Family home evening with the Solomon family

Port Vila Week 6

Monday April 26, 2015

Halo Famle Blong Mi,

I hope you all enjoyed reading our crazy experience with the Cyclone. Everything seems to be going fine here even after 1 month since it hit.  School is continuing, people are all working again, and many blessings are being poured upon the people.

So since you last heard from me, me and Elder Smiler went with our Branch President, President Tiasanmal and his family to a place called Bellvue where a part-member less active family lived.  The mama and papa and some of the kids are members but some of there other kids aren't and their grand kids and they all want to be taught.  They just barely came back to church last week and they invited us to come over. So we did and did a family house naet with the Solomon Family and we had prospective missionaries with us bare their testimony as well as President Tiasanmal's familly.  It turns out that the family is originally from Whitesands, Tanna.  We hope to teach all of them and
baptize the rest of their family in the future.  After our testimony meeting we ate dinner with them and chocolate cake I made, it turned out pretty good!

Tuesday we were very busy, in the morning we taught a little 9 year old boy at "Namba Tri" named Avock, his parents are members but Avock just never got baptized. We taught him how heavenly father loves us and about prayer.  then we went to Namba Tu and taught an investigator named Edmas about the restoration.  She's an middle-aged mama who's been coming to church after the cyclone and she was really interested in what we had to share.  Afterwards we visited with an investigator named Vanessa and we shared a scripture with her in 2 Nephi 4: 34 where nephi is praising the lord.

We then visited 4 new investigators named Avock & Rose, and Anna and Janet.  All have been coming to church since the cyclone as well and the sisters taught them and gave them as a referral to us.  We taught them all about the book of mormon and they were very grateful for the message.  We gave each of them a book of mormon and none of them rejected it or had questions about it.

We then drove up to Beverly Hills and taught Sele, he's young but super smart, knows everything is true.  We taught him about the book of mormon as well and he's been coming to church every week as well. Then that afternoon we taught our investigator Bella about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we hope to baptize her next month if possible.

Wednesday morning we had a great MLC (Mission Leadership Council) with our Zone and Mission President in preparing for the future with all the new investigators.  It might be possible that if us missionaries get too busy or overwhelmed with appointments that every once in awhile we can split with Branch Missionaries or returned missionaries. It's kind of weird because 22 missionaries left after the cyclone but tons and tons of people started coming to church.  I think over 800 total non-members came to church on April 5th on the island of Efate! yeah just non-members, not counting less actives, members, etc.  We have a lot of work to do and I know the lord knows that we can handle it.

After our MLC we taught Melissa about Missionary Work.  She will be baptized on Saturday!  She's very smart and she's very excited.  We then visited mama Shantel and read with her in Mormon chapter 9.  That afternoon we met with our Branch Mission Leader Fred and the Branch Council that night to make plans to contact all the referrals we received.

Thursday was Zone Conference!!! It was focused on the topic in the Preach My Gospel "How do I prepare my investigators for Baptism",  the perfect training for what is to come!  It was a great Zone Conference and we had good pizza for Lunch!  Then we had our interviews with mission president and then took part with him while he set apart a missionary.  His name is Messiah Isaiah Lapenmal, he's from Malekula, great kid, totally ready to serve.  He will be serving in the Australia Adelaide mission. He stayed with us the night so we could bring him to the airport the next morning.

Friday morning we studied and took Elder Lapenmal shopping for a last few things he needed to get before he would fly.  We brought him to the airport and he flew to New Zealand to go to the MTC there. Then we went to Namba Tri and saw Avock again and we taught him about the restoration. He's so cool, he's not afraid and he answers the questions we ask and loves us coming to see him.  We then saw Sele and taught him about the Plan of Salvation about the premortal live and why we are here on earth.  That afternoon we went home to do our weekly planning.

Saturday we went to the Branch for Melissa's baptism.  the missionaries in Blacksands also had a baptism so we did our program together.  Here in Port Vila, only the Church house at Namba Tu has a
baptismal font outside, so anyone who gets baptized will have the service there, it's the District Center as well.  We had Melissa's baptism and Elder Smiler baptized her and then we visited our
investigator Gabby again.  We had many other appointments which cancelled that afternoon but it was alright.

Yesterday was great!  We went to Church and President Tiasanmal asked me to give a small talk about Missionary Work and Introduce Myself to the Branch.  I did and I have to admit, I was pretty nervous, I'm not used to speaking in a microphone to a bunch of people, I've given many talks and taught a lot during the mission but in small branches and units, nothing this big since my mission farwell I think.  My talk went well though, Elder Smiler said I didn't look nervous at all.

After church we had lunch with the Busai family who invited us over and we ate rice and fish with them.  Then we taught Bella about Chastity and comitted her to be baptized on May 23rd!  Then we met 3 potential investigators that came to church and we contacted them and set appointments to teach them.

Afterwards we taught mama Edmas about the Book of Mormon and she knew it was all true.  She said a great closing prayer saying "I believe Joseph Smith is a true prophet and that the book of mormon is true, it's amazing how fast the Holy Ghost will witness of the truth when they are ready.  We then drove to Beverly hills to and Mama Annie and Papa Bradley's house.  Bradley and
his wife stay with Annie and her Husband in one house and they're all family, They have a few teenage boys and a few young kids and their family comes from Gaua, Vanualava, and Merelava, some of the Norther Islands.  We talked with them awhile and then we shared a scripture in 1 Nephi 15: 24-25 with them and then Annie asked us to give her a blessing because she was sick and so did their grandma named Lessy.

Then we all knelt down in family prayer and the mama said a prayer thanking the lord for our coming in which we came.  They really needed us at the time and the spirit led us there and we were very grateful to help them.  We left and went to teach Sele about the rest of the plan of Salvation and we set a baptism date for him on May 23rd as well.  He's so awesome!!!

Well that's about all that happened last week.  We're keeping busy and it sounds like you're all busy as well, and it's good and I'm so grateful to be here.  Mi lavem yufala bigwan!!!

Love,

Elda Beynon

Getting ready to eat after zone conference

Pizza!!! For zone conference!

Melissa's Baptism