Ia ora na i to'u utuafare e to'u mau hoa here!
Life is still good here in Pirae. Lessons have been a little
short this week because of a lot of cancellations, but that just gives us more
time to move around and talk to people.
Lessons with Tehaunui are still great. We engaged him to
baptism (I extended the engagement--wattup) and he accepted. We don't have a
date for him yet because we want him to come to Church first as to make
sure we can realize the date. But he said he's got no work for this coming
Sunday and that he's down, so we're pumped about that. He's also coming to a
convert baptism in another ward that's on Saturday to see what it's like. We
have big hopes for him in the near future. Also for the record, these lessons
are in French, this guy's young, like 23 years old.
Julie and William came back from their honeymoon a few days
ago, and we'll start teaching them again tomorrow. I can't remember if I said
in the last email, but we had to change the date of their baptism to a month
later, September 28, because they haven't even been to Church more than one
time in their life. We're really hoping that they didn't do all this just to
get the wedding blessing from the Church, but we'll continue to work with them
and hope to spark that fire inside of em.
All other lessons are going great. We acquired a new
investigator named Tonio, he's at the hospital here in Pirae but he's from
Punauia down South. His brother insisted that he takes the lessons, so he is
with us for now. We taught him once, but the four other times we tried to go
and teach him he cancelled on us last minute. Kind of a waste of time when it
works like that. It's a lesson in Tahitian so it's good for us, and we want to
teach him for obvious reasons, but it's no good for anyone if he keeps
cancelling. Kind of a bummer.
The languages are still doing alright. I've been improving
at speaking French little by little, and the understanding depends. Sometimes I
can totally understand everything that's being said, like if it's a younger
person, but if it's an old dude with no teeth I have no chance! Tahitian is
coming along too, I've been making more of an effort to keep up on it. The
understanding Tahitian depends just the same; if they have teeth I can pick up
most of it! It's getting better and better. I know I say that every week, and
for me it's even hard to see, but that's what everyone says so it's cool i
guess!
Well life is good and I'm loving the work. Food is still
awesomely bizarre sometimes, like fried bananas or straight up fish heads or
whatever. Sometimes I don't even know what I eat, but I eat it anyway because
I'm so hungry! I ate octopus without even knowing it... I'm serious when I say
that I can't remember what it was, just that my companion told me I ate it!
That's about it! I've been thinking a lot of the Atonement
of Jesus Christ, and how we can apply it to our lives only if we choose to.
Just remember that the greatest gift our Savior gave to us was his sacrifice
for sin and death, and that we should never doubt the healing, cleansing powers
that it brings to us.
Ua here roa au ia outou, e ua hinaaro vau e e mea oaoa roa
to outou oraraa! Mauruuru no to outou here.
A faaitoito,
Elder Ball
Please write Casey; he'd LOVE to hear from you (put 3 stamps on your envelope):
Tahiti Papeete Mission
Elder Ball, Casey
B.P. 93
Papeete, Tahiti 98713
French Polynesia
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