Papeete Tahiti Mission: Il fait trop beau... (Tubuai

Ia ora na!

It’s been an interesting week. Frankly, not too much has happened in terms of lessons this past week. However, there have been some changes and there has been improvement between the full time missionaries and the members here on Tubuai.

First change, new companion! Elder Firuu was transferred to serve back on Tahiti, and I received a new companion Elder Teihotu. He arrived Friday, and since then I’ve been showing him the island and introducing him to the members and investigators. he’s from my first area, Pirae! He’s cool, he’s been on the mission for about a year now. He teaches really well, and he knows how to work hard as well. I’m pretty stoked to work with him and explode the work here together.

As I said, we haven’t had many lessons this week, as sadly we have lost a good amount of them. Like M- and M-, they left for Tahiti for an indefinite period of time. Still searching for new investigators, new people on this tiny little island who want to receive the gospel. We've found some pretty good investigators, thanks to the members! We found V-, a woman who had already taken a few lessons from the missionaries before in her life. She lives with a man who has been excommunicated. In our first visit, she confirmed that through prayer she had already received an answer and a testimony that this church is true, and she wants so badly for her and her son to be baptized. All we gotta do is help them and encourage them to pick a date to get married, and all will be well. She understands the lessons and the scriptures very well, and thanks to her member friend who introduced us, she always has someone by her side to explain things when we aren’t there. She’s a great investigator, and I’m excited for her and her faith in Christ.

Aside from that, we've really been trying this week to improve our relationships with the members and leaders of the church. This week, we successfully had our dinners in the members’ homes every day, rather than them dropping the food off at our home. It was great, we even had some investigators present during the meals! The dinners with the members are just great times to help them out with the missionary work and leave them spiritually uplifted. We've been doing our best to do some service as well, such as working a little in the taro fields of some members.

In addition to that, we've had a district training meeting with all the leaders of the district and branches, which includes elders quorum, relief society, young men etc; all for the purpose of working together in the missionary work. It was just a great chance to lay down some expectations between the members and the missionaries, and form a plan of action of what were gonna do this year and how were gonna do it. Everybody’s in it and a little more motivated than before, which is excellent. Were only hoping for improvement these next few weeks.

Our investigator, C-, is doing great as well. He hasn’t smoked pot for two weeks now! Haha were so excited for him, and he’s been feeling great too. The only problem that rests now is his Grandmother who well reject and disown him if he’s baptized... we’re really trying our best to get him ready for the 8 February!

That’s about it for this week, life is good and beautiful. A little too beautiful... the weather has been sooo hot this week, id say even up to the 100s. Nasty. Anyway, love you all, and a faaitoito!

Elder Ball

Captions: photo #1 above of sunset: à la pêche