will cross our fingers and pray that this time we ca give him the first lesson! Elder kerns really wants to baptize him before he goes back to China!

This week was good, despite all the rain :) We still don't have very many investigators to teach but we did get one referral! We will teach them next week though. They were going to come to church and we would teach them there, but they didn't end up coming. They are two boys, around age 12, that are in a part member family and have not been baptized. We have been going to teach Shalom and she is doing good. Still not really showing signs that she would get baptized anytime soon. But we will just continue to visit and help invite the spirit into her home so she might have a change of heart :) She loves us coming over, and she almost always has a pineapple for us, because she knows i love pineapple :) haha.

I'm sure halie and her group did amazing!! I hope she has emailed and told me about it! :) I wish i could skype you all today then if you are all over! ;) haha. What is for dinner? I cooked dinner yesterday and it was good!! :) It was chicken in this terriyaki sauce with onions and peppers and we put it over rice :) I guess i did learn a few things on how to cook from Sis Natto!! :) I will make a lot of cake when i get home too ;) haha.

Oh, i almost forgot!!!! Mangali will be getting baptized on February 1!!!! haha can you believe it!!?? The same day as Kaden! How wonderful is that! :D Heavenly Father knew that i would be sad to miss Kaden's baptism, so he sent Mangali so i wouldn't feel so bad :) Now my little sister here in Vanuatu will help me not feel so sad! I will be going to that baptism in place of Kadens. I thought that was really great :) and a tender mercy :)

Ok, i love you all!!! Kasem wan gud wik!!

Love, Sista Alfin

 Dr. Wang (China), Sister Clement (Marshall Islands), Sister Allphin (USA), Sister Tuuefiafi (Tonga).  Dr. Wang will be baptized 22 March.                                                                       

 Oh yum!!! I want brownies!!! Really bad.. you made me crave them.. haha :) and I am starving right now. We don't have a lot of food so I had a piece of beef jerky for breakfast. My comp got a package with beef jerky :) So I think you can send it, even though it says not to. All my comps use ALL their money the first of the month, so I end up paying for food and email and everything... :P But now I am almost out of money so I have to watch out these last two weeks. But we should be fine. I just really need to start teaching them how to budget.. I was told in my setting apart that I would teach my companions how to budget... So far, no good.

No, we never have dinner appointments. Just sometimes, when we go to teach, they will make us up a plate if they are cooking. Sometimes we get normal things. Always rice. Usually either taro, kumala, pumpkin, or something like that. Then some kind of meat with cabbage. Its usually good! I'm getting more used to it. But when they have laplap, I don't take it if I can...

They have kava bars nearly every other house here!! It is crazy! Men love their kava. They get very drunk and then walk around like zombies I hear. 

Yes, I hope to send pictures today. I don't have a ton of money as I said, and I would have to go to another internet café which charges  by the minute. So I will see what I can do. 

Sisterhood across Oceans..

Hay............

This is sister maladiri from Vanuatu and the island of Ambae, and am serving in Utah Temple Square.

Their is a sister from Fiji serving in temple square also,she gave me your address.

And she told me to send you email,so i do.

Maybe she meet your families at temple square and they gave your email address to her to gave it to me. 

But ,am excited to send you email each week.

So what part of Vanuatu a you serving in??

Well sister am looking forward your respond.

Love you sister

Hello sister Maladiri!!

What a small world this is! :) I was excited to receive your email. Temple square is such a beautiful place. Im sure you are just loving your mission! But hopefully are surviving the cold winter temperatures!

Vanuatu is a beautiful place! You live in paradise! Very hot here though, so im not too used to that ;) 

I am serving in Santo, Pepsi area. I have been out 3 months now. Im still working on the Bislama. I love being here though!

Thank you for the email. I too look forward to hearing from you and how your doing in Utah!
Lavem yu!

Love your sista, Sista Allphin

   Wow thanks for you email.Yes is kind of cold here but i can make it.I love here is kind of busy this month because it's Christmas.But i love it.

Wow my grandma live in santo just near U.S.P.near the church building.

Am also out for three month same as you,am still working on my english.But i know that the help of our Heavenly father he can help us.

Well MARRY CHRISTMAS IN VANUATU FOR THE FIRST TIME.I HOPE YOU LIKE IT.

it was different from utah.

ME LOVEM YU!

love your sister,sister Maladiri.

All Is Well in Vanuatu

Letter from Elder Kearns (senior missionary couple)

All is well in Vanuatu.  The cyclone hit the Solomon Islands, but was mostly just sideways rain.  No significant damage.  It then veered off to the west of Vanuatu, will skip our islands, and is zeroing in on New Caledonia.  These three island groups are what compose our mission.  This has been the pattern for cyclones for the past several years.

Sister Brewer, the mission president's wife, told us that in 2003 President Hinckley visited these islands.  As he was leaving, he asked the district president if there was anything he could do for the people of Vanuatu.  The district president told him that they were having a terrible time with cyclones.  One right after the other was devastating houses and gardens.  President Hinckley reportedly said, "I can fix that," left a blessing on the land, and there hasn't been a cyclone since.
                                                                   

Sisters Allphin and Takuvaka were our dinner guests Tuesday night.  We had invited our Chinese doctor friend, and he was to receive his first discussion.  The dinner happened, but the discussion didn't, because Dr. Wang had to hurry back to the hospital to keep a woman from dying.  He is my good friend, and is perhaps the most spiritual person I've ever met.  Sister Allphin will have the privilege of teaching him, and I'll have the privilege of baptizing him.  When I first met him he referred to the Church as "good one Church."  We're now "best one Church."  He came to the branch New Year's Eve party, and to church last Sunday.  I'm so grateful to know him.  He's already saved 3 of my friends' lives.