Happy (late) Valentine's Day!

Bula Vinaka! 

Happy Late Valentine's Day! I hope you all had a lovely week! We sure did! We celebrated Valentine's day with a Baptism! Yay! Loata was baptized! We are so proud of her! She is such a cute girl and has such a strong testimony! We had water issues and the font was only half way up the Elder who was baptizing her's shin. So she had to be baptized a few times, but she was a real trooper! 

Transfers were this week and Sister Kaisisi and I are both staying! YAY! Good because we have plenty of work to do! And I just love my companion! She's the cutest! And we are going to the North and TAVEUNI next week! SOOO exciting! :)

In our District Meeting this week, we talked about using the skills we have gained in the mission to help us throughout the rest of our life. I really like this quote our District Leader shared....

"Lack of plans to achieve worthy goals, will turn converted missionaries into careless members."  

Scary eh? Just thought I'd share that because it's really deep and good and has stuck with me all week. :) Plans and goals are important. 

Also, this week for my personal study, I really wanted to learn something new and cool and exciting! So I prayed for the Spirit to teach me. And my eyes were opened! I read Alma 34 and was really interested in vs. 10......

 "For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice."

I kept thinking about the Atonement and Sacrifice so I looked up sacrifice in the Bible Dictionary. WOW! Go read it. But you gotta put your spiritual glasses on first. It talked about how today, sacrifices have been replaced with the Sacrament. So I read about each of the different kinds of traditional sacrifices (Sin offering, Burnt offering, and Peace offering) and applied it to the Sacrament. So cool. The sacrament is so simple yet so profound. I realized that when we partake of the sacrament, we are cleansed of our sins, after we have repented (sin offering), recognize the hand of God in our lives (burnt offering) and are renewed and given the strength to endure to the end and develop our relationship with our Savior (Peace Offering). 

I'm so grateful for the opportunity we have to partake of the sacrament each week!

Loloma Levu,

Sista Matheson :)

 District Lunch at Mama's Pizza! (L to R: E. Cagimaivuna, E. Arthur, E. Morgan, E. Tonumaipea, Me, S. Kaisisi)

 Last picture with Elder Gregory before he goes to the North as a Zone Leader. We'll miss him!

Frankie the Love Fern. :) 

 We decided to celebrate Valentine's day and buy a LOVE FERN! (I really miss Adolf, our avacado plant from Samabula)

 Nola is my best friend. I'm gonna be like her someday. :) (Also, she is Amber Jones' twin!)

 Proselyting in the flooded village! Ha! Rain here is so crazy!

 My little Sisters here in Fiji! :) LOVE THESE TWO!

Loata's Baptism! Best Valentine's day EVA! :) We are so proud of her!