Ia ora na!
Good week this week! Maybe the best we had since the new
ward creation. We were able to have 15 discussions this week, and next week is
looking like 20. But apart from the new goals that we've attained, God truly
helped us this week.
There was one day in the week when we were biking along to a
lesson, and we were going pretty fast in order to be on time. As we were going,
a Tahitian guy on a scooter passes us and in English says "Hey
Elders!" He then makes a u-turn and stops us. He asks us "Which ward
do guys serve in?" We reply Anau and then he says "Oh, right on. By
the way my names Ellis. Good luck guys!" Then he rides off. My companion
and I were kinda standing there wondering what that was all about, then we go
on our way. But as we start to leave that spot, we hear a whistle, and we turn
to see a dude waving his shirt around trying to get our attention. We ride on
over, and recognize that it's Taro.
I don't know if you guys remember when I talked about a dude
named Taaroa in a previous email, when we talked to him for like an hour and
gave him a Book of Mormon, but didn't accept the lessons. Well, his names
actually Taro, and we've been trying to contact him ever since to try and do a
follow up on the Book of Mormon, but haven't been able to find him. And now, we
found him, and his house! He saw us while we were talking to Ellis, and had
just enough time to run out and get our attention. We talked to him for a
moment, and told him that we had a lesson and that we would try to come back
again later, but after getting to our lesson to find that our investigator
wasn't there, we figured out that Taro was the one that we really needed to be
talking to at that time.
We headed back to Taro's house, and he accepted to discuss
with us. After finishing the prayer, he takes out his Book of Mormon that we
had given to him. He had read many chapters at random, and the night before he
had finished reading Alma 40-42. He asks us a ton of questions about the things
he read, and we do our best to answer them all, because he had a ton! Then the
craziest thing, he pulls out this binder with tons of paper in it. He shows us
the things he's written on the paper, turns out that he copied in writing
pretty much the entire Guide to the Scriptures. He turns to one subject, which
happens to be the gift of the Holy Ghost, and asks us what all that stuff
meant. By this point Elder Duncan and I are a little overwhelmed but marveled
by what this guy has been doing. He then goes off showing this list of
questions he has, from "Where do I truly come from" to "Why are there
so many churches in the world". If only we had time to answer all these
questions! We gave him brochures on the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation
and told him to do the studies that were in the backs of the brochures, and we
shared a super short message of the Restoration and just testified. This time
he accepted the lessons, and we fixed a lesson for next week.
At the time, that whole experience was honestly super weird,
but looking back and talking about it with Elder Duncan, that was one of the
most miraculous moments I have had on my mission. Taro is someone who is
obviously hungering and thirsting for the Gospel, and he's wanted answers to
his questions for this past month and we weren't able to find him. And now,
after some seemingly coincidental meeting with Ellis in front of Taro's house,
which lasted just the right amount of time for Taro to see us, we were able to
meet with Taro again. The only thing is, Elder Duncan and I have concluded that
it wasn't at all coincidence. God knows how to make things work in certain ways
for the salvation of His children. Thanks to an angel sent from God named
Ellis, we'll be seeing Taro again next week.
In addition to that awesome experience, we had a good
district meeting with President Bize, along with Elder Larsen and Elder White.
It was great to just have that support from them, and it was also refreshing to
find out that Elder Duncan and I will be getting a car soon. Right on.
Well, that's the news for this week. I love you all, and
until next week!
Elder Ball
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