Elder, Il Pluet -- Sent February 19th

When I left on my mission, I told myself I wasn't going to put French or Tahitian in my subject lines, but I couldn't help this one, it is too good. So, the rain hasn't stopped. Nor is it planning on stopping any time soon. And the subject line is what literally everyone tells us. We will be biking in the pouring rain, and anyone who see's us will yell,  "Elder! Il Pleut!"  Which just means "Elder, it's raining". The first responses that always come to mind are things like "No, really?" "Ya don't say" "Well, I hadn't noticed, thank you for the help". But being the good little Elder I am the response is always something simple like "Yup" or "Thanks". The language barrier might be partially to blame, but we don't have to think about that.

  Another fun story that involves the rain. It has been pouring buckets since I got here, I now know where the ocean gets all its water from, but tuesday was even worse that the other days. The wind was blowing so hard the rain hurt to get hit by. Anyway, we were on our way back from a lesson and noticed a palm tree had blown over and was laying in the road. Elder Ballstaedt asked if we should try to move it, and I was like why not? So we went to move it, forgetting that we were two little elders, and this was a giant tree. Needless to say it didn't budge. After a couple minutes of that some people drove up laughing and told us that we didn't stand a chance and that we should just go home. We listened.

  Normally the work is super slow in the rain, but I guess that everyone is sick of sitting home all day, because we have actually had some really good success this week. Every time something falls through, or we feel like we don't know what to do or where to go, the Lord puts someone in our path. We have talked to a lot of new people these last few weeks and I am really excited to start teaching them. The work goes on!

  I just want to end with a little testimony. I know that this is Christ's true church! I have seen so many miracles and I have felt his presence so clearly that I can not deny the truth. He loves every one of us and just wants us to be happy, and we will find that joy by following him and his chosen servants. I hope you all have a great week, because I sure am planning on having a great one! Love ya all!

PHOTO NOTE FROM HOLLY-- Braden asked his companion to just take random pictures of him while he ate his breakfast cereal.  These may not be fun for you, but I love this face!









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

8 Months!

   Holy cow can you guys believe that today is my 8 Month mark!?! That means I am already a third of the way done with the mission! It goes too fast! It feels like I just got here!    But man, this week was pretty awesome, we were so busy. We have been working so hard at getting the branch hyped on missionary work, and it is working! We have members who come and knock doors with us, members who go and visit the investigators, and who come on splits with us! It is the best! The members here are so nice and humble, I am so inspired by them and by their service, it is incredible.   I need to give a shout out to one of my favorite members, and to his truck. His name is Frère Tetuanui (Frère just means brother), and he is awesome. He is a big guy, no front teeth (super common), and he is missing an ear (less common). Anyway, two stories about him and his truck. So his truck is totally like something you would see in an Indiana Jones movie or something. It is greeni
Read more

Crazy Week / Sent Nov. 5, 2018

Image
Well, this week definitely felt a little nuts. I will try to sum it up the best I can. Wish me luck!    The hardest part of this week was having to say goodbye to Elder Hurd. He had to go home this week and it was really hard to see him go. But I have to give him a huge shout out for being a great missionary, even though he was dealing with a lot of stuff we didn't even know about, and I am sure he will be able to come back one day and kill it as a great missionary.    Me and Elder Clarke have been doing good though, and we thought we were going to finish out the last two weeks of the transfer like that, but nope, plot twist! The assistants called and let me know that later today I am going to go get another companion, someone who is waiting for a visa. So starting later today I will be in a trio again, with a tahitian who probably doesn't speak english, and Elder Clarke who is still learning french, so that's gonna be an experience. Just when I thought my transfe
Read more

Rain, Rain, Rain - Sent January 8, 2018

Image
  It rains a lot in Tahaa. Especially this week for some reason. The biggest problem with rain is that everybody just camps at home and tells you to go home too. Even bishop saw us out and was like, "what are you guys doing out here!?" so that was funny. At one point it was storming SUPER hard and I had to bike around the island for a split. I decided to whip out my handy dandy poncho, and everyone was getting pretty good laughs out of how it looked. But they sure weren't laughing when I made it all the way to the other side of the island (about 90 minutes on bike) completely dry! Well, that's what I would have said if it was true, but unfortunately the poncho didn't stop the rain at all and I was totally soaked. Got some funny pictures though!   So apparently in French Polynesia there is a tradition. It goes something like this: "The new years party goes half way through January and nobody talks to the missionaries." That's just a rough tr
Read more