There has been lots of improvement with Nunui. He works more now and is not always there for the lessons, so our progress has been slow with him recently. But this week we found him again. We taught him and his girlfriend about the temple. They've chosen the fourth of august for their marriage. It's not for sure going to happen then, but that's the plan. They don't want help from the church or anything. At the end of that lesson, Nunui asked Elder Terry if he could borrow his sneakers for futsal. Elder Terry had been planning on giving them to him, so he did right then. I've never seen a look of more joy on his face when he found out he would be getting free nikes! Now he's best friends with Elder Terry, which is pretty good for the missionary work.
A few days later we taught them again, this time about the word of wisdom. Basically anyone who isn't an active member of the church smokes and drinks, so we decided to get that out of the way early to help him really prepare for his baptism. We talked for twenty minutes and by then he gave a huge nod and a loud yes! that he would keep the follow the word of wisdom. Woah! That's the first time on my mission that someone has agreed to do that! What a blessing! He's really ready, it's just a matter of time, and we're trying to set up his baptism date for the same day as his marriage.
Jean*, our member integrator for Beau, and also an inactif, has made a lot of progress. He was touched by a lesson we gave about a month ago and from that moment on stopped smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol. Paka was a little harder but two weeks later he quit that also and went and talked to president. We're super excited for him! He's working on getting the priesthood soon.
We also taught Adrien, another inactif, about faith and the things that God can do through our faith. A while ago he stopped smoking cigarettes completely, but stopping paka is really hard for him. It was cool to see his understanding grow as we taught and he gained an even stronger desire to stop, and to show God that he has faith in him, to show god his works so that God will give him help. I wish all of us had that mentality all the time.
Saturday is normally our best day with about nine lessons planned. They're starting to fall apart. We're losing some investigators, like Mahana and Mafatu, but this Saturday ended up well. We had a list that DMB gave us of the nonmembers of the island, so we had him give us directions to some of them. He gave us seven references, and five worked out. Not bad!
The first was Sasa'e and her sister. They're Catholics who went to an open house for the church and are interested. They were really excited to do the lessons. Then, Sasa'e asked me if I could speak Tahitian. She asked me that because her father (who happens to be Akamai's brother) only speaks Tahitan. She said that he had talked with Akamai who had talked about some of the lessons we had done with him. That perked his curiosity and he wants to learn more. I'm amazed because the person who did the missionary work here was Akamai, the same Akamai with whom we spent an entire lesson the other week explaining that God isn't the Sun. But hey, no complaints.
The next person we found was Lael*. We actually shared a message one time with him, but he didn't know if he was interseted yet. This time he gladly set up a date and let us help him with his coprah. He's Aimee's son-in-law, by the way. The fifth was Maaravi, who happens to be Sasa'e's husband. He wasn't as willing as the others, but he accepted anyway. We did coprah with him, too.
It's so cool to see God work miracles here on this little island. He's leading us to make a difference here, and I'm so grateful to have him on my side. Hopefully as time goes by these people who have desires to do good will finally make the covenants with God that will allow them to enter the Celestial Kingdom.
That's it for this week! E parau mau te Ekalesia!
Elder Lewis
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| Boat photos |
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| Plenty of boat pictures |
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| I think it's working! |
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They just love having the elders perform
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pork cooked underground, maa Tahiti
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coco crab
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| haha |
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One of the monthly boats
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