Catching Up

I didn't write a letter last week so I'll try to update on that. Last Wednesday was the marriage of Ari'i and Kalea. On saturday he got baptized. It was cool because he bore testimony after his baptism telling about a story of our bishop healing his very sick baby many years ago. That blessing was his first step towards Eternal Life. That just shows that all the little acts of service that we do can really help people to come unto Christ. They might not be ready right away, but they might accept the gospel later in their life.

That was the highlight of last week, and actually there weren't a whole lot of cool experiences a part from that.  David and Paul are starting to progress more. We talked about prophets and they are starting to believe more. Paul is pretty excited to tell us about church facts that he found out from his girlfriend who is mormon. He was the one that reminded me that the church was restored on the sixth. He was supposed to come to church, too, but his dad passed away that weekend, and he couldn't come. Hopefully next week. 

This week we found a couple of potential investigators. There is a couple, Rua* and Stephanie* who were old investigators. We restarted lessons with them and invited them to come to church. They came, and it seems like they're ready this time. There aren't a whole lot of things that block (except for marriage) so we'll keep working with them. 

We also had an ami who hasn't had any desire to take lessons seriously suddenly show up at church this sunday. We had already invited him and he said no because he already had his church. And then he showed up! And then he made it to a stake soirée for investigators. Maybe there is potential after all...

Also, the highlight of this week was the baptism of Kolinaisi* and Ku*, the two kids. It was all right, except I guess they don't really understand completely the sacredness of it all. During one of the short talks at the beginning, Kolinaisi disappeared, and no one knew where he went. Thankfully he showed up in time for the baptism. Also, after the baptism, people took some pictures of the two kids in the water with the man who baptised them, but they weren't really focused on the pictures, just the fact that there was a little swimming pool in the church, so they played in that for a little bit. Oh, well. They will understand as they get older, they still have a long way to go. And now they are members of the restored church of Jesus Christ.

Okay, I don't have much more time, but those are the highlights of the week. Have a good week everyone! à la prochaine!

Orometua Lewis

(Photos from a recent Zone Conference)

Photos

(There was no letter this week, but he was able to send some more photos as he catches up on several months worth of pictures!)

A bunch of mangos

A Good Week

Alright everbody. Here are a couple of fun experiences for this week. Things are looking good here, I hope I will still be here to see some more results.

Things with La'akia* were going good. She really wants to learn about the gospel and change. She should've come to church yesterday but before going she and her copain got in a fight and she ended up not coming. It turns out that it was because of something that my companion and I said. We just visited one day and her copain was there. We invited him to join us with the lessons and I guess he took offense at something we said and didn't want La'akia to take the lessons anymore. So we wrote him a little note and the next time we saw him (Sunday) we apologized again. He had read the note and felt bad too. He told us that he would talk with La'akia and if things went well next sunday he would join the lessons with her. I learned a couple things from that experience.

1. The Lord works in mysterious ways. We thought that might be the end of teaching a really potential investigator, but God softened his heart and now we might be able to bring the whole family to the gospel.

2. Pardon and Charity can solve just about every problem. I am convinced that if we all pardon people for every fault that they commit and have charity at all times, we will all be happier and have less problems in our lives. A big weight is lifted from our backs when we have charity and pardon others.

We did the baptismal interview for Ari'i. The mariage is wednesday and the baptism saturday. Super excited! We worried for a little bit because the last few weeks he's cancelled the lessons and he didn't show up at first for the interview, but it all worked out in the end.

On wednesday I did a split with elder Eperania. We had two really good lessons. One was with the inactive whose house we blessed. Her copain hasn't been there since, but last week a friend came and we taught the restoration. This week we went over prayer, and we found out that she had never prayed. Somehow we missed that last week. Anyway, we got her to pray in the end (oh yeah, and she's pagan) and asked her to search for the things she felt during the prayer. Afterwards we asked what she felt and she paused for a moment and then said "something warm" as she touched her heart and then the tears started flowing. Wow. That's like the mission story you hear, but sad to say I don't experience things like that often enough. Later, we taught Jacqueline and had a lesson similar- Restoration and prayer, and she felt something when she prayed too. We confirmed that that was the Holy Ghost. Now she knows that this church is true. She just wants to learn more before committing and there are a few other problems to resolve. But anyway, the spirit was with us that day. I hope I can have more days like that.

We visited Hamuera and Sefina. It ended up being a visit where they posed lots of questions about their marriage, their baptism, church callings, the temple. Yeah, they're ready.

Okay, I don't remember now if I've talked about Matua* already, but he's the husband of an active member here. His wife's family is from Takaroa that I knew well. Anyway, Matua has been progressing more and more these last few weeks, reading the scriptures as a family, praying. Yesterday we shared with him and his wife "The Family: a Proclamation" and just talked about ways they can have a stronger family. at the end we were saying goodbye, and he turned to me and said: "Pour mon baptême, tu pourras me baptiser?" I assured him that yes, I could- I hold the priesthood and it would be my pleasure. I think finally he's more confortable with our church. For him it used to be some foreign thing, but he's starting to finally understand it and have the desire to get baptised. Hopefully that will happen before I leave Tavararo.

Also, the transfers have come up, faster than I thought. Elder Fareata has now finished his mission. It was really fun working with him for the last month. My new companion is Elder Malca-Sandoval. He's from France.He was in the zone when I was at Paea, so I know him already, and I know that this next transfer will be a good one.

That's it for this week. Life is great. The Church is true. Hâtons l’œuvre du Seigneur.

Elder Lewis

Alright, I finally have a way to get pictures on, so I'm going to start sending them starting from when I got transfered to Papehue. 

I saw Luc again one year after his baptism!

McDo Faatamaaraa

Elder Eparania

Lewis et Elder Lewis

Orange watermelon- I've never seen that before

 After morning prayer before leaving the house

Our Christmas present for Yves

messing around with my new camera

Mission Christmas party

Takaroa crew

Christmas Eve party

Missionary Christmas breakfast.  All the Elders got together and cooked without actually planning any of it. It was pretty fun.

 (former) Elder Millerberg came back to Tahiti

 Future Elder Roi- he served a mini mission with Elder Millerberg and me soon after I came to Tahiti

 Zone photo

Holy water that some people gave us. Pretty cool. It tasted like...tepid water. 

We caught a vini 

Eating éclaires with Kalili ma

Who knew that McDo had such a nice view 

Steak frites 500

Last meeting with Simon, the protestant pastor

Zone picture