Cool

Alright, We've finally started to get the work moving over here. There hasn't been much to report for the past few weeks, but I suppose fixing three baptisms is worth telling you about.

Sam- a nine year old kid who loves the missionaries (surout their bikes and helmets). He comes from a family where his parents used to be LDS. The last time the family came to church was five years ago to give their baby a blessing. He's getting baptised the fifteenth of Octobre.

Turumai*- he's been taking lessons for a while, but it's always hard to find him each time for a lesson. He's a young dad and his girlfriend wants to follow him. She hasn't started the lessons yet, but when she does, she'll get baptised too. The baptism is set for the 22 Octobre. He struggles with praying, reading the scriptures, going to church, etc, but we're working on that, and he should be ready by then.

Lucas*-20 years old, has taken the lessons already. I had actually tried to teach him but never actually met him until now. We were going to visit a mami, but he was there instead and invited us over. We just talked with him  and he revealed everything. He's really spiritual and he wanted to be baptised. He told us that we would fix the date the next day for his baptism, but in talking right there, we ended up fixing it for the 22 also. He's already been chased from home by his mother for wanting to get baptised, and he has nothing holding him back. Awesome!

There is also a family that we taught more than a month ago that was really potential, but it was always really hard to get the second lesson in. Well, we got that second lesson in yesterday, Plan of Salvation, and it was really good. This time it was just with Jeremie, but last time Manihi, his wife, was there too (I'm pretty sure I've talked about them already in a previous letter). They're really sincere, and they are definitely starting to believe. Hopefully the next lesson we'll be able to get them to commit. That will be the two parents and their two children. One of the children already reads the BoM all the time, it's great!

Still doing a lot of contacting, our amis don't like to stay amis very long. We've contacted quite a few this week, so I'll just tell you if anything interesting happens with them.

Okay, I have to go now, not much time. I know God lives, I know he loves us all. I know that each soul has great worth to God, and I know that I'm doing the Lord's work. Love you all!

Elder Lewis

The Gospel--Gotta Love It

Hey everyone!

Honestly, there's not much to report for these past few weeks. It's been quite the struggle to get things going here. We think we just found a really potential investigator and then the second lesson never happens. It's not that they don't actually want the lessons, it just doesn't happen. So we just do a lot of one time street lessons.

We found a family consisting of a father, an inactive mother, a nine year old boy, and a five year old boy. We're preparing Sam*, the nine-year-old, for baptism. The family wants to come back, and so far they've kept all our engagements of praying each day as a family and reading scriptures. The baptismal date for Sam* isn't fixed yet, but bientôt.

In our lessons with Nicolas and Giselle sometimes they choose the topic. We're not going to do that anymore. Here's why:

On Saturday we did a lesson with them, and the topic was "la parole de Dieu" and so he immediately opens up to Revelations 14 and starts talking about the meaning of the three angels in extreme detail. I don't know where they got that stuff from. They also started quoting Ellen White, and we didn't get a single word in. Next thing we know, they're talking about the devil's number and Giselle told us that it was talking about the pope. Apparently on his hat there are some words in Latin and if you take the letters and put them with roman numerals, you get the number. They pulled out some paper and showed us. Let's just say the spirit was not at all there. Hopefully in the future we'll be able to take control. Yeah...

Also, transfers have come and have taken Elder Murdock. He's been here for seven months, so it wasn't a surprise. My new companion is Elder Maltelour, who was also on Takaroa the same time I was (also the old comp of Elder Murdock). That will brake my streak of only having Utahn companions haha.

Anyway, not much else to say, so I'll leave you with a scripture:

"Et le Christ a dit: Si vous avez foi en moi, vous aurez le pouvoir de faire tout ce qui est utile en moi."

-moroni 7:33

All we need is faith and then we can do everything we need to do. Pretty simple. If we trust in God, we can't go wrong. I'm grateful for a loving, helping God that will always be there for me and that will support me despite my weaknesses. 

That's it for this week. à prochain!

Elder Lewis

Photographie

The baptism of Tupiti

Saying goodbye to Takaroa

First views of Tautira

Us playing some Tahitian instruments. I'm at the to'ere

Zone service project

Taro faapu

In these next pics, we hiked to the top of a little mountain overlooking Tautira. There's a big cross up there that lights up at night that you can see from all around.

It wasn't me who dressed up Elder Murdock like that...