The Fruits of Repentance and Getting Ready for Baptism

Salut!

We taught Purotu once again. We're still pushing for baptism each lesson, and with our lesson on the Atonement, I snuck in Moroni 8:25. Hopefully that will help her as she progresses towards baptism. It's always really cool to see how people seem to change when they really understand the Atonement. They go "Ohhh, I didn't know that", or "That makes sense now". The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the most important moment in history on this earth, and It's a good thing (at least in my opinion) if everyone knows "to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."

Here's a story: When we were taking over both sectors in Takaroa we taught Elise*. Elise thinks she's our mom. She tries to do or laundry, buys us food and supplies all the time, feeds us several times a month. And she's an investigator. We mentioned to her during this lesson that we would start the lessons with Doug*, an inactive. She went nuts, saying that this young man had nothing good in him, that he did lots of bad stuff including stealing  all the time, and that he would never change. Then She promised us that if we could get him to repent, she would get baptized. You can see that she doesn't really know how it works exactly.

Anyway, we finally taught him, and he was definitely in the state of repentance. He's realized some of the mistakes he's made and is ready to change. Also, when his girlfriend (the sister of Moeava) comes back here from Tahiti, she'll start taking the lessons. Apparently Doug made sure she brought a Book of Mormon with her in Tahiti and she reads it every day. So I guess that makes two potential baptisms-Anne, his girlfriend; and Joana. Haha No, I think it will be more work than that, but we'll get there.

One of the coolest experiences this week was with Luc. He's an inactive that we just decided we should visit. We had never done a lesson with him, but we started. When we set up a lesson he seemed really depressed, and we tried to help him, although there was nothing really that we could do. Then for the lesson, he opened up. He told us about the mistakes he had made and how he had fallen. We read Alma 36, and after reading verse 16, he said that that was how he felt. He was ready to change, too. I've never seen someone who has felt so much Godly remorse for the mistakes they have made and have been so ready to repent. He's going to talk to the branch president now. Repentance is real! Use it! It's so cool to see that change in people.

We taught Mafatu, maybe for the last time before he leaves for his Tournament. We went through the baptismal questions, and he's just about ready to get baptized. When he comes back from the tournament, we'll talk about baptism and set up a date.

We taught Akamai*, our new Tahitian-speaking investigator. He kind of went off on a tangent, saying the same stories as last time, like how there's a cross in the stars and that's where the Lord is. He even came by that night to show us the cross. We still don't actually see one, but we'll keep looking. He was pretty excited about that one.

We're starting to practice songs for Easter. The Sanitos are throwing a party thing with a bunch of religions involved and the four missionaries are doing a quartet for one of our songs. That's going to be fun!

Companion is great! I don't know what else to say about that. We work together, we work well. We live in a house. It's way bigger than I'd like.  It's almost the size of our main level at home, but for two missionaries, and it just gets messy. It actually used to be a store.  The downside is that there is still a bunch of store stuff filling the house. We spent ten hours one p-day cleaning it out. Other than that, it's not too bad. We don't have a fridge, just a freezer, and no gas for our stove, so the only cooking we do is with a microwave. I can send pictures, but it's not that interesting. We do have banana trees, a papaya tree, and a coconut tree. No papaya fruit on the tree, barely any bananas that are no where close to being ripe, so I guess we eat coco sometimes, but that's about it. The ocean water is warm, definitely warm. And I love Takaroa a lot more than Tahiti. I miss clean water, greenery and stores at Tahiti, but if I could I would stay here (or at least on any island) for my whole mission.

That's all for this week. The work keeps moving on. It's so cool to be part of helping these people come unto Christ. à prochain!

Elder Lewis

We rode by and saw a french military boat dock. We spent the next few minutes making french jokes. Do you see Napoleon Bonaparte?

District Meeting

Nice hat, isn't it?

Bees!