45 Fiji Mission Report

Fiji Mission Report to our beloved Family and Friends Jan 26 2010 

We know this is sounding so redundant, but what a week it was! Pres Ostler was complaining J that it has been almost two months since we had a member of the Quorum of The Twelve Apostles or one of the First Presidency visit Fiji. This week we had Elder D Todd Christofferson, one of our newest apostles, and his lovely wife, visit our little island. Elder Jay Jensen of the presidency of the Seventy and his wife, Elder James Hamula and his two beautiful daughters, and Elder and Sister Wakolo, our Area Authority accompanied them! The entire party and stake leaders arranged to come to the temple on Friday and filled one session. What a joy to be in the temple with them!

Most of you will not remember the good old days with stake conferences every 3 months and always two general authorities that would attend. Of course, there were far fewer stakes and far fewer members in those days. When we were in Alaska in the ‘60’s (boy, that dates us!) it seemed like every GA wanted to see the “last Frontier.” Fiji seems to have that same drawing power, but I think there is something else going on. The entire South Pacific area is receiving concentrated attention. On Saturday, the brethren met with all of the stake presidencies and bishops that could attend a four-hour training meeting to focus on the area goals. The islands that were too distant to come received the training on a closed circuit satellite broadcast. There were simultaneous meetings going on in Australian and New Zealand under the direction of Elder Neil Anderson! Elder Hamula says, “Something is afoot in this place! No place has that received Apostles and Prophets is ever the same!” We certainly are not ever the same! Elder Jensen says there is a new focus in the South Pacific. It will be exciting to see it bear fruit as it blesses these wonderful people,  

When Elder Christofferson spoke to the missionaries he seems so relaxed and so versatile with a complete command of the scriptures. He also has a wonderful sense of humor! He said that he counted twelve mosquito bites on his neck and shoulders. If Elder Jensen had been bitten, he would have had seventy bites! He opened the meeting for any questions the missionaries might have, except he ruled out any questions about the “three Nephites.” He said, “They never call, they never write, and he does not know where they are! His answers were all scripturally based and he never seemed at a loss where to go for the answer. How I envy that ability!

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope for long-term peace and prosperity for this earth.” We need the message to go everywhere, but we do not have the missionaries to do all that needs to be done.  We marvel at the number of missionaries per capita in the early days of the church. If we were even close, we would double our missionary force. We need missionaries to match our message!!

The Church still opens every country that will receive them. Elder Christofferson said that he just dedicated Macedonia, where Paul the Apostle preached nearly two thousand years ago, and Rwanda has just been dedicated for preaching the Gospel. Oh, how they needed that a few years ago when the ethnic slaughters were raging!

Elder Christofferson said the Twelve take turns assigning missionary candidates to their missions by pure inspiration. Two at a time call about 700 missionaries each week, what a force for good!

On Sunday, they divided forces between three stake conferences in the Suva area and all the members had an opportunity to hear and feel the spirit of these inspired brethren and their wives, including Pres and Sister Woolley, our temple president, and Pres and Sister Ostler, the Suva Fiji Mission President.

Elder Hamula came to our Suva North Stake conference and spoke directly to the children about the safety that comes with obedience and the importance of families! When the storms, earthquakes, and devastations come, the first question anyone asks is where my family is! We have watched just that on the news repeatedly.  Well, I fear that I may be getting too preachy, but after all, we are “missionaries!”

We would like to show you Elder Hamula’s two beautiful daughters, one of which has just received her mission call! The girl in the center is Loraini, one of the girls that we teach every Sunday.

Well, it has been a long day; we started at the temple very early and then returned to assist with the marriage of one of our young temple workers and his bride, which is one of the sweetest things we do in all of our service!

We will try to get back to our travels in Vanua Levu next week.

The past week brought sad news with the passing of our dear lifelong friend, Mel Randall, who was our stake president when we moved to Portland in 1973. In addition, Frances Sverdrup, one of our missionary converts of many years ago, died last week. Our love and prayers go out to their families.

We are continuing to pray for the suffering people of Haiti, but they need more than prayers! The whole world needs to rally around and assist in comforting with food, clothing shelter and medical help, and rebuilding that ravaged little nation! The LDS Church is trying to do their part.

We close with this insight from Elder Richard G. Scott.” He says one of the great achievements of life is to acquire the capacity to know and the power to do the Lord’s will.  "Spirituality yields two fruits, the first in inspiration to know what to do. The second is power, or the capacity to do it. These two capacities come together. That is why Nephi could say, 'I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded' (1 Nephi 3:7). He knew the spiritual laws upon which inspiration and power are based. Yes, God answers prayer and gives us spiritual direction when we live obediently and exercise the required faith in Him."

Our counsel: Go and Do!