BAPTISMS YES

What's up my homies! Just hope you know I love you guys so much and I hope everything is going well back home. I really hope you are enjoying the Olympics and stuff, man I'm jealous! But anyways I just had probably the craziest week of my whole mission. But I ended it with 4 Baptisms, making it the best week of my mission as well. I just love this work so much, ITS TRUE.

So on Tuesday this week we put our truck in the shop to get it reregistered and then we got a call two hours later that they were going to have to fix the bumper first before they could reregister it meaning the car would have to be in the shop all week, leaving us completely truckless with SO many things to do this week. Man was I scared but hey being a missionary out here just makes you think on your toes, so that's what we did. We had 4 investigators set to be baptized on this past weekend, so since we didn't have a car that was the only thing we could focus on and literally didn't have time for anything else, because both of these villages are an hour car ride from our flat.. We had to finish a lesson with them as well as plan baptismal programs, do their baptismal interviews and other things like that which made us way busy, but to our surprise everything went smoothly this weekend. Honestly just a true miracle! Honestly it was only because God loves these people so much he allowed us to pull it all off. It was such a good testimony builder to me that we really do have God out here everyday in every aspect to the work, there is no other explanation then that!

So as for our Baptisms. We did two on Saturday as well as two on Sunday and they were both such different experiences but man they were both so amazing in their own ways. On Saturday we had two of our Baptisms. One was the 40 year old lady "Va" as well as her 75 year old dad "Penna" who is actually one of the biggest authorities in their village... Needless to say its pretty cool to have been teaching him. But because he couldn't walk very well he wasn't comfortable with walking into a rocky river so we had to get them a truck and truck them all the way to the city (like a 2 hour ride) where a baptismal font was. I was the one who baptized them because my companion doesn't really want to get wet. lol idk So anyways we got them there and were getting them all dressed and we found out the pants we brought for him were a size 32 and he couldn't fit them...... so the only backup was my sulu.. meaning I had to give him my sulu and go and try to fit the pants... Lets just say I'm not a size 32...... literally I was wearing skinny white jeans that looked like I painted them on and they only went down to my mid calfs to do the baptism.... hahaha but you got to do what you got to do. Va's baptism went well but when I baptized Penna he couldn't bend his legs at all in the font to go back into the water so I had to basically pick him up and put him into the water and then lift him up all by myself because he cant really stand up without a cane..... GOOD THING I take my morning workouts pretty seriously;) hahah but wow that was a scary but fun experience. After both of them shared their testimonies and you could just feel so strongly how well they knew that they were being baptized that day by proper authority... so amazing!

So Sunday was equally as special but not even a little bit the same. We baptized Nai and her son Lawrence before church so that we could confirm them during church. But the thing was they got there a bit late so we had to hurry a little bit. The reason they were late is because it was just POURING RAIN. For a little while we didn't even know if they were going to be able to make it to church but they did! Yet another miracle! Anyways we got them dressed and only took a few pictures because it was raining so hard and we didn't want our cameras to get wet. But anyways, just the 5 or 6 of us who were there left the chapel and walked over to the river down the street. Seriously like we might as well have already had been swimming when we got to the river because we were so wet... But the river was at the bottom of this huge dirt hill and because it was raining so hard it was just all mud. The most slippery mud in the world, we all slipped into it so many times it was just hilarious hahah, not sure if they were baptized in white or brown clothes... hahah but we finally got down to the river and did the baptism and man it was such a cool experience. I can't help but think this is maybe a little bit what it was like in the Jordan river long ago, when Christ himself showed us the path we needed to follow. It was so cool because although when you compare the two baptisms they were so unique and different but with all 4 you could feel Heavenly Father's love so strongly for them because they were all making covenants with His son Jesus Christ. It was an amazing experience. After we had church and we had the blessing of confirming all 4 of them as members of the church and giving them the gift of the Holy Ghost. A gift that would change their life forever. It really was just a week of miracles and a week that it felt good to be a missionary and be able to help our Heavenly Father bring souls unto Christ! Sorry if this email doesn't make tons of sense, I just wrote as much as I can because I'm just excited about it all! I love this work and know without a doubt its true! I love you all!

Elder Mumford

Pictures of our two baptisms

Us by the river after the baptism

 I bet Caleb and Landon are proud! #swag

Me and my 3 best friends, Elder Whitworth, Elder Levassa from Australia, and Elder Danielson, a pro rugby player  from Australia. I don't think of myself as white anymore. I'm just a Polynesian. 

Picture at a restaurant we went to with Elder Whitworth and Elder Willoughby, who both came to Fiji with me!

More pics of me and Elder Whitworth, who is seriously like one of my best friends in Fiji.  We plan on rooming together in Provo.