Whackness (Tubuai - week #7)

Bonjour tout le monde!

I'll start out by saying that it was a pretty rough week for us. Lots of lessons cancelled, and I was out for a day with the stomach flu, so that caused some problems. All in all, the work was slow this week. But, despite the slowness, some great and memorable, and also bizarre, moments.

Keali!

First of all, baptism numba two with Keali! Man I love this kid and his family. Such nice people, and they still support the Church even if some members aren't active. They decided that I would be the one to baptize, and it was such a privilege. And this time I didn’t mess up. One and done baby! Maybe it was easier cuz it was in the ocean, another cool experience. But the Spirit was strong and it was such a unique experience to be the one to bring this person into making a covenant with God. The service was great, and the father, M, was really touched. We will continue to help this family for sure.

In the ocean. Awesome

Lessons are getting intense as the commitments start being extended... The F family is starting to get nervous from the outside pressure from family members to not join the Church. Also, because we’ve been experiencing a drought and a shortage of water, F has been extra busy at their watermelon field and hasn’t been able to be at the lessons or progress as much as we'd like. It’s difficult, and the same thing has been happening with other investigators as we've extended commitments. It's all thanks to one thing: fear, Satan's secret weapon. As a result, with all our investigators we haven’t been able to fix one baptism this week. Just gotta keep at it I guess, and rely on the Lord for help and inspiration!

Yeah, its been a weird week. More so after some excitement yesterday. We came home from Church in the morning to do some studies, and we see our neighbor Mike totally asleep, unconscious under a coconut tree. He's known for drinking and smoking a TON so we thought nothing of it and moved on. Just a few moments later, we look out our window and see his cousin waking him up. Mike wakes up, and all of a sudden he just freaks out, seriously freaks out. He’s all yelling and shouting stuff in slurred Tahitian and just takes a barrel and throws it through his glass sliding door. Then he starts chucking pieces of the broken glass at his cousin. His cousin gets all cut up and angry, so then he starts getting in this fist fight with Mike. They duke it out for a few minutes, and all the while Elder Firuu and I are calling the cops and watching the whole scene unfold. They stop and the cousin retreats, and Mike continues to freak out and throw chairs and a boom box and all sorts of trash out of his house. Then, he passes out. The police and an ambulance came and took him away. I think that’s the last time we'll be hearing from Mike for a while.

Just one of those beautiful days when you gotta take a beach photo

On a more positive, spiritual note, I would like to share a little scripture about the Word of Wisdom and the dangers of alcohol and drugs. Paul in 1 Corinthians talks about how the body is the "temple of God" and how we must respect this body that God has given us. That is why through revelation through Joseph Smith, God has given us a law, a Word of Wisdom, to not drink alcohol or partake of drugs, and therefore to protect our body. 1 Corinthians 3:17 states "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." As we can see, as a result of alcohol, Mike was destroyed, as well as his house. Plain and simple, life is a lot cooler and drama free without all that stuff. And, God won't destroy you, so that's good too.

Love you all, and peace out!

Elder Ball

http://mormon.org
http://elderballintahiti.blogspot.com

Another daily farm animal encounter