My Companion Had a Birthday and Got....

24 November 2014 Tautira

Chikungunya. So I'll probably get it soon. Looks fun...not really.

We have a baptism this weekend for Tinitua, Augustine's son. It's gonna be awesome. It's too bad we couldn't get things figured out for Augustine at the same time. But, she supports Tinitua 100% and will help him stay active. That's the key for me when you teach and baptise kids, they need a parental support most of the time. We've kind of hit that point where we need to go out and do some serious searching, so thats probably what we are going to do this week; renew our investigator pool.

We had a zone activity last week.
We made pizza and played sports. It was fun. But it took my letter writing time.

So Elder olsen got a high fever. Then he got lots of joint pain, and not only that a rash everywhere. That itches badly. I really hope I don't get it.

These drawings aren't very good, they were mostly for comic relief. 
They were done in about a minute or less :) We got a good laugh from them! 

I've been studying all the chapters in the Book of Mormon where the prophets are quoting each other/ teaching about justice and mercy. 2 Nephi 2, 9 Mosiah 3/4, Alma 42...the list goes on. I found one of my favorite verses in alma 42 the other day. Its Alma 42:24. The reason I love it so much is it builds off of Lehi’s statement of opposition in all things. We have justice in opposition to mercy as a motif in all the speeches and then this verse comes along. In French there are such things as masculinity of objects its not just a "the" like in English but "le" for masculine and "la" for feminine. In French its just part of the language but its something that English speakers aren't used to. 

However, object masculinity did exist in English, and this verse here is one of the few that preserves it. So it says justice exerciseth all "his" demands and mercy claimeth all "her" own. Its super cool that you see that example of masculinity in the language, but not only that you have the gender opposites in the same verse. Thus adding to the "opposition" of the verse. Justice, mercy, He, she. and it finishes with probably my favorite word to describe those who will have eternal life; penitent. Its just an absolutely incredible verse, as well as an absolutely incredible chapter. I'm not sure how many times I've read it now but its incredible to cross reference it with 2 Nephi 2.

Well those are my thoughts for the week. Love you all!

Troche!

10 November 2014 Tautira

This week was rather odd because everyone is gone collecting; fishing for "troche." It’s this large shell mollusk thing. Once a year, the government authorizes fishing for them and then Chinese people come and buy the shells by the Tons! So everyone is doing it, and they do it all day! However that didn’t totally block our week.

          

Here are a few troche before and after. Before they look pretty much like shells. 

After they are dipped in sulphuric acid they sparkle! They are also called tops shells.

                                                      


We worked with a member named Soeur Rose who is actually from Tiapa my old Sector. She happened to stop us on the street and it happened to be me the missionary here and then she decided that we would go and visit her family. That was last week and the visit we did was on Thursday. It was awesome, and was the first time her family had accepted missionaries.

Her sister accepted the lessons and then we ate maa tahiti and I chatted on Tahitian with her father. He has some pretty interesting opinions about things, kinda Christian-tahitian-legends-fishing mix of religion. He was quite a riot. Other than that Tutea's girlfriend came to a lesson with us and she absolutely loved it. She was touched by our way of praying; that it was so personal and directly for them. She'll be coming to more lessons from now on.

Elder Pearson of the 70 came to visit us and we had a really awesome conference with him. He talked about recognizing the spirit. All of his insights were really awesome. He stressed again the fact that if we want revelation we need to ask more questions. I invite all of you to read his talk from the ensign called “how to improve my personal prayer/improving personal prayer” or something like that. I think he quoted a lot of that

Ok, Love you all.

Have a good week!

Elder Molinari

Big Fast

This week was pretty good. Saturday to Sunday we participated in a fast with the entire pacific region. It was pretty cool to know that we were fasting with thousands of other people. We fasted for the missionary work in this region. We found some really cool investigators this week, one of them is the sister of a member that finally decided to try the lessons. We used the short film Because of Him in the contact and it went super well...even though she didn't come to church Sunday!! The 1st of November was All saints day. Its a holiday where people respect all there dead. They go and decorate the tombs of their ancestors with flowers and white sand.

We dressed up for Halloween! I guess it's technically against the rules, but I really could have used a bowler hat.









Our bike helmets will have to do!

So on this side of the island there is a ton of Lobster. Mami Viviane decided to bring us some Sunday night. It was excellent, however it's always so disturbing eating lobster. Freaks you out.

Not much else happened this week...Oh! We fixed 2 baptisms, it should be three, but we still have to fix a marriage date with Augustine. We fixed her sons baptism for the 29th this month, and then another Ami de Léglise that came out of nowhere named Tutea Tehina for the 13th December. Tutea actually took the lessons 7-6 years ago and wanted to be baptised, but couldn't because his father wouldn't let him. Well has father recently passed away, and he still knew that the church was true so the first thing he does is get us to come over and teach him again. We saw that he was committed and had already gained a testimony so we fixed his date our second contact. It was pretty awesome, he's pretty awesome as well.

Editor's Note: I included this picture because it shows a little bit of the interior of the house he is currently living in. It appears to be the most luxurious of any he has lived in. They are more typically concrete block buildings with a metal roof. This one is a proper house. He may be a little spoiled after being here for a while. 

The package was from good friends, The Browns. Marilyn had her adorable grandchildren make drawings to be included. 

The picture came with the following note: "Thank you for the package, and AMAZING art that was inside. The package came on Halloween and the candy was much appreciated. However I think I appreciated the fruit bars the most! :) Love you all!"

Remember the power of fasting! In Matthew 9:14-15 a question is asked to Christ. About why his disciples don't fast. The response teaches us that we need to be fasting, regularly because Christ is not with us physically. By fasting we invite his presence.

I love you all, Have a great week!
Elder Molinari