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

Conferences

Iaorana!

What an awesome week! We had a multizone conference and General Conference. I felt like both times the messages were directed specifically to me to help me right now. It's really cool how that works. One of the messages from our zone conference was about the destructors of Faith. It is specifically there to help missionaries do a better work, but it's sure that it can apply to anyone. Here are the six destructors:

1.Doubts

2.Discouragement
3.Distraction
4.Disbelief
5.Lack of Diligence
6.Disobedience

It's pretty simple, pretty obvious, but it's true and sometimes we forget it. I certainly have forgotten some of these things. I don't remember who said it or when they said it but someone told us to doubt our doubts before we doubt our faith. Sometimes we let things things get to us rather than obedience, diligence, belief, focus, etc. So here's my engagement: Find one of these six things that is destroying your faith, and work on it-turn it into a stength (Ether 12:27).

At Zone Conference.  4th from left

As for General Conference there were so many talks that I loved. It's too bad I forgot my notes and I can't give specific details or quotes, but I few of the talks I liked were Elder Hales' and Elder Costa's. Obviously I like Elder Costa's because it focuses on missionary work, but I think that his talk is good for anybody. If you haven't studied and prayed and searched diligently in order to know if this church is true, please do so. I promise it's worth it.

Other than that we spent a total of five hours yesterday with Hamuera and Sefina. We brought a recently married couple to encourage them and help them know everything they deeded to do for marriage. He ended up talking a lot, and an hour went by and we still hadn't fixed a date for their baptism and marriage. Then the couple left and we kept discussing. Then they broke out in an arguement and we had to resolve that and then, finally, we fixed the date. Man, that was hard. 

We were discussing dates. We've been trying to fix it for april, but they think tht's too quick. Then Sefina brought up november 28, the date of their son's birthday. At this point, I could have tried to push it earlier, but I felt like I should just let them choose the date on their own. So I didn't argue that date. And then, Hamuera spoke up, anad said that that was too late. So they bounced back and forth between dates and finally settled on May 27. I'm relying on the Lord for this one. If He thinks it's good, it's good. If he wants them to be baptised sooner, he will put that thought in their heads. I'm a little sad also, because I probably won't be here for it, but that's not the most important thing. What's important is that they are making a covenant with God and recieving the remission of their sins.

Then we ate dinner with them and then we gave them blessings to encourage them. It was a really good experience. I hope I have more like that on my mission.

We also started the lessons with a woman named Jacqueline*. She's been coming to church and her copain is a member who just started coming back. We visited with them and set up a date for a next lesson. I also found out that she's the sister of Luc, my first baptism on my mission. That was really cool. She came to General Conference, every session (even though it starts at six in the morning). Super potential, I think. We'll see.

Okay, voilà some fun stuff for the week. The gospel is true. The LdM is true. President Monson is a prophet called of God. repentance and baptism is the only path that leads to Eternal Life. 

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Lewis

Marriage Master

Man, I feel like I'm less of a missionary and more of a counselor. Every day we teach several lessons where we don't really actually teach. We just listen to people tell us about there problems. That's the problem with being a missionary. Everyone thinks that because you have a plaque you're some magical being that can solve any problem that is thrown at them. We're dealing with some pretty crazy stuff, and as you might guess from the title, a lot of this crazy stuff is marriage. We have about fifteen investigators that have a desire to be baptised or are at least really potential, and eleven of those are blocked because of marriage problems. So that's my life right now. 

It's killing me. Hamuera and Sefina are so close for baptism and marriage, but they won't pick a date. I talked last week about how they got the number fifteen. Well, this week they got another vision where they saw a big piece of paper and someone rwriting on it. A...O...U...T. Noooooo! They want to get baptised August 15th. Well, we talked some more, and they think they want to do it sooner, but they still haven't chosen a date. So far Hamuera has fasted a second time, and Sefina fasted too. And she's stopped smoking now, too. They are so spiritual and they rely on the Lord for everything. It's so cool to see that. I know that they will be powerful members.

We've been kind of teaching this guy whose wife is a member. He's never taken seriously the lessons and we don't even do them very often. We did this lesson and shared Alma 34:33. That kind of scared him, so I gave him Alma 5:38, 39 to go with it. He was really freaked out, and as a result he started reading the LdM. We've started dong somewhat more regular visits and he's actually progressing now. I guess some people need different forms of motivation. I certainly don't want to be a son of the devil.

There was an inactive that we visited this week. It's been a while since we last came and we just talked and it ended with her asking us to bless her house. So we invited her nonmember copain to come over. She was hesitant to invite him because he usually wants nothing to do with our church but he was really nice and loved that we wanted to bless there house. I did the blessing, That was the first time that I ever blessed a house. You would think it would be easy, but it was definitely a weird experience. At the end, her copain asked when we would come back. Sweet! So we'll start teaching them together.

There are two little kids about to turn nine who have baptisms fixed for the twentieth. It's a long story but we haven't even taught them, but a member has been teaching them and set up their baptsim. That's for the 20th of April, so that'll be exciting. Those kids are pretty cute!

We taught the person that said why not to baptism. This time it was with his copine. They want to get baptised, but after she gives birth. In august. We're trying to push for earlier with them too. But at least they have the desire.

So, a lot of stuff is happening. We have a lot of people that are progressing, we just need to help them take that leap of faith and get on the path that leads to Eternal Life. I'm pretty excited. Oh, and by the way, I'm not taking credit for being the Marriage Master. It's definitely God who is softening the hearts of these people and helping them realise that the family is sacred and the man and woman have very important roles. Marriage is ordained of God. I was just an instrument, a messager proclaiming God's message. I was actually really impressed with some of this counsel that I've given people. I have no experience with this stuff, yet somehow I manage to help people with their complicated problems. It's definitely not thanks to me that these people are changing. That's right, God's a Marriage Master. 

Orometua Lewis