When you tell the missionaries to go away...Week 82

This week was once again a very busy one. Especially Saturday.

Tuesday

Packed full of lessons. Saw Fetiarava (one of our fixed baptisms), and did the Ten Commandments game with her.

Wednesday

Another standard day. More English classes that hardly anybody showed up to, more sports (we actually had a pretty okay amount of people, and there were these two little girls that we invited to Saturday's baptism. We'll come back to them...)

Thursday

Again, lots of lessons, rather standard day. But we were busy. Ooh, it was standard right up until I got a call from one of our counselors in the stake presidency. So when the stake came and did a conference in our ward, the one counselor (Frère Varney) totally told Fetiarava's family that we would do a family home evening thing at their sweet beach-front property, but the weekend after it rained and we postponed it. Fr Varney then calls me today and is like, "Hey so we're going to Moorea to go do reactivation stuff at Paopao, that evening let's do the FHE. Start inviting a bunch of investigators, but don't worry about members." IT WAS LITERALLY THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. But we went about trying to take care of that, and invited like 6 sets of people.

Friday

Roylance had to split with Davis this day (four Americans in the house, oh no), took care of that, went to go to our first lesson, starts raining like it's the end of the world, we get there and not only does the guy say he doesn't want to do it, but he tells us to like never come back and how he "needs to respect his church". Super discouraging. The guy has tried to blow us off before, but then he like changed his mind, but now it's over. And then don't worry our service project out at Fetiarava's family's place got cancelled because of the rain too. And just like that our plans went up in flames. We were with a member at the time (Fr Auch), and it wasn't raining over at his house (it like only rains on certain parts of the island at a time, it's kind of funny), so we put on our service project clothes and helped clean up his yard. Kinda frustrating. Also with the rain, I told Fr Varney to check the weather, and it was looking like it was going to rain the next day, so we decided to just do our FHE/plan of salvation-projection thing at the chapel.

Saturday

Doomsday. We didn't have time to study or even shave. Had to take Davis back from the split, had a couple lessons, gave this lady a blessing that's a new investigator now, went and did the baptism for a bunch of hours, and then tried to mount that FHE. Fr Varney had said to just invite investigators (since at the Mau family's beach-place we wouldn't have enough room for everybody), but the ward caught wind of it and everybody started losing their marbles and freaking out on me. Super lame. And then we were getting the projector and all the chairs ready and stuff, and we were rushing to call everybody and remind everybody, and then everybody cancelled. Like all 6 sets. Super rough. The only investigators we ended up having there were our DMP's wife and, get this, the two little girls from the sport activity. They were awesome. They even came to the baptism! Most of our MEMBERS didn't show up for the baptism, and this 9 and 10 year old girl did. And they really liked the FHE. Super fulfilling. And Fr Varney wasn't even phased. He was just like, "Well yeah, we did it last minute, it's alright," and then he went and owned this FHE with minimal people. It was very punk-rock. But goodness what an exhausting day.

Sunday

Day of rest. Did a couple lessons, but then just went and ate at this awesome family's house. We made pizza, we showed everybody how to do a Rubik's cube, all was well. It was a nice way to relax after all the stress of the day before.

but in other news,

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY (that I totally missed on the 8th)!

super awesome holiday. they did like this walk against domestic abuse thing over at Paopao on that day, and our lesson on Sunday in Priesthood was on Chapter 5 of the Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley ("my man Bitner"). Yeah, we're behind on the lesson schedule... but it ended up being a good thing.

So since that was our lesson, and just because I've been enjoying the Hinckley manual in general, here are some excerpts from the chapter that I really liked:

" You are very precious, each of you. … You occupy a high and sacred place in the eternal plan of God, our Father in Heaven. You are His daughters, precious to Him, loved by Him, and very important to Him. His grand design cannot succeed without you.

Let me say to you sisters that you do not hold a second place in our Father’s plan for the eternal happiness and well-being of His children. You are an absolutely essential part of that plan. Without you the plan could not function. Without you the entire program would be frustrated.

There has come to you as your birthright something beautiful and sacred and divine. Never forget that. Your Eternal Father is the great Master of the universe. He rules over all, but He also will listen to your prayers as His daughter and hear you as you speak with Him. He will answer your prayers. He will not leave you alone.

No woman can afford to demean herself, to belittle herself, to downgrade her abilities or her capacities. Let each be faithful to the great, divine attributes that are within her.

Emma was called “an elect lady” ... Each of you is an elect lady. You have come out of the world as partakers of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.You have made your election, and if you are living worthy of it, the Lord will honor you in it and magnify you. …

When all the victories and defeats of men’s efforts are tallied, when the dust of life’s battles begins to settle, when all for which we labor so hard in this world of conquest fades before our eyes, you will be there, you must be there, as the strength for a new generation, the ever-improving onward movement of the race. Its quality will depend on you.  "

Thanks women/moms/girls/grandmas/etc (especially to all the women in my life)! We love you!

Elder Harrah

-the Pahio clan

-us with Vahinehau

-blurry sunset