Planting a Garden of Souls

This week was full of hardships and some trials...

First off, my baptism that was SOLID....yep, you guessed it. It didn't happen. We called him a couple days before his baptism just to check up on him and he hit us with, "okua ou ikai tui ki he tohi ae molomona". (Translation: I don't believe in the Book of Mormon) So we tried talking to him and hoping he would realize what he felt before. His baptism was scheduled for Sunday, so we told him we can try arranging to meet with him again to share our testimonies about the Book of Mormon and why it is important to have his own testimony of it. But he told us he isn't gonna even come to church on Sunday. He is gonna go to the Christ Embassey instead...
I ever felt more defeated in my life! He was so into the church. I was so heart broken, but I know that this is another test and maybe even a way to get humbled. I know Ofa will come around sooner or later and we planted the seed. So that's all that matters. Hopefully when he's ready, missionaries will find him!
We got another referral and it was awesome! Its a kid from Australia. He's here for boxing in an international tournament. So we began to teach him and he was really interested. He had a lot of questions. The lessons were awesome and he was progressing. I could see him growing a testimony. Right when we were going to invite him to be baptized, he says "I go back to Australia on Tuesday." Another swing and miss, but another seed planted and that one is growing fast! So long story short, no baptisms this week. But here'a a pic of me filling up the font for someone else's baptism. Went on a vilo hoa (companionship exchange). It went good. The chapel is really nice.! Another MQ (missionary quarters) is on the property, so that's cool. Also pics of a guy and his pet centipede...yeah, I almost passed out!
Till next week! Thanks for the prayers!

Ofa Lahi Atu,

Elder Nomani

Stay obedient

This week was pretty awesome! We committed a guy to be baptized! And I think this one will go through! I mean I sure hope it does lol! But we committed him to be baptized next Sunday! His name is Ofa and he is like 50 years old. He loves the church! So hopefully next week will be some pics of the baptism! 
This week I had a realization that I am not doing everything I am supposed to be doing as a set apart missionary called of God. I realized that I am not receiving all the blessings I could. I NEED TO be exactly obedient! I feel like my language is suffering because of it also. I just had a realization and a very long prayer with my Heavenly Father. I just want anyone who is on a mission, or who is going to enter the mission field, to remember the importance of Obedience! These rules weren't just put there, just because. They were put there by the Lord! So I thought to myself, if the Lord told me these rules face to face would I keep them? That is an easy yes, I would. But it is the same, receiving these rules from Prophets and Apostles because they don't just call prophets "the mouth piece of God". So why would I not keep the rules! 
I just want to thank my family for always pushing me to be the best missionary I can be! My Mom shared something that my Gpa Ho Ching shared with her. While he was the mission president in the Phillapines, one of the apostles counseled his missionaries during a visit. He told them,

"BE THE KIND OF MISSIONARY YOUR MOM THINKS YOU ARE!"

I am so sorry for letting my family down! I am going to try to be the best missionary I know I can be! I am not just doing this for me and my family now! This is for my family in the future also! When I have kids of my own on their mission, I can tell them that I know it is hard to keep the rules, but I can speak from personal experience, that it will bless you on the mission and after more than you can ever imagine! I think just from me being more obedient this is why we are getting a baptism and we just got another referral. They are bringing people to their house so we can teach them along side our members! Exact Obedience blesses you more than you can handle! I love you all!

Ofa Lahi Atu Moutolu 

Elder Nomani💕

PS: Because I got a new camera, had to test all filters. Hahaha. Also did a tour of my mission quarters (MQ)

Lisiate at work

Special delivery from Momo's bakery. THANKS MOM

The power of the Holy Ghost is real

Another spectacular week in the Kingdom!

Let's see...uhhhh a giant cruise ship docked in Tonga on Wednesday, and there was so many white people haha. Like I have not seen this many since the MTC haha! They were from Europe and it was a 2 month long cruise or something like that. All I know is they have been on the cruise for a long time haha! But man were we a tourist attraction! We got swarmed by these tourists and they were trying to ask for a picture! I was hoping to leave this life behind in America, but all my fans came to Tonga! haha jkjk I for real felt like I was Justin Beiber or Chris Brown. If they didn't ask for a picture, we would catch them just taking pics of me and my companion haha. But they just wanted a pic of us in our Tongan Clothing and because we are soooo good looking! We were by the palace, and straight up, they were taking more pics of us then the actual palace. It was funny! Yeah reminds me of home and all my fans running up and asking for pictures haha.  

But remember that Family of 5 we got referred to? yeahhhh no one knows where they live and no one is bothering to help us look. So that is just awesome! However, we will continue to look for them! 

Also got my package from my amazing family! Got my new camera, ties, webcam, and some candy! So some bomb photos coming soon with my new camera! Hopefully, I won't drop this one haha! I now know to keep it in my bag because you never know when your gonna have to run from some dogs haha. 

Now time to get into the needy greedy... I think thats how you say it...(that's how Nacho says it 😁)

This week we had a pretty awesome spiritual experience with the Spirit! We have an investigator named Lisiate or Richard. He is from Fiji. We finally got the opportunity to teach him and the lessons were amazing! He is always so interested in what were teaching and loves to ask and answer our questions! We taught him all the lessons and we even committed him to baptism He told us that there is a couple things holding him back from wanting to be baptized! 

1. He thinks he is not good enough, he is too bad of a person because of the things he has done in the past. This was an easy one to help him with we taught him repentance, and the power of the Atonement and baptism! 

2. He doesn't know what the Spirit feels like and he wants to feel it before he gets baptized. He told us "You guys talk about this Holy Ghost a lot but I haven't felt it yet." So we gave him the simple yet soooo sweet answer. Just PRAY! We told him to pray to feel it and if you want to feel it, you'll feel it! 

A lil background story about Richard: he was born in Tonga but shipped out to Fiji for school when he was a "young boy". And he has a smoking and drinking problem. So we were working with him on that! He went from 5-6 cigarettes to 2 cigarettes in a day! But he kept on saying he is not strong enough to stop and we kept reassuring him that he is and that Heavenly Father does love him no matter what he has done in the past! We told him to pray to Heavenly Father and ask for help to gain the strength to stop! And he told us he would...that was on Thursday! 

Then glorious Friday came, I swear everything good happens on Fridays lol! But anyway, we went and visited him again and we asked him about how he did on smoking today. And this was his response "Ummmm I smoked... oh my goodness you guys! I didn't smoke any! It didn't even cross my mind!" BIIIIINNNNNNGGGOOOOO!  We told him after that it was the Holy Ghost helped him with that! That because you showed Heavenly Father you are willing to stop, and that you really do need his help, he will make it happen! He tried saying that it was because he was busy building his family's store. We told him that's funny because you've been super busy with that all week, yet you still found a way and time to light one up. After that he just kept saying "Guys this is amazing! or Guys I feel it!" It was crazy because it is him and his uncle working on this shop. His uncle probably smokes like 20 a day. He is always smoking. We asked him, "did your uncle smoke today?" He said yes, a lot! And we were like, "so you would look at your uncle with a cigarette in his mouth and it didn't cross your mind to smoke?" And that just blew his mind. He was freaking out and then we recommitted him to baptism. He said maybe because he might be leaving to Fiji this week. So if he doesn't go, we will hopefully be able to have his baptism! But another thing is he uhhh.... in Fiji the village he is from is what they call a cannibalism colony...... just process that for a minute......kind of freaky and he went into detail but I am not gonna put it on here... So we have a few challenges to work out with him. Still it was an amazing spiritual experience. 

Thats my life in Tonga! What is happening back in the Land of the Free? I want to know so Email me @chet.norman@missionary.org! 

Ofa laahi atu!! 

Side Note: I hit 6 months next week!!! I can't believe it!

🏝

Elder Nomani 

Addictions are killer.....

Well friends and family, I am staying another transfer in good 'ol Kolomotu'a! I am still comps with my boy, Elder Andersen! So this is our 3rd transfer here! We are super happy to stay because there's a lot of work we’re gonna try and do this transfer... actually some work we ARE GOING to do this transfer! 
I am not gonna try and sugar coat my mission, it is hard and we have had a lot of trouble with finding new people to share the gospel with. But, we just got our first referral! 

YES!

I just got my first one. It is a family of 5 and they are all very interested in the church! They even came to church yesterday for our Stake Conference! (Which was amazing by the way. We had an area seventy come from Samoa, Elder Fata! He even knew my grandparents and when I met him he told me, "wow you even look like a Ho Ching". Haha I hope thats a good thing! He gave an amazing talk.) 
But back to the family! They are of Indian decent and they ALL want to learn about the church! We are really hoping and praying for them to gain a testimony that this is the true church! A testimony that they can become an eternal family with the first step of baptism! 

But another thing that happened and that I kind of want to base this post about...

These past two weeks, we have been working with Aisake(Isacc). He is a good guy and my comp and I got along with him well! He was progressing, but struggled with a bad addiction to smoking and doing drugs. He got down to one cigarette every couple of days, so we asked him if he would like to be baptized and he committed that he'd stop and be ready for baptism! This made me and my comp sooooo happy. This made me especially excited because this is the first person I have ever had commit to baptism! I had seen so much progress in him. He was changing his life. When we first met him, he was living with his girlfriend and he was smoking and doing so much drugs. But when we talked to him about the whole living situation, without a hesitation, he took his girlfriend somewhere else! I was so excited. The only problem with this guy is...he's not honest. His whole life has been a lie. His biological sister lives in our area also, and she is an active member in the church! She was telling us that everything like the lying, the girlfriend, and the wrong friends, started when he became addicted to drugs. So you’re probably wondering....did the baptism happen? The answer to that is no. One of his friends, like 3 days before his baptism, came to us and said "I can't lie to you guys. Aisake is addicted to ice (meth) and he did it this morning!" When I found out, I was crushed. I felt defeated! I was so mad and sad, but it made me realize that addiction RUINS your life. It is so sad. I know Aisake wanted to change so bad, but he let the addiction run his ambition! I now understand why our church is always advising us to stay away from addictive substances! But not just substances, a lot of other things!
I can speak from experience. I was addicted to my phone! My mom always said I was, but I told her no,  I am not!  haha But I look back on it and man I really was! I was addicted to social media! I see why President Neilson is doing the fasts from social media, because once your addicted that is all you think about and it messes with you head! Like Aisake, his sister tells us that drugs is the reason. Before he started hanging out with the wrong crowd, he was a good hard working person, but now he comes to her almost on the daily and asks her for money because all his money goes to drugs! As a missionary my eyes have been opened to the reason why the word of wisdom is such an important lesson! As heartbreaking and as sad as it was about losing this baptism, I learned that addiction really does MESS your life up! I encourage all of you if you have an addiction to get help and HELP someone you know who has one! Some of you may be wondering if we still teach and try to help Aisake but we physically can't. You wonder why? He got locked up 2 days ago for dealing Ice! He needed money and that's what he turned to! So, we can no longer help him.  I hope and pray missionaries will find him when he is released!
I just wanted to share that with all of you today I don't know why but I hope all of you got something out of this! If not just take this, DON'T DO DRUGS! haha Be careful in everything you do!
Oh, and we started a 90 day Book of Mormon reading challenge! So I invite all of you to join me! Just look up 90 day BOM reading and a list should pop up and just follow that!
I love you all! Hope everything is good! Thank you for all the prayers!

Ofa lahi atu kiate kimoutolu!

Elder Nomani💕