Monday, February 28, 2011

February 28, 2011




Today has been nuts, first off we went out fishing this morning. The branch president caught the first fish after only his second cast. So I went out too and on about the third cast I got a hold of something giant. But he was too big and he broke the line. Same story for my companion. I can't believe The Bear is headed in Wednesday. I know if he toughs it out the first couple weeks he'll power through his whole mission. Tell him the we need him here. We need a champion dang it! Well as for me it's been an aalright couple of weeks I guess. We've done a ton of service projects. I think almost every day this week we had one. I'm getting real good at planting taro. Too good in fact. Also I'm a better raker than I have ever been. And now I am getting good at going into the jungle and searching for palm leaves. Nothing is quite so manly as heading into the wild with a machete killing nature. It's nuts in there. Hmmm, pretty much all of my experiences are temporal; I have no good spiritual stories. Sorry guys, hang in there. It's hard on a small island but the work is progressing anyways. Little by little we are finding new people to teach who are very interested in the gospel. Not the those eternal investigators that we have had for years. We have gotten a couple in the last few weeks - Edé, who found us, Ari Fara, who we found, and finally Terio, we speaks only really fast pure Rurutu and who we have taught the first principle of the gospel to three times and he still says we haven't taught anything. Rurutu is for the most part Tahitian except they've changed a few words and the don't pronounce the f's or the h's. So it's just t's and vowels. And it's fetchin hard. Anyways back to the experiences - We did a random service project in our church clothes the other day, random. Also at another service project my companion caught a rooster while the two of them were fighting; it was way funny. Oh yes and as for the second pig I killed, it was a big one. At least bigger than me. It was a nuts kill. You guys will love the pictures. I'll fill up a couple of memory cards and send them to you guys.

I'll do a better job of concealing them, too. Thanks for the packages. I'll see if they beat me there. It's the 16th we go up. Then yes, hopefully I'll come back for a week and get transferred. I'll keep on working on that baptism for here until then. But either way, even though I love this sector I can't wait to get to a new one. Well that's all for today, see you next week.

February 14, 2011



I did a year. That was probably one of the more significant moments on my mission. From now on it's less time to go than I have done. I burned a shirt as tradition goes, also I damaged the church's fence as tradition goes. It was totally worth it! Although the next day I had to go wash it with gas and repaint it, too. Then the next day we did some wild stuff. First off we went to Auti for a lesson; it's not really that long but it tires you out fast. But then we needed to go to Avera which is ridiculously far away because you need to go around like the whole island. Well we weren't doing that! So we took some random "short cut" road into the mountain. We walked up an almost 45 degree slope for nearly an hour. Then when we got on top we realized we were on the top of the island. Then we went to this random facility up there to ask the best way down. some random old man speaking only Rurutu invited is into his goat farm thing. He us some much needed water and even watermelon. It was a life saver. Well we went our way and took the nutsiest decent ever. The road was full of ruts and rocks. Only the strongest trucks can handle a road like that. Well anyways we were hauling down that mountain like none other cause it was so steep I don't think we could have stopped. Then the wire for my back brakes slipped so I no longer had use of them. I came flying out at the bottom only having my front brakes in action. But I survived and I totally loved it. We fixed my brakes so we're definitely hitting that up again next week. And later to make it all worth it I ate my first ever hamburger in Rurutu there. Really that's it as far as stories go. It really was a great week though. We are really starting to see some progress in this sector. All the work is paying off. We're seeing some new investigators and a few more lessons with them. so yeah just know that even down here in the middle of no where, where no one looks the work is progressing.

Monday, February 7, 2011

February 7, 2011

I'll leave around the 14th for a zone conference and then pretty soon after it's transfers. I'm kinda bummed though cause I know I am just due to head into the ghetto streets of FAA'A. No more beaches, there's more crazy people too. Anyways for now everything is good out here. The work is starting to move along a little better. We're making friends with more and more people. Investigators and lost sheep as well. There are entire villages who have all fallen away from the church. Villages man! But it's okay we're there for them. Pretty soon this area will see success and our tiny church will fill up. This week not all that much really happened. We had one sweet lesson yesterday. We taught lesson one - simple.. So I taught about God. On all the islands that is a very simple subject cause they already know. But this guy straight up had no idea who he was or how to pray or anything. It was the first time I had ever met anyone like that. Well we taught the crap out of him and it was so cool to see that knowledge come to him. Normally he is way timid but by the end he was pretty talkative. The spirit was there even though at first we listened to their Protestant fireside thing. That's really all that happened lesson wise. I also cut a huge field with weed wackers. It's a weird culture, like no one has a lawnmower. They loved to see the Marite out there in action. Anyways that's all I really have to say. Oh and of coarse I am stoked for the year mark. It's kind of cool actually to think I have been out for that long.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

January 31, 2010



Hopefully the prayers of a ton of missionaries will do a ton of good.Just the other day my companion received an answer to his prayer. We stopped by the ocean to have a little lunch and before we prayed I took a bite out of my pamplemousse (It's like a grapefruit but white inside and green outside). Hah I love the name... Pamplemousse. Anyways it was way super sour, I hated it. Then he stood up to say the prayer. He asked- "Please bless my companion's pamplemousse to be sweeter." I kind of laughed and took a bite- sour as ever. Then when I took the second bite it was ridiculously sweet. My eyes went all wide and I thanked my companion and Heavenly Father, too. Such a stupid little thing but it was awesome. This week was better than the others. I feel like the work worked a little better. Despite three quarters of our lessons always canceling things went well this week. We're really getting in contact with more people now. People are starting to accept us and they invite us to come and talk with them. Just the other day we received our first ever reference here in Rurutu. The guy approached some members and asked about the church. They told him that we would pass. Well we did. And he couldn't have been more stoked. He loved that we were out preaching and that I spoke the native language. Really that about sums up the week. It's great to see the work progressing here. I know when I leave they'll have tons of baptisms, as the mission goes. It's great though; we've taken some eternal investigators and really gotten them to turn around and prepare for baptism. I love the work and despite how hard it is sometimes it all pays off in the end. If every missionary in the whole world does his best pretty soon every single person will hear the gospel.