9 December 2013 Uturoa, Raiatea
Sorry ahead of time if
this letter is a little all over the place, I didn’t have time to plan it
today!
Well it’s
been a wild week. We are approaching the end of the year and we haven’t quite
met our goal. The goal for the mission is 1200 baptisms, We are currently near
800. With close to 200 others fixed for this month. The dirigents (leaders) left
to Tahiti for training, and they were all committed to find 5 baptisms by the
end of the year. The plan of action is to engage everyone. We have been
visiting contacts like crazy teaching so many lessons, and its soooo great! As
a result we have two baptisms fixed for the 21 of December, two kids, cousins, their
names are Mehani and Temehani. They are so awesome. We also have another
baptism coming up on the 15 this week :)
Each investigator we
have engaged this week has also said yes to baptism. We just have to fix dates,
which is usually the hard part, however, we’ve been fasting and praying and
planning for a miracle and I think the Lord will help us save an unprecedented
amount of his children this week. However, the trials have been hard for our
amis (friends) with fixed dates and we know that whenever you fix a date trials
come. No baptism is an easy baptism...Elder Tumarae and I are prepping
ourselves for an intense week this week. We know there is going to be lots of
opposition because the other side knows we are about to accomplish a lot of
work. In fact we are both coming down with something right now, not a
coincidence, but whatever we going to push ahead just the same.
This week we were
searching for a reference, and we tried this house but no one was there. We
finally found the right house but no one was there again. Then we saw that
there were people in the house we had tried earlier and for some reason we felt
like we needed to go back. We got there, introduced ourselves, asked if they
had time for a message, and the response was. <> It turns out there father is in the hospital
having an operation and its been very hard. They have two little girls, and en
fait he is a cousin of the Bishop, so the bishop is the member integratuer
(integrator). We’ve had lots of little <> like that
this week, lots of new families and old contacts. It’s been great, and i think
the bishopric and some of the members in the ward are getting more motivated!
Probably because they see we have nearly 20 investigators who attend church and
we are out biking from 10 in the morning to usually 7 at night. Its been very
tiring, but that’s missionary work! Its missionary work for a reason, and I
love it.
I feel really at home
here now that the language is settling in. Yesterday there were two tourists
who came and visited the chapelle thinking it was the protestant church. Also a
family of members came and visited the chapelle. I have to say, it felt really weird
talking in English and I didn’t realize how difficult of a time I was having
forming sentences. It was just really weird. French and Tahitian sounds more
normal than English at the moment. The nonmembers were from San Antonio, so we
talked a little about the temple there. And then they talked a little about Romney,
they said the reason he didn’t win was because he was to <>
it was funny. Then I told them to find the missionaries when they return home.
Who knows maybe they will. The member family came into the class for the
investigators, and one of the Tahitians asked if I could translate what was
being taught for them. The Father was really nice though, he noticed I was with
an investigator and he said <> he was really nice!
P day today was super
fun. The old assistants who should have finished there missions several weeks
ago are here acting as <>. There are going to help
the Raiatea and Tahaa islands increase the speed of their work. They are awesome.
We went with them and the zone leaders today to the beach and the old Temple
site where they did human sacrifices and whatnot. We played rugby on the beach,
then it was super hot, so I climbed a coconut tree got us all coconuts and we
drank them and ate mangoes. Nothing like P day on Raiatea! After that we walked
a little in the ocean, we are allowed in the ocean up to our knees :) Sadly I
forgot my camera!!!!!! Oh well another time.
Ok that’s about all I
can think of right now! Love you all Alma 7:11-13 are particularly enlightening
Mummy. in v13 it states that Christ didn’t actually need to suffer for all the
stuff because the holy ghost knows all, but he did anyways so he could succor
us better. Ether 12 is fantastic as well.
Nana
bisou
Elder Molinari
