Family Mission Plans

This week was again pretty slow! I was sick for a couple days so we didn’t get out much! We had a zone conference with President Tupou and we were able to get a lot out of it.  The main struggle is we can’t ever get anything running combined with the wards because they don’t ever have their meetings! Out of both these wards they have only had one Ward Council meeting all 5 months I have been here. So I never know how we are supposed to implement the things that President teaches us if we are never able to meet together as leaders in the ward and us two missionaries. So President helped us out a lot with focusing on teaching families instead of the leaders. To get into the houses and not ask for help but ask to help them, create Family Mission Plans with all the families and after that, they will begin to trust us. Get the Families to make daily plans, weekly plans, monthly plans, and yearly plans. So the plans go like this.

Daily:

1. Pray Always: Always having a prayer in your heart, and being able to pray at all times and in all places, no matter the circumstance.

2. Change: Be willing to change, and do it every day. Take advice, want to repent, listen to the leaders of the Church.

3. Believe/Have Faith: Everything starts with a belief, belief that something needs to be done, needs to change, needs to be uplifted, Believe you can be better.

4. Invite: Invite others to come unto Christ by providing a good example, being a light to the world, being willing to give service, go out of your way to do what is right.

Weekly:

1. Sacrament: Partake of the sacrament each week, and stay for all 3 hours of church.

Monthly:

1. Fast: Participate in the monthly fast, 2 meals on the first Sunday of every month.

Yearly:

1. Families: Work with 1 nonmember family and work with 1 inactive/part-member family.

So we are going to help all the families we can to have this game plan in mind so that we can all be on the same page. I encourage all of you to do the same! This isn’t just something that can be used here in our area, our mission, but in the lives of all the members of the church. Make a family plan that you can use, set goals as a family and work to accomplish them at all times.

So I think I caught a little food poisoning last week, woke up and threw up, then did some other stuff we won’t discuss hahaha but ya it was like that for two days with a migraine! Sucked but I got over it and I am good now! So this week we just hope to help out our wards with their goals for the year and help them understand that baptisms aren't the only thing people need here. They need examples, they need to be taught, they need guidance! I really hope that we can help them out! We have been reading the BOM in 30 days, then 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, and now we are on the 150 day challenge. So we just finished Alma! The war stories can be applied to now. We are at a spiritual war with the world and we need to hold our Title of Liberty up, not stoop down to the world! Fight for what we know is right, and not be afraid to share our beliefs and feelings with others! Hope all of you can be that light in someone else’s life. This church is true, it blesses all of our lives, so let’s help others gain those blessings!

Ofa Lahi Atu, Elder Mani

P.S. We are going to go eat a pig now that some members have been cooking! My comp’s family brought it...... it’s not hard here for the Tongan missionaries cuz they can talk to their family, see them all the time haha!  My comp’s family is five minutes away.

Kids make little explosives with toilet bowl cleaner and tin foil inside of plastic bottles haha

A spider the size of my palm in our shower.... good thing spiders here dont bite!

I made pancakes for 6 missionaries and our neighbor the stake presidents family :) haha

I am getting fat... haha

Cut my hand open on a bamboo stick that broke doing a stick pull with a member haha