Ok you guys, so to understand this week you have to look at this photo. Lots of things happened this week but I want to just talk about this one person, Vaiarii Raihauti. I know in this photo he looks like a murderer and like he is angry but really he is a great kid and right now you are all going to hear the story of his conversion. He is the one next to me in the corner. I promise he isn't actually scary. It has been crazy.
The conversion of Vaiarii starts in December last year. I and my companion were in their yard to teach a lesson to his sister but we had never met him. I don't know what happened but for some reason he decided to come to the lesson and hear us with his brother and part of his family. I think I wrote about it in another email, anyway we taught a lesson about the Restoration and invited everyone to read the Book of Mormon to see if our message was true. The next week we dropped off a Book of Mormon. Out of all of his family it was really only him who cared. The rest didn't really feel like finding out but Vaiarii read the Book of Mormon and prayed sincerely like we asked him. At this point he was super super shy but we would just come and visit him anyway. We invited this brother in our ward who you see in the picture to come with us to the lessons and he started inviting Vaiarii to family home evening and started teaching him too. Vaiarii told us he prayed about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and had a really strong impression but he really had a hard describing it, so of course we continued the lessons with him for the next 2 months and he would come to church with us every single week or with Dan ( the man in the photo). He was still really shy and scared of us. I think just because we are two foreign girls but we finally got him to open up and he decided he wanted to be baptized. He didn't tell us everything because he was embarrassed but he really wants to go on a mission too. He is 19 years old and now is preparing to go to the temple in one year so he can go on a mission and serve the Lord.
I told him now we are going to use him and he will be the member fellow-shipper for all of our amis. haha. He thinks I am psycho... the poor kid. Two days ago he bore his testimony and it was so powerful. He shared his gratitude for the Lord for having showed him His church. He was so sincere.
I share this story for two reasons.
1. We taught all of his family and it was only him who believed and acted on his impressions, which shows us that even though the gospel is true not everyone is going to accept. It is just our duty to invite everyone so they can decide for themselves and understand the goodness of the gospel for themselves.
2. Member fellow-shippers are so so so important. Without Dan there I don't think Vaiarii would have been converted. The testimonies of members and their experiences really validate our teachings and relate to others.
I know the church is true and I am so happy that Vaiarii is so happy now. I am so happy to have been able to help the Lord in His work. He is so good.
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