Tasi Upu, Tele Uiga

Talofa lava!!!

This past week went by in a blur, but it was full of amazing stuff, so hopefully I can share a little of that with y'all.

We got some sad news this week. First, Elder Blackham was removed from our MTC district. All we know is that his training was "postponed." Whatever the cause may be, we'll miss him, and we all wish him the best. Also this week, just yesterday (Friday), Sis Long told us that she will be leaving the MTC so that she can finish up her schooling. We were all really sad about this because, despite having only known her for a week, we all already loved her so much. Hopefully we'll remember all of the amazing things she taught us, and hopefully whoever our new teacher is knows what they're doing because Sis Long set a high standard. Despite these sad events, the work goes on, and will continue to go on, regardless of who might be the ones carrying the standard of truth.

This week my soa Elder Brown and I taught two TRC lessons. These lessons are zoom meetings with "investigators," actors who portray non-members. Some of the people we talk to might actually be non-members, and they're all really good actors, so we have to do our best to be good representatives of the church and of Christ. Both lessons actually went really well, and my soa and I are feeling pretty confident about teaching lessons in English. During our second lesson, we were teaching a young woman about God and the restoration. Elder Brown was bearing his testimony to compliment something I had just said when suddenly he brought up Joseph Smith and the First Vision. I panicked for a moment because that wasn't part of our lesson plan at all, but I quickly realized that the lady's life story sounded a LOT like the young Joseph Smith. Deciding to roll with the spiritual promptings, I pulled up Joseph Smith History and the first lesson in Preach My Gospel, and we taught her about Joseph Smith. It was way cool to feel a direct spiritual prompting during a lesson, and to see it play out so well when we followed it. The lady was super receptive to the lesson, and we kept riding the spiritual high for the rest of the time.

Like I said before, our English lessons are coming along pretty well. Unfortunately, this next week, my soa and I are teaching a woman in Samoan. No English allowed. Yikes. Hopefully we can study up enough, and pray enough, to have the spirit during that lesson as well.

As far as language studies go, we're cruising right along with Gagana Samoa. Some concepts or lessons are super easy, or they're really nice in application (like not conjugating verbs ever is kinda really nice), but some other things are way different and harder than other language or grammar rules. We're also almost finished with Basic Core, the first round of vocabulary and phrases to memorize. This next week we'll begin Intermediate Core, which is much more personal-goal based, but just as long and hard I'm guessing. Chee hoo.

Also, I guess I'll explain the Subject line. "Tasi upu, tele uiga" is a Samoan saying that means "one word, many meanings." Basically, some words in Samoan just kinda have multiple meanings for no other reason than they just do. I don't mean like one words meaning talk, talking, and to talk (though that is very common), I'm talking like the word "po" can mean "night" or "to hit" or "or". Why, you ask? Fa'aSamoa. That's just how Samoan is, my friends, and it makes learning vocab both easier (because there's actually less words to remember) but also harder (because it's harder to keep it all straight in your head).

Despite our incredibly large amounts of studying and working, we still find plenty of time to pull off shenanigans and crack jokes and it's awesome. My whole district, even the teachers, share a similar sense of humor, so we often end up laughing and joking at the randomest things in class. Elder Brown and I have figured how to make and set recordings of ourselves as the background to our video, so we'll set those up for a minute or two so everyone thinks we're in class, or sleeping, or whatever, then just pop in and actually join class. Sometimes, in our district group chat, we'll pick one elder and give him four to six words or short phrases he has to say in a conversation in the next class (words like German engineering, expired pickles, dashing, ear cheese, crazy frog, etc). It's really funny to me because we're all now much more engaged in the lessons because we have to talk a lot, and have it relate to the lesson, to say all of the "special vocab" for the day, but we also have a ton of fun, so it's a win-win.

Also, because I just know you're all soooo curious, my district (without my actually trying to) decided that I'm the ladies man of the district, so that's pretty fun (I mean teeeechnically Uso Gardiner IS married, but he's the teacher so he doesn't really count 😂)

Finally, I just wanna say that the Spirit is real, and I have such a strong testimony of that. There have been countless times this alone that I've felt the guiding influence of the Holy Ghost, nudging me towards bigger and better opportunities, and I'm eternally grateful for that. The power of prayer is real, and we can all feel the Spirit when we pray.

Ou te molimau le Atua tali ia itatou tatalo, ma ou te folafola o le a faamanuia le Atua ia te oe afea 'e tatalo. (I testify that God answers prayers, and I promise that God will bless you when you pray.)

Life is good, and God is even better.

Alofa atu ia outou,

Elder Hill

Pictures (don't have many this week, sorry):

• A couple of screenshots of my district saying I'm a ladies' man (I just think it's hilarious, tbh).  [For the record, young ladies do NOT text me, whether late at night or not.  Another elder was just teasing.]
• We play Kahoot! a lot as a district, to practice vocabulary, and it gets pretty competitive, so I was proud of my first place title (Elder Prince has taken first place three times, so I'm tryna steal his crown).  FYI, "Elder Mauga" means Elder Mountain instead of Elder Hill.  
• Uso Seki (Elder Brown's alter ego)