week 8

This week Shane had two interesting experiences. His good friend Tanner, who is in the MTC with Shane right now, grandmother passed away this past week. Tanner received permission to leave the MTC and attend the funeral. Tanner asked for permission to take Shane with him to be his companion for the day. We were planning on attending the funeral anyway so it gave us an opportunity to visit with Shane for an hour or so. It was awesome. 
On Sunday Shane was recommended by the district presidency to be one of the speakers in a 4 ward sacrament meeting. He was the only Elder and a Sister also spoke. It looks like he was happy with the way things went! This was the week all the new mission presidents were in the MTC. He has seen the prophet, 7 of the 12 apostles, and his new mission president. He had a crazy week...as he put it!

Bula family!!  Wow this week has been crazy!!!

Well I told you about all the apostles that we saw, 7 all in the same room! It was crazy!! It was so weird to leave and be close to home, but when I got back, it felt so good!  I was much more comfortable and got right back to work!  Well lets talk about Sunday!!! ...So there were only 4 sacrament meetings in the MTC on Sunday.  So 2000-2500 divided by 4??  So I talked to a few hundred people, it was crazy!! It went really well! I did get someone to record it and actually they recorded the big screen in the gym so you can actually see me too!  It was a genius idea! But Moaalii said I looked like an apostle. I can now say, I have talked at the same pulpit as a whole lot of apostles!!  Cool huh?  When I saw my branch presidency they all gave me hugs and said AWESOME!!  So I guess it was good. A lot of people I knew and a lot that I didn't know, said it was really good and it helped them a lot. I just hate talking for 5 minutes because I feel like I didn't get much done but if it helped people than its all good. I'll send the card when you send the other back, you all can see it...haha it was a really cool experience! Uhh what else? I told you a lot of stuff Saturday and don't have much to write this week...One thing that our teacher talked about that I like is that people think, we come on our missions to learn deep doctrine, which we do learn for ourselves, but really, our goal is to learn how to simplify the gospel...Jace knows how that is, and it's the same in Fiji from what I've heard, so I have been trying really hard, not to say too much, but just make it very simple and easy...We have been teaching a lot of lessons lately so it's been really good. We got one committed to baptism and it was sweet haha even though its fake. Things are still going good. Tell everyone I say hi! Love you all and thank you so much for everything in my life...I have been very blessed with the best family in the world!! You have supported me through all sports and even when I do dumb stuff!!! Love you all!!

week 7

Bula Family!

Hows everything going? This week was a really good week! Well I don't know if I ever told you this but I have service (clean toilets, etc.) at 6:15 am. It sucks but it's easy. HaHa funny story of the day! So we were practicing our language task and it was shopping so we went to the book store and we said a prayer before and for some reason we went into the bathroom. Well Moaalii starts to pray and all of a sudden we just here (fart, fart, fart) haha we start dying!!!!!!!! then we get quiet and we hear "I am so sorry elders!!!" It was so funny! Well I finished the New Testament this week! I learned alot from it! I always try to find verses that I can apply to my life and the investigators life and there were some very good ones! Sunday we sang "We'll bring the world his truth" in Samoan too....the Samoans left and we sang with them. It was really cool. We had a kid start bawling and that night I went up to him and asked what was wrong. I guess he and a friend used to always sing that song and one day they got in an accident and his friend was killed. I tried to do everything I could to make him feel better and just tried to use the spirit to tell me what to say....I kinda took him under my wing and he wrote in my journal and said I helped him alot and looks up to me and so it made me feel happy and happy that I helped him somehow....Our TRC this week was kinda tough. We taught a Hindu guy that believed in all gods! haha we didn't know where to start but it lead into prayer somehow and it was really good! We just kinda siked ourselves out. It was a really good lesson. I find out that it is very very rude to touch their heads. I guess when you give blessings you say jilou alot before you do it so they know you are about to touch their head ha (jilou) means excuse me....It's crazy haha we had a culture night last night and our teachers showed us pics and videos about Fiji and it was so sick! I'm so excited! It reminded me of Jaces alot with the little kids!! I can't wait!!! It was way cool!!! I saw the Browns quite a bit and they left today! They say "were off!" It was sweet to see them. I will see my mission president I'm guessing. This week is gonna be crazy. I'm excited for it!! I'll keep you updated on that!! Well hope all is well and dad keep those birds out!!! But Tanner is next to me right now and he says hi parents! He is doing really good! Well I love you all and keep busy and living life cuz i am!!! Love you all!!!

Shane

week 6

What's going on family?  First off mom....matavuvale=family and its lomani but everything was right...so  hows everything going there?? I have seen Justin and I see Tanner alot....I did see the Browns today actually too! It was awesome. So we had a sleep over last night. I slept in the Haitians room and we went to bed at 2 then woke up at 4 to take an elder to the bus that left this morning, then we passed out again... haha it was really fun. Well on the more serious note we had a great devotional Tuesday, Elder Kikuchi spoke...he is hilarious but he gave a very powerful message! He talked on the restoration and the importance of it...I gained a greater testimony of it that night...it was awesome!! He told us to find our own sacred grove where we can just go quietly and talk with Heavenly Father..It was a really good talk..The TRC went so so in my opinion.The volunteers were very impressed with our Fijian and they said we spoke really well but on the other hand, I wasn't happy because I didnt feel like we helped them apply/learn anything and didnt answer the questions. They said THREE times "Tell me more about the Book of Mormon" and I told my comps, we NEED to talk about the Book of Mormon, thats all they wanted to know. But they wanted to stay in order of the lesson and we didn't have time to talk about it so we didn't even get to the restoration at all...The investigator has already heard the whole first lesson, and the only thing they wanted to know about was the Book of Mormon..so i was pretty frustrated but we talked about it after, and it was chill. I'm still doing good and I read 6 books in the New Testament the other day so I have a couple books left then I'm done with it...I stopped reading for a few days so I'm behind ha but I'll finish this week! Hope all is well. Love you guys! Thanks for everything!!! Tell everyone I say hi!!

Your awesome son!!!

Shane

week 5

Bula fam!!

 So i have no idea what happened with the dearelders...the only one i got was from treags farewell and then i got two more saturday but there were two i have already recieved, it was weird....I hope you didn't feel bad. Right when i sent it last week, I said I hope they dont take that the wrong way.Thank you very much for the hymmbook and flag!! I'm gonna engraven my name on the hymmbook and the flag is for a fijian, which ill send pics of, that we always chill with and he's never seen a fijian flag that big. Brownies were sooooooo good!!!!! Vinaka vakalevu!! Thank you very much!! So I am hosting the new missionaries tomorrow!! Once I see treag, I am running to him!  I snuck a little note in his book bag today haha. Well being a ZL is definitely busy! Alot more meetings and we gotta take care of the whole zone. There is 30 of us in the zone.. There is one elder, who is a lot to handle! He has a disabillity and always runs off, he was suppose to leave last week but he got sick and he thinks he can do whatever he wants so we are working with Pres Conners (Branch Pres) to work with him... So Moaalii was the DL, I was the Sr and Inu was the Jr....Now there is no sr or jr, just ZL and DL hahaha its crazy...its kinda tough cuz when we have meetings Inu is just by himsefl so it can be difficult at times. We start teaching in TRC in 100% fijian this week haha, its so hard! Trying to teach and get them to understand is very frustrating,....But yes we are pretty much all fijian now...They are starting a new program in August...its full 100% language from day one...so it will be very tough. Teaching Invesitgator vs Sunday school......Its more personal, you need to teach very simple and you cant just stand up there and say things....we need to apply the gospel every lesson to their life and we are getting better at it each time....At first our teachers said, I dont know why but your fijian is much better than your teaching, its usually opposite haha, just cuz we tried to speak so much fijian, we just forgot about the invesitgator and what they need you know. Its very tough trying to study everything you need to know at once....Its just gonna take time...Food sucked this week haha i dont know why haha but i have lost weight!! im 184 haha i started working out again this week....I was stiff! I started to stretch everyday too. We worked on the first vision and memorizing it yesterday...Igot it down today in fijian....I just need to make it flow haha but i have it memorized at least in fijian..So i encourage you to look at an article in the October 2004 liahona called "Only Survivor" Its about a guy from Fiji...One of my teachers comps was his son...its crazy...Well i found out that only 28% of members in Fiji are active..crazy huh?? I guess its very very very hard to do things without a member there...its very hard to do something there that no one else is doing...I forgot this too...I taught district meeting Sunday with Elder Inu on accountability..it was a very good lesson...I also blessed the sacrament in Fijian too...Here are some fijian very long fijian words you guys can try saying haha...... vakaukauwataka-strengthens    vakamalumalumutaka- weak/humility vakavinavinakataka-grateful  vakadinadinataka-testify haha there are some very long words in fijian and tongue twisters!!you should be proud!! Tell everyone i say hi and love them!! Well thanks for everything!! You guys are the best!! I'm doing well and learning alot!! love you guys very much!!! hope all is well! and a new quote for the day.... Be someones reason, not their excuse.  haha i love that one....Well sota tale!!! Lomani kemudou!!

Elder Hansen