Another week...

27 October 2014 Tautira

The hermit crab that came to visit our house.
We tried to find him a bigger shell, but he wasn't interested.

As far as weeks go, this one was pretty ordinary. However, for the first time we had more than 1 investigator at church Sunday, we had 4! It was great.

Augustine has been sharing the gospel with everyone she sees, its incredible. She has really taken Elder Bednar's talk to heart. We also had a movie night at their house and watched the Joseph Smith Film. It was great because her husband watched about half of it, and the family we teach across the road came to watch as well. It only strengthened Augustine's testimony to see exactly what happened.

We've done a LOT of biking as well. Turns out we bike close to 15 kilometri (ed. note: just over 9 miles) each day, then Saturday we biked 27kilometers (ed. note:almost 17 miles). That was a lot. But, its not too bad since we are used to it. They said there was a good chance we would gain weight here in Tahiti, but if you're on bike I think its impossible. No new news for the car, I guess we're back to hoping we can have one...

Elder Gifford Neilsen and his wife of the 70 came to visit us on Tuesday, and we had an all day conference. He was super awesome, as well as his wife. He talked a lot about being respectfully bold when we do missionary work. Him and his wife were pretty funny, he gave a talk in general conference called "the game plan" or something like that. He was super tall.

Ok! That's all I have time for this week! Love you all a ton!

Elder Molinari

White chicken who caught us taking pictures of her.

I Feel Like Paul

21 October 2014 Tautira

  

The moon was super bright and
its reflection was cool on the water.

Well this week we had a lot of cancelled lessons, but Heavenly Father helped us fill in the holes with inactives/ new contacts. We had a great first contact with someone named Thierry (pronounced tcherry). 

  He talked for a while, then finally when we had listened to all he had to say we taught the rétablissement on the first contact. He had sooo many questions when we started but he got quieter and quieter as we taught. Then we got to Joseph Smith and the first vision. After, he looked quite shocked. He said it was as if something hit him in the chest. After a little silence the first thing he said was, "you'll soon convince me to be a Mormon". That's literally what he said. All I could think of was Paul before King Agrippa when he said that (Acts 26:28). It was a great first contact.

I'm not sure I've ever been so tired. I can fall asleep on place, anywhere. We'll have a car soon this week or next. President is quite pleased with our work. We didn’t see Terai this week, but we left them a pineapple that someone had given us. We taught Augustine about the fast, and she fasted the next day that her family would follow her choice, especially her kids. Later that week we were finally able to do a lesson with her son - he said yes! Then we did this lesson at an investigator Janine's house, and it turned into a mini primary. all the kids from the families living in the house came, we had about 8 kids all singing I am a Child of God. It was an awesome lesson.

I'm not sure if this rivals your moth, Sister Molinari,
but these moths are always coming into our house at night.

Lots of miracles: We were biking to go to lunch and I felt like we needed to go to a member's house named Papi Rere. So we went and his granddaughter (5 years old) was there with her mother. She had just started to get sick and have a fever, and it hadn't been a long time since they had gotten back. We came just in time to give a blessing and then continue on our way. Sunday she was running around like normal. It was a nice little miracle for us, and maybe for the family. Listening to the spirit always leads us to those who need us, no matter how little they are.

Ok, I love you all no matter what!

Elder Molinari

Good Week

13 October 2014 Tautira

Tuahu's Baptism. We filled the font too much so it overflowed when we got in!

We had Tuahu's baptism this week. It was great! This ward hasn't had a baptism since March, so it was a really nice ceremony. When the time came for him to bear his testimony he got up and walked out. It was pretty funny. It was because he left his little paper with notes on it in the bathroom when he was changing. To everyone else though, it looked like he was fleeing from the testimony. After that he gave a testimony in Tahitian, when he had told his mother he wanted to do it in French. You gotta love overbearing Tahitian mamis.

We had tons of amis that watched General Conference. It was awesome. Terai, watched it all at work, and liked it so much she is watching it again! However her husband isn't very happy...pray for her. Also this week our district organized a tri-ward film night for our investigators. It went pretty well, except for the day of, one of the Bishops going A-wall and trying to call the whole thing off. Luckily the voice of District Leader is stronger <.< We did it anyways cus we got one of the other Bishops to pull through for us. It went well and the sisters got several new investigators because of it.

Transfers were this week but like I thought I’m not going anywhere. Which I'm happy about because this sector is awesome.

Elder Olsen, Tuahu et moi

Spiritual thoughts...I'm all out. I finished the book of Mormon in French this week it was nice; now I've gotta get going on Tahitian, I stopped somewhere in Mosiah.

My spiritual thought is from one of our lessons with Terai this week. We had finished the Plan of Salvation and at the end she seemed a little quiet; we asked if she had any questions. She said, "you guys have grown up knowing this. Imagine what it must be like for me now. It’s incredible, its LOGICAL, it’s something that makes perfect sense." It was a pretty awesome moment of my mission. In fact there were lots of moments this week when the spirit taught our investigators things we didn't even say. I always love moments like that.

Anyways, spiritual thought, let the spirit teach; just do your best and the spirit does the rest.

Love you all!

Elder Molinari

Conference Week

6 October 2014 Tautira

This week went well. Tuahu had his baptismal interview and he passed with flying colors. It’s been really great to see the change in him as we've done the lessons. He's slightly handicapped, but functional enough that he could live on his own. Before he was super quiet, didn't ever look you in the eyes and was very unsure of himself. Now he directs the lessons, responds to question looking you in the face and appears much much happier. His baptism is this Saturday and we are all very excited and pleased. His grandmother asked him the day of the interview if he really wanted to get baptised in that patronizing Tahitian Grandmother way. He responded with "I'm ready" which touched her, and when she told us the story during his interview it was pretty awesome to receive the confirmation that our investigator is 100% ready for baptism. We were very happy. Augustine and Marcelin have started or have already quit smoking. It’s a pretty awesome miracle. 

In other news Augustine came to conference. She only came for the last part of the Sunday session - but if she could have come for any of them that was the one. Elder Bednar nailed it at the end. We had the joke in the English room that he was running anchor. I guess you could say that he won the race. I hope some of our other amis got to watch the conference as well-we'll find out this week.

I think the theme of conference for me was focus. All of the talks seemed to address the basics and the fundamental things we need to be doing in order to stay free from the influence of the world. There were also a lot of teachings for parents. I thought it was funny when president Eyring's mother told him to start praying for a good wife - while he was in high school. Guess I have a lot of ground to make up.

I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures. We've recently lost our way to send pictures, so we are going to try to find a member that has a computer that works. The chapel computer doesn't read USBs for some reason...its odd.

It’s really nice every once and a while to get reminded that the church is a global organization, not an American church, not one of the 5 churches on a tiny island in the pacific, not just a casual gathering place. It really is the growing, and powerful kingdom of God on the Earth.

I love you all. Have a great week!

Elder Molinari

Pushing On!

29 September 2014 Tautira

Well, we are still pushing on. This week we had Zone conference. President and Souer Bize came and it was nice. We had our interviews and then we went home pretty late, the conference lasted all day...and it was sooo hot in the chapel! We were all beat by the end of the day and we didn't even do anything!

The highlight from the meeting for me was the interview. President said I'm a "bosseur". I wasn't exactly sure what that meant in French so I thought he was calling me a boss. Went home and looked it up. It actually means hard worker...oh well, for a moment I thought I was living up to my baseball cap.

It actually was dry a little this week. Dry enough that the waterfalls are all dried up again.

The baptism of Tuahu is coming up, he will have his interview this week, and we are pretty excited! He's got a pretty good handle on all the principles now, the difference is incredible between when we first came to teach him and how he is now. He speaks up a lot more and has an enormous increase in confidence. Augustine's husband is no longer against her joining the Church/going to church! Now we just have to get a marriage sorted out...<.<

Well, President said if the work continues to push forward like this we'll get...not a car, another equipe of missionaries! That would be pretty cool. Alors, our new goal - split the sector. However, Elder Olsen and I are so tired of biking all over the place. When I say tired I mean physically exhausted. The 8 hours of sleep never seems very long. We can literally fall asleep on command or -without command- anywhere.

Just another story to help us not judge others: This week one of our investigators, Marcelin, was a little late to his lesson. So we decided to chat with his concubine, Trine. We'd only said hello, up to that point and all the missionaries before us didn't really talk with her. They told us that she is "terrifying, the reason Mercelin can't be baptised" yadda yadda yadda.

Apparently she takes lessons from time to time with the Temoigne Jehovas. So, this time we could actually talk to her. She is from Ahe in the tuamotus. She knows tons of members and missionaries and took the lessons for a long time when she lived there. we weren't expecting that at all!

Apparently, she was going to be adopted by 2 rich Norwegians that lived there as well, but her grandfather didn't want her to be. Well...she’s got a second chance with two more Norwegians (two Norwegian dads (ed note: he and his companion)), only this time she will be adopted by Christ - hopefully. I hope she participates in the next lesson with us. She was pretty awesome. So don't judge people, ever.

Well, the USB doesn't work today, so no pictures. Sorry.

Love you all!

Elder ^^°|;n@r;