Elder Tagaloa has some fun experiences on his Mission and he definitely has lots of spiritual experiences to learn and grow as a person, a future husband, a future father and a Son of God... :) That makes this Momma so happy! --- We had an awesome week. It started off with a great experience on P-day. The YMCA was closed to the racquet courts for a Special Olympics of some courts. So we went to one of our back up options which is some courts at one of the Colleges here named Lipscomb. It is a Baptist mainly college. We started playing and in the beginning there was a guy watching my game who had a leg brace on and I didnt think anything at the time because I was playing. But when I was done playing, I was sitting on the bleachers watching the other games this same guy walked up to me. He was in his young 30s, very humble, kind and nice guy. I notice that his left leg is very smaller than his right leg and he had a long brace from above his knee to his foot that had thick plastic support as if to keep his leg straight and not cause any fractures, and he walked with a little limp because of it. He cant bend his knee far at all maybe only a few inches and his ankles the same. But he hopped up onto the bleachers and said Hi and asked if I wanted to play a game. (I knew I was going to say yes no matter what because its hard for me to be mean.) But I really didnt want to play because I was tired. Knew he had a brace and I wouldnt know how to play him, which I didnt. But he looked lonely, it was just him, and needed a friend. So I said of course, I would love to. Then he hopped right off of those bleachers so fast, went and got his racquet a ball and met me in the court. He was so excited. So we played, he had really good shots but his leg and brace really held him back in many ways. I didnt play as hard as I could of but I didnt want to go completely easy because he would think that I dont want to play that hard because of his leg. So I gave him a little bit of a challenge and did end up beating him. But, I know if and at times when I have been in his situation, I didnt want others going easy on me and having sympathy just because of an injury. Well we got to talking and turns out he has a young 2 year old daughter and is married. He has served overseas a few times and is now going back to college for medicine science. About 3 years ago he was in a boating accident where the blades of the propeller cut the backside of his thigh and into his butt. He, had to have surgery and much of his skin, muscle and bones have been removed, mission, or moved around to make his leg still work. And what hit me hard was this was the first day he has played racquet ball since that accident and he used to love to play all the time. I felt compassion for him and expressed to him that I was a missionary for my church and would love to help them in any way. And shared with him that I know how him and his family can be happy forever. I gave him a card with my number in hopes he will visit mormon.org or call. But, I dont know what will ever come of it, yet at least. What I learned from that is to not pre judge people because of what they do, look like or act. And I knew I should have talked to him before he did but I didnt. So follow the promptings you receive. Tuesday we took a car up to Bowling Green Kentucky for the missionaries to share. They haven’t had a car in a while and have been on full time walk. Then we came back for some dinner with one of the office couples, the Johnsons. They are so awesome and feed us about each week, and buy us food all the time and will do anything for us. They have 7 kids and we are just some extra ones. Lol Wednesday we went out to Murfreesboro to one of the District meetings out there. This was my old district I used to be in with Elder Bishop. We had to bring them tons of supplies as well. The whole mission have been struggling with getting their supplies because there are so many missionaries and the supplies are not being ordered fast enough by one of our other senior couple. Lol. He’s a little older and slower. We had institute. We learned about communication skills when dating and in the family. I enjoyed it a lot. I always like learning about what I can do to be a better person, missionary, father and husband. I learned to always acknowledge your kid even if you already know the answer to their question, always make it like you just heard it for the first time as well. When you are mad or upset speak in a soft, quiet way so that the spirit will still be there and handle it with patience. It’s ok to get mad but how you react after is crucial. Thursday we had lunch with Tommy. His papers are in Salt Lake, he is waiting for his mission call. His older brother went on a mission and mother, father and sister are not members though. They are ok with him going but not really. He just signed up for rugby as well, I talked him into it and have been prepping him for it. He is a great kid and super humble as well. I like him a lot. He will do much good on his mission. We also went out to Dickson to meet up with ###. She GOT BAPTIZED!!! On Saturday. But, we went over how her baptism was going to be and prepared her for it. She’s awesome. Friday we had dinner at the Maile’s. Frank Maile is Tongan his wife is American. And he used to play football at Utah State, and then coached at Utah State for the defensive line. Now he took the coaching job here at Vanderbilt. Elder Byington describes him like this. “Just picture your fridge and imagine it to be brown. He is a brown Tongan fridge walking around.” He is gigantic. 6’3 ish 140 lbs. When he was playing he was 290 lbs. All muscle by the way. They fed us good. Lots of chicken and kept feeding us. Haha my companions couldn’t handle it. They were so stuffed. It was good. It felt good to have another Poly around. His 3 boys look like me and one daughter looks like my sisters. The boys got blue eyes and they all play soccer, which is awesome. Saturday we had a Spanish Conference and a Mexican General Authority face timed us and was able to teach all of us. Glad we have this modern technology. I used a translator monitor and a few others so we could hear it in English. I don’t speak Spanish, that’s why. Right after that we headed off to the church to fill up the font and prepare for her baptism. She was 20 minutes late haha. We told her that she was already a perfect member running on Mormon standard time lol. But, it was all so good. She had 3 friends, her brother his wife and 3 yr old daughter all came. Another investigator was there and some less actives. It was a great turnout. Funny story, the font wasn’t filling up fast enough so we used the sinks in the bathroom and some pitchers to fill a big bucket up and one by one took it to the font to dump it haha. There was water everywhere. Good times. We were so happy for ###. During the baptism I took some time to just ponder about how wonderful this was for her and for Heavenly Father. She is entering the gate back to him and I was so happy. I didn’t even need to be there, I could have been far away and still would have been happy for her and knew that God was pleased. She got confirmed today in church by one of her home teachers. Now she is officially a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Also today in church (the Bellevue family ward) we the missionaries got to teach for the third combined hour. We had all the youth as well so it was awesome. We had two groups, one of the sister missionaries and I taught what things we all can do to be missionaries and the other group with my two companions and the other sister missionary taught why we do missionary work and the blessings that come from it. We taught for half the hour then switched groups. It went super well. The sisters wanted us to just teach the whole thing because they see us training missionaries all the time but we said not you got to do it to. But I felt bad because I talked most of the time in both groups. L Anyways after we had a linger longer. So a bunch of people brought food or finger food haha. This was a first in a while the Bellevue ward has had a social. It was good to get the members together and also for us to get to know them more personally. We could feel this a start to them becoming better, and willing to work together. Right now we are starting our departing video for the missionaries who go home in a couple weeks.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 22:21:46 +0000
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