Noqu Imatai Papitaiso!!

Hello all,

It was a great and tough week. Nice to end off with Sireli's baptism that went great. We get to baptize in this little pond thing and it felt amazing. Not only the spirit but the cold water on a super hot day. The day started off a little hectic though. The stake presidency called us in the morning and told us they were close to our village and they needed to follow us to the Unit and it was like 2 hours sooner than we expected so I had about 6.82 seconds to get all my stuff ready. Then since we were there super early we were just chilling talking to the neighbors and they invited us in for breakfast. They were talking in Fijian and then Elda Jonathan looks over at me and says, "Bro you ready to eat cow heart and liver." so yeah. We ate cow heart and liver. Pretty good taste just super tough. Then afterwards I walked in to lunch and saw a bowl with 2 whole fish, a giant shrimp, some ota, and other stuff. An interesting week food-wise for sure.

I also got pretty sick. Had to stay at the flat because I just got utterly destroyed by something I ate or drank. I recovered pretty well though. I was also at a members house when I had to lead the area on exchanges and he gave us some dry as heck vudi. (Sort of Banana) So I take a bite and chewed for a sec, then when I swallowed it straight up clogged my throat and zapped away all moisture. I couldn't breathe for a hot sec haha. Nobody knew what was going on except for the American zone leader lol. Luckily I just forced it down. Oh the experiences of Fiji.

Pretty awesome week though!! Love the people here and all that they do for me!!

Loloma Yani (Love your way)

Elda William

Filterz

Eating some Roti

The Fijian people think that wig pic is the funniest thing ever.

Baptism Crew

Fijian Fam

Ika Vakalolo

Hello everyone!! It has been a good week but a slow one. The Fijian Prime Minister Elections were this week so we had some restrictions for working. Also every Friday and Saturday almost everyone in my area is in Suva to sell the stuff from their farm so we just visit members. So not much of an eventful week but I will try to make up for it by sending a ton of pictures haha.

Sireli's baptism is this week!! It is crazy awesome! In our last lesson with him his mom sat in on it and we were able to teach her. Hopefully her heart is softened and they allow us to baptize the rest of the kids! Everyone in the village they live in is family and about half are members! Just trying to help those that aren't feel the spirit.

The kids are crazy like always. Every time I open my mouth at the wrong angle they freak out because I have a retainer and some even try to touch them haha. Fijian Kids be wildin'

Have an awesome week all!
Loloma Yani

Elda Gwilliam

Me and Noqu Yaca (My namesake) Samu! He is awesome

Samu throwing up half a Hang-Loose

Eating Breadfruit with the Unit Leader's Son

Me with Make and Samu in a classic looking Fijian house in my area

Me and Elder Jonathan

Me and some kids from the village. Sireli is sitting next to me

Me grubbing on some Ika Vakalolo in our after church feast. Ika vakalolo is fish in coconut milk.

 In my search in the Topical Guide I found out the scriptures hold more wisdom than I ever could have imagned. Jokes Jokes.

The kids here have these wheels attached to sticks that they push and have so much fun. Material things don't matter here. 

Final thought from Sam: THanks again and please put a note in that I'm sorry that I was lazy and just sent a ton of pics instead of writing a longer email haha. Love ya

De$ignated Driver

Hello All!!

It was a good week! It was Diwali this week and that was pretty crazy! I felt like I was in a WW2 movie because it looked like bombs were exploding everywhere. Our Indian neighbors invited us over for some sweets. Every Indian man is Uncle and every woman is Auntie. I'll try and send a picture of them. The internet here is pretty bad.

Our flat also had some interesting Wildlife encounters this week. We caught 2 rats with glue traps, a mongoose ran out from under my chair and the Polynesian comps in the flat trapped it with a fan cover. We also found out we had bedbugs. I thought they were just mosquito bites but then I saw one crawling on my scriptures and found a few filled with blood on my mattress. We deep cleaned for a whole day and we think that they are gone now. I also woke up one morning and my back started to burn, so I put my hand back there and felt something wrap around it. I have never moved faster. I flicked it down and it was a 6 inch long centipede. Crazy stuff.

It has been raining a lot over the past few days and when we tried to leave our area last night the bridge was flooded. We had to park the car, walk through it and get picked up by the other Naitasiri elders. It was wild. That's Fiji for ya I guess. Oh yeah we finally got a truck haha. I'm the driver and it's been weird. I've driven in the right lane a few times accidentally and turned off the wipers when I was trying to signal but I'm getting used to it.

Sunday was awesome. Our unit is about 20 people. It was pretty much a testimony meeting. I had to give a message. People kept nodding their heads so I am just hoping it made sense. They totally improvise hymns. We sang a sacrament hymn to "Brightly Beams". They love that song. Afterwards we had a huge feast of Fish in coconut milk, taro, cassava, and tons of other stuff. The Maramas kept telling me to eat more though. After everyone has a 30 minute nap then we went to visit members who are less active. Then we had 2 more meals that night . I've never felt more full.

We have a boy on date for the 25th and supposedly I am baptizing him! It will be an awesome experience. The Fijian people are so nice though. Before we had the truck we were just walking around and people would always come and pick us up. Some guy even gave us a ride and then his wife wouldn't let us leave unless we took money from her!

Anyway. It's been awesome here. I love it and I love my sulu. Hopefully some pics load.

Me with Auntie and Uncle

A Fijian house we see often

Chillin on a bridge

Throwbax to MO and longer hair

Our flat

Bula Vinaka Kemudou Kece!

Man oh man it has been great in Fiji. So much to talk about and so little time. We only have an hour to email here so sorry for the really short responses. The travel was long and hard. I was exhausted pretty much everywhere but you know that didn't stop me from perusing the Gucci store in LAX #stayflexing #hype. On our first day here we went to the mission home and met a lot of people then we went out with elders to give out na iVola i Momani. I went to Suva with Elda Dial! It was awesome seeing him and catching up with him.

The next day we had a great breakfast and had a lot of fun opening our first area letters. My first area is the Naitasiri 1st area! My Comp is Elda Jonathan from Vanuatu! And guess who I am staying with in the flat?? Elda Burge!!

We don't have a truck yet and our area is in the middle of the mountains. So for the first few days we couldn't go far but we walked a lot and still found people to teach. Everyone is soooo nice here and it is always great to hear a hearty, "BULA ELDAS!"

My Fijian is coming. We had stake conference and hearing all the adults talk was crazy fast. I like talking to kids way more. There were a ton of times though when I would be walking and a Marama would walk up to me and say something and I had no clue what she said so I'd just do the classic Polynesian raise the eyebrows for yes and hope it worked. There were times I'm sure I looked like the white man blinking gif. I had lots of chances to talk to kids though and that is always fun. They say you have to make 1,000,000 mistakes to learn a language and I think I'm about 3/4 there.

For every meal at home we eat rice and chow with corned beef or tuna. Every time I get food my comp tells me it's, "Not enough." and to get more something haha. Just training me for the members I guess. Everyone always offers you food or something to drink and it's funny seeing all the things that our MTC teachers would tell us about.

Mom: Sorry I am about to run out of time. Sorry I had more pics but I got kicked off and had to end early. Love ya

Sam Made it to Fiji!

After a marathon day of travel, Sam made it to Fiji.  Below are pictures of him with President and Sister Higgins, as well as his intake group (some visa waiters from his original MTC group, some brand new from the MTC) in front of the Fiji Suva temple.

Ballin' on a Budget

Hey all. Goodbye all.

It was a sad last couple of days but it was also really fun. I head out today around noon and it went by way too fast. I can honestly say that I have been grateful for my Visa delay. Not that I doubted that it would be good before but I have met a lot of cool people and I'm glad I was able to spend some time here.

Adam is back. Turns out he was just on vacation and really tired but we had a really good meeting with him and he is doing well. He even talked with friends about baptism who are members and they encouraged him a lot!

Man this last week went by super duper fast. I honestly can't remember off the top of my head some of the stuff we did. Really excited to meet up with the 5 other Visa wait elders and have a good Ole time at LAX.

I will miss all the people of Missouri but am excited for the future.

Moce,
Elda Gwilliam

Me with the Reid family. I think they are Saints fans?

Me with the Rogers.  She gives all the missionaries one of these blankets.

Maybe it's just me but this seems ironic?

Struck a little too close to home.  Still recovering.  

Back at it again with the sewers.  

"Somehow I Manage"

Well this week was even crazier than last week.

So about 3 days after we had that cool experience with Cynthia we got a call from the 2nd counselor to the Bishop and he told us he went over to Cynthia's house and felt inspired to put her on date for that Sunday to get baptized before her Chemo. So that was a lot needless to say. She asked me to give a talk on baptism too which was surprising haha. But everything went smoothly and she was baptized yesterday!! She is going to help so many people out and I'm sure this story seems like another generic story but you have to understand Cynthia's personality and the fact that she has been seeing missionaries for 4 years. She just wasn't progressing and then bam within a week she had the chance to be baptized.

News on Adam: Adam has dropped off the face of the Earth. We have been trying to contact him for over a week ever since we had a cool experience with him but he has only responded once. We are worried about him and think that his visiting family got to him... Pretty sad stuff, but we will keep praying for him and trying to visit him.

Fiji news... I leave for Fiji a week from today!! I got a text from the mission office saying my approved work permit was there and that I was scheduled for a 3:57 departure on the 29th!! Really excited but also a little sad to leave lil' Ole Odessa. I've met a lot of cool people here so I have to make this last week count.

In other news I had a Chipotle burrito with some red chili salsa on it and I thought it was super hot but everyone said I was a whimp, then later this week I had a run in with a Thai Chili which is pretty hot. Luckily I have recovered.

One last cool story. We were on our way home from an appointment and I felt like we should go visit Albert (the guy we found street contacting that we had been trying to visit with for a week) and sure enough he was in his driveway working on his mustang. There was another guy there Jumpstarting his car right next to him. He told elder Richins that his girlfriend got mad at him and made him move out and called the police on him so he wouldnt be at that house anymore but he wanted our number so he could contact us when he found a place. He was pretty happy to see us because we probably wouldn't have been able to find him if we hadn't gone over there. While he was telling my comp all this I was next to him listening to the other guy and asking him questions. You know on the missionary grind, and elder richins basically dragged me away from the dude. I was like what the heck and then It made sense when he told me the police were on their way haha. But Albert ended up making up with his girl and he still lives there but now we have his # so that is cool.

Have an awesome week all!!

Elder McGwilliam (2-3 people have called me that here and I'm still confused at why there is a Mc on the front suddenly)

Thuggin 

Me on a bench

The second coolest church

All of the Elders currently in the MIM except one who have worked with Cynthia