"Sacrifice Your Emails and Follow Me": An Odyssey of a Hike, a Barbecue, and a Motu OR The Men in Those Cool Colored Shorts-- Week 79

This was our last p-day together before the transfer, so we decided to do one last mega-activity together and thus were uttered Elder Temahaga's infamous, now immortalized, words, and thusly why we did emails later in the day.

Monday

Saw Reese and Bradshaw real quick (Reese wanted to visit one of his old sectors one last time before he went home), we went and did a hike, then went and did a family home evening with Elder Davis and Elder Temahaga. It was for their old ward mission leader's family. I think there were 20 people there.

Tuesday

WORK. We were so busy. Had lots of lessons, and prepared Mélodie and Narii for their baptismal interview (just reviewed some stuff).

Wednesday

Did a split. Elder Roylance (our district leader) has been needing to do a split with every Elder in the district, so we took care of his one with Elder Jordan. It was Elder Jordan's first day on a bike (so his bike was brand new) and he popped a wheelie (if you can do that you have earned every kid/teenager's respect on this island) but his wheels weren't pumped up enough and when he came back down he blew his tire. Super funny. Had to go bail him out. Also got our English classes going, and that was a huge success. All of our chillest investigators showed up, and then we had our usual sport activity after. The two together was definitely effective. We're going to keep it that way for the future.

Thursday

STRAIGHT WORK. Lots of lessons, lots of speeding honestly, and going and trying to go meet our new references and contacts. Needed to go reap what had been sowed.

Friday

Split again. I went with Elder Roylance for the day, and we took care of Mélodie and Narii's baptsimal interview. Still a go. They'll be getting married and baptized and then there'll be a dance on the 24 of February (this coming Friday).

Saturday

Longest weekly planning of my life! This next week is even busier than the last.

Sunday

Went and helped a friend in need (a sister missionary from my first zone who has since come home). It felt really good to know that the trials I'd gone through before could help me to really help somebody else. I won't say too much more (it's awfully personal for her), but it was definitely a very testimony-building experience.

TODAY

just look at the pictures. holy moley

My theme for this week has been in fact, perserverance and moreover, dilligence. It was something I found in the scriptures early on in the week and then it ended up being the topic of Friday's training. I leave you simply with this scripture:

1 Corinthians 7:20 (it works better in French so here's your translation)

Let every man rest in the state he was when he received his calling.

I thought about this quite a bit actually, and it touched me quite a bit. I know for me when I got/get a calling in the church, I'm always stoked at the beginning, but then as time goes on I grow accustomed and can even get lazy sometimes. With a mission I've been trying to do my best to make every moment count; now more than ever. And Haapiti is definitely helping me with that. Life is good. The mission is good. God is good. All is well.

May we all rest dilligent in our callings and valiant in our testimony of Christ is my prayer.

-Elder Harrah

-Elder Temahaga said we had to all wear classy button-ups, but not everybody had some. In fact, only Davis and I did. So I wore one and loaned one and Davis wore one and loaned one, and then we picked up two from a member. Kinda funny. also Davis and I bought the exact same button-up (same brand, same everything), but his is blue and mine is red. Like, we did that without coordinating. Go figure.