July 24

We had the best news this morning.  Scott and I were getting a little discouraged.  We have been here one months and although much cleaning and moving has been done at the institute the go-ahead for the basement renovation and to wire the upstairs for internet had not been given.  Everyone kept saying they were checking their budgets.  If there was no money we would have to wait till January for anything to happen.  January?  That is 1/3 of our mission gone and still no real institute.  HOWEVER Heavenly Father has answered our fervent prayers.  Today we got word  twice from two different sources that that there was budget enough for the internet and for the renovation.  The internet should be in within two weeks, and the renovation will begin soon whatever that means.  But we can move ahead.  We have our first real Institute Council meeting set for next week to plan the grand opening.   We are so grateful.  Heavenly Father has blessed us.

Scott got another referral yesterday while I was having my hair cut.  No wait!  Hair sheared right off.  Anyway he thought I would be a while so he got his shoes shined.  In Suva there are a million, OK that is an exaggeration, a thousand, men sitting on the sidewalk with a little shoe shining kit hoping to make a living.  One shoe shining man (young) called him Elder Tennis, so he stopped and then agreed to have his shoes shined.  The kid told him he had a friend that was LDS (who is on a mission now in Hawaii).  Scott ask if he had read the Book of Mormon and when he replied that he had not.  Scott ask him is he would like to read it, and when he said he would, Scott got his name, address, and phone number.  He will give it to the APs.  That's two.  Not bad.

Almost all of the active LDS kids, both men and women, serve missions.  They do it for a host of personal reasons, I am sure, but many serve because it opens educational and thus economic doors for them.  It is practically impossible to get a PEF loan if one has not served a mission, and getting into BYU-H on I-work is impossible without a mission.

Robert, our son, got on us during our last phone conversation, because we are not working on our Fijian.  My excuse to him was that even when we speak to the members in what little Fijian we know they always reply in English.  "How can I learn if they won't speak Fijian to me?" I complained.  He reminded me that it was important to learn all the Fijian I could.  The conversation we had has been bugging me.  Scott and I have spoken about it several times.  Bless Scott's heart.  This morning he told me he knew what we had to do.  Let's hire Sukanika to tutor us.  So today we hired her to tutor us until she leaves on her mission the end of October.  We will have a one hour a day lesson until she leaves.  I am hoping by then we will be able to hold simple conversations, bear our testimonies, and say a prayer in Fijian.