Fa'a Samoa!

Talofa aiga! Ua mai oe?? (Hello family! How are you?)

 

So guess what!? I'm Samoan now! Who'd a thunk! Not me! Crazy huh?? It was the last thing I expected to hear "in the Inland Empire Samoan ward, Elder Pauga, and Elder Nelson Browning." Elder Pauga is SUPER tight. We were so excited to be serving together that he ran over to me when we were called and grabbed me in a bear hug and threw his Samoan flag around my neck.

All the missionaries were able to talk and get pictures since the mission was splitting. I know very few missionaries in this mission since most that I know stayed in Rancho (lots of green missionaries in San B and Rialto) but it's all good. I'm the 2nd oldest missionary in my zone. Wow.

 

And this all means... I'm in the Redlands mission! My area is HUGE! Even with the boundary changes, we still span 4 missions in the IE Samoan ward. It goes from out west in Pamona (Arcadia mission) through Rancho Cucamonga, San B, Redlands, Yucaipa, and all the way out to the Palm Desert. And southward, it covers Riverside and goes out to Norco and the border of Temecula. Our dinner is actually out in Norco tonight so we're going out there after this. It's too bad Gma and Gpa aren't still out here! That'd be really cool. Guess we all had to be in a row but not overlapping huh? Jeren, then the grandparents, and now me. Wowzer! Riverside, are you sick of us yet? haha

 

Man. I'm still super hyped up about all this. Only downside is that Polynesian wards are generally slower since you can only find investigators from members that know other non member polys. However, President Van Cott announced that we are no longer going to tract! Hallelujah! (not a big deal since I'm in a Samoan ward but it's still interesting). I needed the push to visit member families more often anyways. I've always talked about doing it more but haven't really made much of an effort to do so.

 

So just a note, in Samoan, g's are pronounced like the letter n. So Pauga is pronounced "paunga" but the "guh" sound from the G is faint. Their alphabet only has 17 letters so everyone has a hard time with "Browning" even though they all speak at least some English. There's no "ing" sound. So I'm Elder Palaugi :) (Pa-la-oo-nee where la-oo sounds like "loud"). Or, "fa ene ene" (means "to make brown" haha) or even "Keke" (brownie HA).

 

I had to hit the ground running come sunday. They asked me to bear my testimony (in English) and it was SO COOL to say "Brothers and sisters, talofa!" The people are hilarious, especially the older ladies. Also, They asked us to put together a musical number last minute so we were going to sing I stand all amazed. But they found out I played some piano so I had to accompany the musical number in Sacrament meeting! I only messed up once though so it was all good haha.

 

We have one family that we're teaching. It's a family of 5. Moli (the mom), Sabrina and her husband Alex, Marco, and Omar. They're pretty solid. They want to wait until the first week of August to get baptized though. They could get baptized as soon as next week though. We'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

 

We also taught the cousin of a family who is staying with them before going to school next week in Vegas. She's open but not super receptive. We'll only be able to meet with her one or two more times so we're hoping to get the ball rolling (or seed planted) before she leaves.

 

Well I'll try and send a few pictures too. We're working out hard every day trying to not get fat! It's so hot that I'm not going to have a problem though. It was 105 on Saturday (we were outside all day for a samoan holiday. If I hadn't been wearing lava lavas and flip flops with my white dress shirt I would have really struggled. It got to 110 yesterday. Luckily it cooled off a tiny bit today to 102 or so. We helped a guy move this morning and I'm not used to having sweat literally run down my face. haha.

If you're wondering, we live in San Bernardino and spend a lot of time in Rialto (it's super ghetto down over heres bro!).

 

Alofa atu! Fa soifua!

Elder Nelson Browning (Nelesoni Palaugi)