Iaroana
Outou (you all)
Things are going well
here but slow. We gave a training meeting for the leaders of the auxiliaries
this Sunday, and told them our goal. President Sinjoux - through revelation-
received the number of baptisms for this year that we need, 1200! Currently we
have 609. That’s a lot of baptisms to do in 2 months. However just like it says
in 1 Nephi 3:7 the Lord doesn’t give commandments unless he prepares a way for
them to be accomplished. For our sector we need 20 or more baptisms. Therefore
we did some training and presented our plan to the members, they are to
increase their efforts in finding so we can be receiving the highest number of
new investigators that we can. Also these areas have been tracted so many times
we usually find little to nothing. People generally accept us, but they are
very content with where they are and what they are doing. They would prefer to
stay in a church that doesn’t require anything except a body in the chapel on Sunday.
Please don’t ever just be a body in the chapel on Sunday in our church! We will
see what comes to fruition from all this though. There is still that nasty
asterisk by the plan that reads <>.
I had a great
experience this week that strengthened my faith. On Saturday night, really
late, my wonderfully thoughtful companion turned to me and told me I was in
charge of the lesson in Gospel essentials on Sunday (Through something that I read as a smirk,
after which I had a <> discussion with him it wasn’t with
anger though it was about communication in our companionship, later I swallowed
my pride and apologized, and told him I needed faith and would teach the
lesson) I was initially a
little fearful to teach a lesson at church, for an hour, but through the night
and that morning I decided I could do it. I added it to my fast, said several
prayers and did a little planning during sacrament meeting. After which I went
to class and started to teach the lesson. The topic was faith. The class
miraculously was very involved, and I ended up teaching without help from my
companion for the whole hour...and then went 20 minutes over because we were
having such a good discussion.
I talked about how
when we plant the seed of faith most of the stages of growth are the same at
the beginning. I compared this to when you first start reading the book of Mormon
and praying. That is probably the hardest thing to motivate people to do, read
the book of Mormon. I don’t think people read very much here, Tahitian was an
oral language, so when you give them something as foreign as the book of Mormon
with all its names, people, bible lingo, and this funny place called Jerusalem;
it doesn’t make much sense to them at first. But if they keep nourishing the
seed it will eventually bear fruit, you can’t have fruit the second you plant a
seed, and even after you do plant the seed, you don’t actually even see
anything come from it for a few days. I think that made sense to a lot of the
investigators who were there. I’ll just have to remember that one and use it in
the future. Any ways to sum it all up I had a lot of divine help with the
lesson in turns of questions discussions and insights.
The language is also
improving a ton, the fact that I could teach for an hour and 20 minutes shows
that I have some basic mastery of communication my thoughts efficiently now. Even
if understanding still is iffy. Understanding takes a lot more time than being
able to speak, but I have patience that in 1 to 2 more months I will understand
pretty much everything. If I look at my progress from when I first got here to
now, I’ve come a loooooooooooong way with lots of prayers and fasting. It will
be 1 month in Polynesia in 3 days!
We
moved last week! We now live behind the chapel! Elder Chailloux wanted to move
and I didn’t really care either way so we did! It this little house just behind
the chapel, and its actually really nice. There are almost no mosquitoes, and
we have ceiling fans, and with the fans from the other house, I am always
incredible comfortable and protected from mosquitoes. It has 2 rooms, a kitchen
and the bedroom, ad this teeny bathroom. I like it though because it close
enough to the coast that we always have a breeze blowing through the house, and
we are never late to church are meetings. Its also closer to the town, the
members, and the stores which is super handy. So all in all I think I prefer
it. Ill include pictures next week, I forgot to charge my camera so i couldn’t
take any!
D&C 88 is awesome.
So is all of 1 Nephi 7. As well as Jesus with Nicodemus and the last supper in
John. In fact the entire book of John is amazing. We should all desire the love
that Enoch had for mankind, That you can read about in Moses.
Love Elder Molinari
