7 July 2014 Bora Bora
This is very frustrating that I can't send any pictures. The Tahiti Church IT department thinks that USBs will destroy MLS....Oh well. It’s just a little ironic that I’m at Bora Bora, one of the most beautiful places in the world and it’s so difficult to send photos.
I have just been getting so unlucky with flat tires this week; which culminates in long walks back to the house. The tires on my “new” bike need to be replaced. Our house is on the west side of the island and our secteur is on the east side, with a mountain in between. EVERYDAY we bike all the way to the other side of the island, but since it’s absolutely stunning I don’t complain.
There is only one church building on the whole island. Actually, it’s more like 2/3 of a building because part of the building was destroyed recently by the landslide. Two wards meet in it. Yes, the members from our secteur have to come to the opposite side of the island to attend church. The first ward meets at 8 in the morning, our ward meets at 12. You can’t overlap the meetings because there’s no room. I have no idea what they are going to do after they create a third ward to meet there. 4-7 church anyone? They have a bus to go get people, but as you can imagine only the people that ride have any idea how it works. So because it’s sooo far away most of the members become inactive, or go to the protestant church, BECAUSE ITS CLOSER. Oh, boy is it interesting here.
Tomorrow we are all going to Raiatea for a conference de Zone avec (ed. note: with) the new president. Super excited!!!!! Sadly, we are only going to be there for a day. But it’s better than nothing.
I think the bishop is almost our friend, we just have to land a reunion coordination (ed. note: coordination meeting) and we will be well off. We've enacted a plan to reactivate the inactives in our ward (300 I think). We have visits that are programmed every Tuesday night. In the auxiliary meetings the presidency should prayerfully choose families’ and individual’s names to give Tuesday night.
Then the presidencies and any member that wants to, comes Tuesday. We have the ward divided up into zones and we make groups, then put the names the presidencies supplied on the board, then we go visit 1 or 2 families and come back and report. That way bishop is up to date with the family’s needs and people can offer help that are there.
At least that’s how we did it at Raiatea. Even though we have close to no one Tuesday I hope once we have a meeting we can really set it up. The only thing that we've never gotten to fully work is the auxiliary meetings, oh well.
[Editor’s note: The preceding three paragraphs will not make much sense to many of you. Allow me to try to simplify things by saying – they are targeting and visiting members who stopped coming to church in hopes of rekindling a flame inside them and inviting them back to church.]
I need everyone to pray for a couple of people. They are ready to be baptized but are being blocked by their conjoint (ed. note: de facto or common-law spouse). Their names are Jean-Jacques, and Monia. Their conjoints’ names are Marie-Claude and Robert. We really want to fix a baptism, but the other side’s heart is INCREDIBLY hard.
Thanks a bunch!
Love you all!
Elder Molinari
