Last days of March

30 March 2015 Tiare

This is my zone

This week went really well. The sector has finally reached a workable state. We taught twenty lessons this week, we were pretty busy. A good number of our new investigators (6 of our amis) came to church, which was ward conference. We had a great conference and bishop gave a great talk about missionary work. I had to play 5 piano songs, and I hadn’t really practiced at all that week. I was SOOOO nervous because the stake leadership was there and I was playing for the choir. Well, I prayed before every song, and I played SO well. I can definitely say that my hands were guided.

Black sand beaches here

Transfers happened but Elder Tematahotoa and I are staying together. I knew we would, we've got lots of work to do still! The photos I sent were from a zone meeting and an activity we did at a beach called le point venus at Mahina. We went and played beach soccer, barefoot, so my feet got nice and sanded. But I'm used to it so it didn’t really bother me. I'm pretty good at playing defense in soccer :)

Love you all!

Elder Molinari

My companion is the Tahitian behind me with the blue tie

Another Week

23 March 2015 Tiare

We went to the beach to eat lunch. The waves were gnarly.
If you want to surf you go to the tube in between
the falling wave and the wall of water.

Well this week just flew by. Not exactly sure where it went...The beginning of the week was just an average start. We had a leadership meeting with President Thursday. I really enjoyed the meeting. President shared a talk from President Monson from October 2012 general conference. It talked about an Elder that pictured every contact he had dressed in white and entering the baptismal covenant. IT was about not judging people, and that people change every day. I really liked the talk and his thoughts. He then shared a scripture in 2 Cor. 13:13, which is basically a summary of the Godhead. Sr. Bize talked about being healthy and doing exercise in the morning. She had furnished everyone with a little booklet of the program she is following. Then said its been really good and she's felt better every morning. To which President responded, "Cherrie, its only been 3 days that you follow this program." It was pretty funny. Those two are a riot sometimes. 

We went to eat lunch by the ocean like normal.

Saturday we organized an activity for the priesthood, it was an activity soccer. We left but it was raining. We played anyways, but the problem was the game turned into ice skating, not really soccer. IT was pretty funny watching everyone fall over and crash into each other. I was on the team with the Elders and High priests. We were against the young men. And guess what? We won! IT was pretty funny. I wish I had some pictures but it was raining too hard, and we were REALLY dirty :)

Just your average neighborhood in our sector.
Its been raining a ton, so you can see on the mountain
where there was a rock slide. Its the long discolored line.

Sunday we had most of our new investigators come to church. IT was really awesome. Bishops Wife, Sr. Teiva, had her French friend come to church as well. Its not the first time she has come, but this time she was really touched and we managed to fix a lesson with her!!!! Finally! We did a tour of the chapelle the 2nd hour with bishop and it was really nice.
We have a zone activity today. We are going to the beach and playing volleyball and soccer!

Love you all, Orometua Molinari

Our House

Our house is right next to the ocean again. I like it. 
We have AC in my room, perks of being a zone leader I guess ;) 

Ocean from the house. I like to run in the morning in this little field.

This was just one of those classic weeks of missionary work. I'm not too sure what to report on. We met some new people, starting teaching some new couples. As a zone leader we do a lot of training. I went on a split with the Elders at Papenoo. The Elder I was with is named Elder Sorensen. He is pretty awesome, we went contacting and found a couple to teach. 

There was a huge rain storm Saturday night, the wind was making coconut trees lean to the side, it was pretty cool. The waves have been great lately, and my companion is just itching to go out surfing, or in Tahitian, "faahee". Love you all, and have a great week!

I listened to a talk I really liked Its by Its about grace and the atonement. It had a lot of real great insights and thoughts. I invite you all to listen to it.

Love you all

Elder Molinari

[Editor's Notes: He didn't leave a reference where to find the talk he mentions. And the high winds are from a storm front that moved through the south pacific. A category 5 cyclone struck the island nation of Vanuatu where Elder Molinari's last companion, Elder Kokona, was from. Damage reports are still coming in, but it appears that many homes were destroyed and much of the infrastructure as well. Officials estimate 90% of buildings sustained damage.]

A Real Letter

9 March 2015 Tiare

Sorry about last week, there were a lot of things going on and i didn't really get to write. Thanks for the letters you send to me, I enjoy reading them. I would love to give a report of the week's labors like Sister Molinari, but I just don't remember what happens to us during the week, its such a blur.

Saturday we made pain de raisin with a member in the morning, and then went out contacting with him for about 2 hours. We had a couple of solid contacts, but nothing really fixed, we'll have to work on the follow up.

Other than that we've just been doing a lot of contacting. This sector was in the same state as Tautira when I got there, c'est à dire lots of stagnating investigators. So we did a little refreshing and have spent quite a bit of time this week contacting. Nothing like the thrill of the hunt.

We found some potentials and shared a powerful moment with a couple. We just went to visit, but they wanted to do a lesson. The couple had recently lost there Father, so we talked for a while, then I felt inspired to read some passages from Alma 40. As soon as we started they burst into tears. There was a nice spirit there.

Anyways apart from that just a lot of contacting and lessons. We lost an investigator who is awesome. She's going back to Ahe in the Tuamotus, but that's ok because we have missionaries there.

Other than that not much to say. We met someone of the faith "Bahai". The second person I've met here from that religion...very interesting religion. We asked him where it comes from. The response was, "there's this verse in the bible where we wrote "cloud"." Yeah I still don't get it. But anyways his name is Roby and he's awesome.

During my studies I set a new goal based around the scriptures. Well I haven't gotten there 100%, I feel like I have more and more Alma 17:3 moments So I added my next goal. Which comes from 3 Nephi 7:17-18. Absolutely love those 2 scriptures, Nephi is such a role model for me. The spirit is so strong and when we teach by the spirit we teach by his authority (1 Nephi10:22).

May the spirit be with you all, and may Heavenly Father respond to your prayers!

Love you all.

Elder Molinari

2 Weeks, I Think?

2 March 2015 Tiare

I’ve been here 2 weeks, I think. Time doesn't make any sense for me anymore, especially when you’re in a car. I had everything organized in my head in Tautira, at least all the travel times, so it’s super weird in a car.

Having the use of a car is an incredible blessing. And having regular meetings with the mission president is so awesome, I absolutely LOVE President Bize. He's super funny. In fact, he thinks very similar to the way I do. It’s pretty funny. My new area is awesome; it’s like being in Raiatea again. It’s a little village like place. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ll have to explain it after. My new companion is awesome. Best Tahitian I've been with; we see things exactly the same way. The ward is the best ward I've ever been in. It runs like it should, and the leaders are highly active in missionary work.

[Editor’s Note: Elder Molinari has been working on trying to register for classes when he returns for the fall semester. So he has spent a little time searching for what he needs to do to end his deferment and enroll in classes for this fall.]

One of my former companions, Elder Peterson, wanted to see if he could room with us for fall winter. I told him to contact you to try to work things out. Because we still have 2 spots right? So don’t be surprised if you get a call from Michael Peterson from California .He’s been home now for two weeks.

This site was incredible helpful.

https://onestop.byu.edu/returned-missionary-checklist

I just read that returning missionaries are automatically considered for all BYU scholarships. That takes a load off.

It’s very difficult to get discouraged here everyone is just too friendly. I wanted to say this before but atheism hasn't really made it here, and probably won’t. Everyone believes in God. The same spirit of confusion and religious excitement in the time of Joseph Smith is still here. We can tract and have Bible and doctrinal discussions and sometimes clashes :) with enormous amounts of people. It’s an incredible experience serving here.

My companion is playing ping pong with the young men while I am writing. It’s all good!

I'm going to miss this atmosphere a TON. I am not looking forward to coming back to cold Americans.

Umm...sorry I’m going to have to go. I ran out of time!

Love you all, the Gospel is true!

Elder Molinari