Hello Hello!
Tena Kotou Whanau means in Maori (Hello (to you all) Family) maybe...
There's a reason why I don't always send the translation: because I'm not
always entirely sure if I'm writing it correctly. So I'll just let you pretend
I'm fluent in all Island languages. Our Elder's Quorum President is Fijian, so
Bula Vinaka!
Wet Greetings from Rain-ewy-no-mata! Or something like that. It rains so much
here. Luckily it's not today, at least it isn't hasn't started yet. But we're
strong and we carry on.
I've thought about playing rugby when I go home, only for fun, of course. But it
requires a lot of skill, which I still haven't mastered yet, so I don't plan on
giving any lessons, just hoping to find some islanders in Utah who I can
"have a run" with. As for the Haka, I shamefully haven't even learned
it yet. At least not as well as I should have, but I will be perfecting it before
my return. That way I can do it down the escalator at the airport. :) I know
some other Utah missionaries have talked about doing that when they get off the
plane in SLC. But that would be a lot cooler as a group of studly Elders doing
the Haka together than for one odd looking missionary doing it by himself. I
would probably get tackled by Security for being a mad man.
Thanks for your funny emails. I'm glad to hear you miss my constant desire for
a cobweb-free front porch. My habit for outside cleanliness has carried with me
and I always get a slight twitch when I go door-knocking because so many people
have cobwebs all over their front door. One investigator of ours has spiderwebs
all over her door and you can see the spiders crawling around. Elder Maas (who hates
spiders) commented on it, and she says she likes them there, and would feel to
cruel to kill them. So Elder Maas always makes me be the one to knock on the
door so he can stand as far away as possible from any arachnids above us.
Elder Maas and I had a neat experience this weekend. We have a lot of names,
given from different people or found in the area book that we're going through,
and so we spent Saturday evening trying to find them and set up appointments.
There was a name of a ten-year-old boy in my planner that we had met the first
week I got to Wainui. He said, "Hi Missionaries!" as we were biking down the
street and told us his name was Antonio and a last name I couldn't understand.
Elder Maas didn't know who he was so we asked if we could come by and meet his
family. He gave us his address, which I also couldn't understand so I wrote
down what I thought it sounded like.
So that bring us to earlier in the week,
when I was looking through my planner, found his name and made a mental note to
try and see him sometime. To make a long story short. On Saturday night, we
biked to the top of town to a small little cul-de-sac and down a long driveway
in the dark and found this address. So it turned out that this boy's father was
a former member of the Church. He seemed a bit drunk but was happy to see us
and set up a time to "give us a feed" on Wednesday night. But we
walked away wondering if he would remember.
Before we left for church yesterday morning, we got a knock on our door, and
there stood Tom (the formerly drunk guy) who said, "Remember me?" He then ran back to his car
and brought in heaps of groceries for us. He said, "If there's one thing my
mother taught me, it was to take care of the missionaries." We were
shocked, one that he would do that for us, two that he even knew where we lived
(but then again I think everyone in Wainui knows where we live). We thanked him
again and again. And then ten minutes later he came back with some meat pies
from the bakery. He said "make sure you say a good prayer on those because
I bought them on a Sunday."
We then walked to church with a smile of gratitude/confusion on our faces.
Well, Igotta go! I love you so! happy Father's day Dad!,
Love,
Elder Rowe
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