Message in a Bottle: 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.