another week of CRAZYNESS!

We were so booked this week, I'm still trying to recover from the busyness. Its been great though, Heavenly Father is helping us a TON here. Even though we are having a difficult time getting members to lessons.

SO many MIRACLES.

When I say miracle, its just the fact that the majority of our investigators read the Book of Mormon - how epic is that? We have had some awesome discussions as well. My favorite lesson would have to be the plan of salvation at the moment. You teach it, put everything in perspective, its all explained so eloquently by Lehi in 2 Nephi 2 (ed. note: scripture reference from the Book of Mormon), and people just understand. Absolutely love it. That moment when you see that someone understands why Jesus Christ is so important. Everyone knows or thinks he was important, but not very many people know why, thank you Book of Mormon. Anyways, we had a neat experience this week. I usually don't grab the Family Proclamation to the World* brochure, but one day something told me to grab one.

We had a cancelled lesson and we went contacting old contacts that we needed to visit and start lessons with and one of them was with someone named Teraimateata (the sky with clouds). Something told me to give her the family brochure which was odd because I don't normally give it out, but I gave her one and we fixed a lesson for the next day. When we went to the lesson we started, and she had read the brochure, but not only had she read the brochure she said it was exactly what she felt she had been missing in her life recently. She said it wasn't even difficult for her to read it, it "called to her". Super awesome experience, we have our second contact this week with her.

Elder Olsen is a boss. He's having a great time, and he loves all the biking.

Sadly we won't have a lesson with my favorite Italian investigator Taina this week - she's in Papeete for the vacation.

ummm....I can't think of much else. Those are the highlights, I guess.

Wait NO.

We had Stake conference and a 70** from Tonga came, He's called Elder Adolf Johanson. He WAS AWESOME. Every time he spoke the spirit was so strong. Maybe its because he's an islander 70. But he had some crazy good experiences and he said for every case whenever we do anything in the church he said "its easier if we love". If we do things out of love its infinitely easier, and will work infinitely better.

His conversion story was funny. Hr was a kid and his mother and their family except their father went to the church to see the Joseph Smith film. They'd never had any contact prior to this. They watched the film, then the missionaries got up and asked "what did you feel". His mother raised her hand and responded "the spirit". Then the missionaries asked "what do we do when we feel the spirit" and His mother raised her hand and said "we get baptised". It turned out that someone was inspired and the font was already full and his mother called her husband and told him the family was getting baptised right then. He wasn't happy - 3 months later he was baptised. Pretty cool story. Apparently Tonga is near 50% members of the church right now. That's amazing :O

Well that's my letter!

Love you all

Elder Molinari

Editor's Notes: 

* "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" is a document church leaders published in 1995. It can be found here: https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation

**A "70" is a priesthood office of a church leader.

Not Much TIme This Week!

La cascade

The waterfall and I. We were soaking wet from
the spray and wind that was coming off of it.

This was an epic waterfall we went to visit today 

15 September 2014 Tautira

Highlites:

Found lots of new investigators, the Lord was just handing them to us! The girlfriend of one of our investigators- who wasn’t interested in the lessons- secretly read the Joseph Smith testimony and loved it. But we aren’t allowed to tell her Boyfriend :( However, she said she’s coming to the next lesson!

It rained ALL week again. Which puts a total of 3 weeks it’s rained almost nonstop here. We were pretty wet from waist down every night!

Elder Olsen and I have a hard time getting to bed on time because we talk too much!

The ward didn’t mutiny this Sunday, but that’s because I transposed all the hymns down 2 keys. Third hour I’m in the primary because I play the piano for them and help them practice for the upcoming primary program, Its awesome!

Milo and Sunshine (ed. note: No idea. Sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon!) is delicious with bread and Nutella!

Have a wonderful week!

Ua here au ia outou

Orometua Molinari

To'u hoa api`

08 September 2014, Tautira

My new companion came today. He's pretty awesome. He's from Orem, and was at BYU the same time I was.

It rained all week, and it kinda smells some places now. In fact, it’s rained since I got here. It rains a lot here. I will not eat green eggs and ham, Sam I am.

Lots of biking, we found 5 new investigators. One of them has a father who is from Italy. So I said “Mi ciamo Elder Molinari” and she was shocked. Then she started talking to me in Italian and I didn’t have anything else to say, other than what’s on the back of a shampoo bottle, and what was said to me every night before I went to sleep when I was little.

It gave her a laugh though.

She is awesome and I think she has a lot of potential. Another one of our amis actually came to church on Sunday- I was thrilled. I wasn’t so thrilled by the mutiny of the ward when I played piano; someone decides that the key is too high, so they change it and sing lower. Then the people around them follow, and before you know it everyone is singing a different key, I have to keep plugging along on the piano and the tempo slows down by at least half. I think my ear drums were bleeding by the end, but everyone after said it’s so nice to have a piano. All I can say is we need some practice.

I really don’t have much to say other than something I know everyone knows, but the words jumped out at me, maybe it’s because it’s in French. It was actually just a simpler way to explain something we are all taught.

We teach that we are baptized for the "remission" of sins - but I don't think I've ever met an investigator who can give me a definition of the word remission, so in other words we are baptized to receive the “pardon" in French, or forgiveness of our sins. This event happens at baptism, we receive this remission.

After baptism we can "conserver" is the verb in French or ( keep? in English) the remission or forgiveness of our sins by taking the sacrament and living the gospel; Thereby staying in a "just baptized" state as long as we are trying our best. The remission of sins then becomes not a single event (sometimes after a baptism we like to say "your the cleanest person on the Earth") but a cleanness and purity that lasts with us and is renewed each time we take the sacrament. Just a little tidbit from my studies this week.

Have a great week love you all!

Elder Molinari

First Week in Tautira

2 September 2014 Tautira

Well...I feel like all my letters and journal entries start with "well". At the start of the day we have around 6-8 lessons fixed, then they all get rescheduled...Plan B TRACTING!!! We actually found quite a few new investigators...but usually they are just adventist or JW's that aren't really interested in what we have to say, oh well, you just humbly direct them to the verses in the new testament that show the saints took sacrament in the first day of the week, and for jehovahs witnesses its pretty simple to draw the connection between Jehovah and Jesus (for example Zachariah 11:12-13 cross referenced with Matt. 26:15,27:3-10). Oh well, at least they hear a testimony and sometimes they take a brochure, or a Book of Mormon.

For whats new; Elder Petis is getting transferred Monday, and I think my new companion is an American that recently got here, 6 weeks maybe? His companion is finishing his mission and I'll finish his training here. Let's just hope I remember where and who everything is. He is actually taking my place in Bora for the last 6 weeks of his mission.

President opened 5 new islands up this transfer. Taenga, Raivave, and I dont remember the others. He sent missionaries that are going to finish after these transfers into those islands, I'm pretty sure from the patterns he's establishing, he sends missionaries to finish out in the islands, so hopefully I'll go back someday :)

My new companion's name is Elder Olsen, from I'm not sure where.

ùi didnt really take any photos this week cus all it did was rain.

Oh! and I didnt write yesterday because I was busy vomiting, gah I hate being sick!

Ok well have a great week!

Oh thoughts!

I gave a formation this week on planning lessons and it was based on a section in CH2 of Preach my gospel. When teaching a lesson there are three things that need to be focused on:
What the investigator/student must:
1.Know (Doctrine, baptismal interview questions)
2.Feel (Scriptures, testimony, experiences)
3.Do (engagements, repentance)

Voila! Those are my thoughts!

Bonne semaine à tous

Elder Molinari

Another Week

19 August 2014 Bora Bora

Gee, this week felt like it went on forever...well not during the week, but now that its Monday it feels like its been 3 months since last Monday...en bref. 

Here are last week's photos from the motu.

Sketchy barge to motu Tapu

Me on the sketchy barge

Motu Tapu and then my battery died!

Since elder Peterson had to do an interview Thursday Elder Gilson came with me to Anau. We did Port à port, but then got caught by a Mami who talked to us for 2 and a half hours - trust me I tried to escape. It used up the entire day :|

Alors, we started lessons with this guy named Teremoana. He's super awesome and I'm hyped to continue the lessons, what’s even better is that his friend is an inactive member named Pai. So I'm pretty optimistic for the direction of the lessons. We will end up saving a soul either way. Somehow we are approaching the 12 week mark here in Bora - just 3 more weeks till we hit it. I guess in 3 weeks we will see who's going to stay.

This week we made pain chocolate

It was delicious!

We had a training meeting that was given by Elder Pearson the president of the ocean pacific area. He talked about revelation and prayer and the first principles and ordinances of the gospel. He said if we feel like God isn't answering our prayers, we aren't asking enough questions. We need to ask more inspired questions to have more revelation. Then he talked about the spirit, and said we need to designate the spirit as our teacher. Everywhere we are we need to be constantly learning from what’s around us, and our teacher is the spirit. In any church meeting, any class, the teacher isn't the teacher, the spirit is.

He then said we can all be taught at the level we need to be in any given class no matter who the teacher is if we designate the spirit to be our teacher.

Well I just kind of rambled on there but that was the gist of it. Anyways it was a nice meeting. President Bize told a story about a lady that he visited whose daughter was getting baptized that said she went to a church meeting and felt nothing. His response was, well that’s natural, you’re not ready to feel the spirit yet. He then engaged her to stop smoking for a week in order to just feel the spirit at her daughter's baptism. Kinda put how much we need our investigators to be prepared for baptism in perspective.

We hiked up to a WWII site. These cannon were enormous!

It was really high up.

well...That’s all I got this week. Love you all!

Elder Molinari

Heiva on Motu Tapu

11 August 2014 Bora Bora

I want to write a lot but I feel really lazy...we'll see what happens.

(Editor’s note: Sorry for the late post. I guess I was “feeling lazy” too or just very busy!)


This week went well, we hit our goal of 20 contacts at the end of the week, and we even hit our goal of 4 new investigators. It was pretty awesome.

We went to a house with a lady named Moea for the 5th time maybe and she was finally there again, what was even better was her husband was there as well. He was drinking but he wasn’t drunk yet and he invited us over. Elder Peterson and I had made a goal to take every opportunity to do lessons, so instead of trying to fix a time to come back we decided to do a lesson right there. It went pretty well, and she even told us that her neighbor wanted to see us. So after the lesson we went across the tiny dirt path to the other house and called hello. 

We were greeted by Ramond, she’s probably in her 50's and she said she wasn’t against having us over. So we asked if we could share a message again and she said yes so we went in. In fact she told us the Moea had been there, one of the times we had passed - she was just hiding in the house. Ramond told her that you shouldn’t do that to missionaries because like the Bible says they light be angels in disguise (little do they know we actually are angels - read the bible dictionary:]).

This lady was really awesome, she’s already had the missionaries once before, but is a little held up by that fact that she is adventist. However, she shared some pretty interesting things with us. She says she doesn’t talk at Church anymore because when she asks question- or thinks outside of the box- she starts an argument. Alors, she told us she now sits silently at church and doesn’t talk. She even said she was confused why if God only speaks truth, and if the Bible contains the truth, why are there so many churches? Her pastor (not sure what they have at the adventist church) said it’s the same God, just worshipped different ways. She didn’t buy it because she said you can’t interpret truth, there is only truth.

She’s super ready; even if she told us she will stay adventist. All we need to do is get her to pray and receive a confirmation of the truth....we'll see how that goes this week. What was even cooler about the lesson is that she was speaking this fluent blend of Tahitian and French and Elder Peterson and I understood it all. It was incredible. So just like that we had 3 new amis and we got our goal of 4 new amis this week.

Also this weekend we went to the Motu Tapu with the 2 wards. We did a mini Heiva, and it was fun. President Bize and the entire Presidency du stake were there as well. We competed in various challenges: sac jumping race, running with fruit (coconuts tied on both ends of a log), a coconut fern roof making race, and coconut husking race, and to finish it off a tug of war and a pirogue race (ocean canoe race) just search Vaa and you'll see what they are. I liked the fruit race, lots of people said I was a rocket. Thank you Pole Vault!

It was a good time. Unluckily, my camera died because I forgot to charge it the night before.

President and Sister Bize et moi

We got to spend a lot of time with President Bize, our mission president, this weekend. It was really awesome. He's a super awesome person; his wife is awesome as well. He's making LOTS of changes that are really good. First of all for all P-day activities he said as long as we tell whatever leader is over us where we will be and what we will be doing we can go. Hikes, sporting activities, even boats in the lagoon are fine as long as it’s not dangerous. He said we need to use our own judgment.

He also made many changes in the leadership of the mission. There is a hierarchy now, because he said there were too many fresh missionaries as Leaders when they still need to be trained. Also, only the most obedient missionaries, as well as missionaries that have been out for a while will be leaders/trainers/island missionaries. This means as well that A DZ must pass by DL, and he said only "older" DZ/DL's will be trainers. (Ed. note: DZ = zone leader and DL = district leader. A zone is made up of multiple districts. A district is a collection of missionary companionships. These are typically designated geographically.)

These changes are going to eliminate lots of problems I think, especially inadequate trainers.

I REALLY like his style.

Plus, he did a meeting just for us to discuss the problems in the ward. We could tell all the problems without being criticized for "complaining" for once. Then they wanted to personally see the house to make sure it was safe and up to date.

Overall from the visit I got the impression that they really worry about us, and that our feelings are their most important priority. It was great.

ummm...Have a great week. I'll try to send pictures later!

Love you all a ton!

Elder Molinari

Pain Raisan

4 August 2014 Bora Bora

This week we had a funny experience en faisant (by doing) port à port (door to door).

We approached two houses at the very end of a quartier ( neighborhood...but a single street), and because I couldn’t really decide which one to go to, Elder Peterson just ended up yelling “Iaorana” to see who would come out first.

The house on the very end ended up being the winner. Two little girls came out one was the neighbor, the daughter of the family. They probably had 8 - 9 years. We said hello and asked if their parents were there. One of them, Ravahere, ran to the house to get her mother.

We waited a little bit and she came back and said her mother was busy. We asked her to find out what her mother was busy with, so she ran back and asked. Then came back and said “with the baby.”

We asked what her name was then, and she told us “Ravahere,” then we asked what her mother's name was. So she ran back to the house and asked, came back and said her name. Then we asked, what her last name was, and she couldn’t remember - so she went to go ask again.

At this point I was chuckling pretty well because she kept running back and forth asking her mother questions. It was pretty cute.

Then she came back. We asked if her mother had talked with the missionaries before. She left, came back, "yes". Where? Another trip. “Raiatea.”

Then we gave her a Book of Mormon to give to her mother - after all the questions. Her mother accepted it and we are going to try to pass by again this week. We gave the two girls each an Article of Faith card, because they have a picture of Jesus on them with children.

It was a touching experience for me to share the gospel par l'intermediare d'une petite fille (through a little girl)

This morning we went and baked Pain Raisan with a couple of investigators that are really old. They had a pâtisserie here in Bora when they were younger. Their names are Jean Jacque and Marie Claude. Jean Jacque is French. He got married on Bora when he was stationed here in the military and never returned to France. 

Jean Jacque, Elder Lee Chip Sao, Marie Claude and Elder Peterson

We went SUPER early this morning and made raisin bread with them. It's been a looooooong time since they baked something. It took us a while, but it was worth it. It was delicious!

Jean Jacque provided instructions. We followed.

One pan done

Lookin' good!

Voila`!