Roper Fijian Crusades: 2019-08-11

On August 10 we left the MTC. Being at the MTC was definitely a spiritual high. I think I realized the importance of the simplicity of the gospel. The basics, Heavenly Father loves us and gave us the Savior so we could repent and be forgiven. The Savior also made it possible for us to live eternally. Because Heavenly Father loves us, he gave us families. Families are SO important. After the great apostasy, Joseph Smith was directed by God to restore the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We have a living prophet on the earth today. And if we endure to the end, we can have eternal life with our families and with our Heavenly Father. What a great blessing to have the gospel in our lives. Saturday morning of the 10^th, I took a few pictures…one of our cooks who provided great meals 3 times a day and the missionaries that were up early enough to eat breakfast. After we ate, we packed up our things and then because it wasn’t raining, (it had rained every day but 1 while we were there) we went out and explored the city a little bit. We found the train station. There was a train loading going in to the city. So, we quickly bought a ticket and road the 40 minutes into the city. Once we got there we only had time to get off, look out onto the street and buy another ticket back to where we started. It was fun to see a little more of Auckland. Once we got back, we went and said goodbye to most of the missionaries and headed for the airport.

While waiting to get our boarding pass, one of the Fiji Airlines employees noticed our missionary tags. She came over and talked to us. Such a friendly happy woman who was a member of the church. Because we didn’t have seats together they put us on standby to upgrade us to business class if there was a place. While they were working things out, another employee came over and she talked to the ticket registrar and somehow just bumped us up to business! Wahoo. So then the woman who was a member took us upstairs to the lounge where we could wait until we boarded. They had food and drinks available. Of course, we ate and then it was time to board the plane. Why have we never flown business class before? Oh, right….money! That’s the way to travel! We boarded the plane and they fed us again. Gave us all the drinks we wanted. Had a TV screen with NICE headphones. AND we were the first ones off the plane. Which was a good thing since we had to go through customs, collect our luggage, send it back through security, walk out of the airport and down the street to domestic flights just in time to recheck our luggage and board our tiny plane for Suva. What an adventure. We loved every minute of it—even though we had no time to spare getting on our next flight. Once we got to Suva, we waited for our luggage just off the plane on the tarmac. Then we found Elder and Sister Blackburn, VTEP missionaries here, and off we went to our next adventure.