Papeete Tahiti Mission: Missions are tough, but Worth it!! (Week #2 in Papeete)

Ia ora na, to'u mau hoa!

So, Ill be quick but sincere at the same time. Life is tough these days, and the work here in Pirae 2 is actually a little slow. Our only progressing investigator, Vetiare, cancelled on us twice this week, and all our other lessons with inactive members and the few other investigators we have were few or cancelled. So we spent a lot of time talking to everyone! Door to door, street contacting, encouraging members to find people. Usually members don't have such a hard time doing that, but for some reason they are. Its no biggie, we'll change things soon. Of course, its just kind of frustrating at first because teaching is the best part of missionary work. It's also all that I can do in terms of the languages!

Speaking of which, they're coming along... I think! I'm starting to actually tell the difference between French and Tahitian! In fact I think Tahitian would be easier to understand than French, if it weren't for the fact that all the people who speak Tahitian are old and have no teeth. Kind of makes it hard to tell what they're saying. But we've been speaking about half and half, I would say! There's plenty of both, and it gives me a chance to practice both pretty frequently.

I ate fafaru for the first time on Thursday! Basically what it is is raw fish, fermented in super old, gnarly sea water. And it straight up smells like an outhouse. But not gonna lie, it didn't taste so bad! It's just a Tahitian traditional food, and its kind of the thing you gotta do if you're new, kind of like an orientation. And I ate a bunch of it, like 6 big pièces. So everyone gotta kick out of it. Id eat it again for sure!

So a scripture that's been on my mind this whole week has been D&C 10:5, which goes along the lines of "Pray always, so that you man come off conquerer." This week I've been weighed down by a lot of feelings of uselessness and confusion, mostly concerning the language and partly concerning the slowness of the work right now. This prayer really helped me to haatane, man up and keep pushing on. The thing is, prayer is our wild card to play against the adversary when we feel discouraged or are tempted. The opportunity to talk to our Heavenly Father and ask Him for His aid is such a blessing, and He most definitely reaches out to us and lifts us up when we feel down. His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, suffered these same feelings and more for us. So with prayer, I've been given the mindset to keep moving on, the comfort of the Holy Ghost, and that through the atonement of Christ I can overcome any challenge in thiw world. And so can everyone else! Prayer and the blessing of the atonement is given to everyone.

Well that's about all I got, and some cool pictures to go with it!

I miss you all, and I got some letters this week! Thank you all, ua here au ia outou!

Elder Ball
http://mormon.org