"What if this is just a Lovely Bones trap?"--Week 99

Monday

The shortened p-day. We took the time to plan out this activity that we're going to do for our ward, and went to go do a family home evening that mostly just got cancelled (whoever the investigator was was out drunk)

Tuesday

In the morning we went to the temple, and that was quite nourrishing (it felt like years since the last time I'd been), and then we went and had a multi-zone conference with President Fox. It went super well. He shook hands with everybody and took the time to talk to us all a bit. He and Soeur Fox are quite nice. We also went to a funeral in the evening at the Protestant church. Sad deal. It was the mom of my old DMP from Haapiti. It was a nice service though. Everyone was trying to keep their chin up and they sang some fun, loud, Tahitian Protestant hymns with the usual drums and ukeleles.

Wednesday

A full day's work. We had lots of lessons today. The best one was definitely with Mereani and Poeiti. They were super shy before, but now they like, actually say like one or two phrases (trust me, that was huge progress), and they're currently reading the Book of Mormon too!

Thursday

Had a couple cancelled lessons, but did a really good weekly planning and did an evaluation of our companionship and I was able to give Elder Blater some coach advice. Maitai roa. And then we had our ward council. It went very well! Everyone was respectful, no one yelled, and the bishopric accepted our activity proposition. Good stuff.

Friday

District meeting, and another rehearsal afterwards. Then we did like 4 hours of trying to contact old investigators (we had nothing else to do). I think it must've been 10 people that turned us down flat. But the 11th lady, while she didn't like, straight away say that she was going to follow every lesson again and be baptized (she's actually got quite a long story with her and the church...), she definitely needed our support and the spirit that we brought. She thought that the missionaries would never come and see her again, and yet there we were; guided there. It was really quite pleasant, and made the whole rest of the 4 hours of rejection worth it. Then we went and worked on our activity some more. We found this template for a Jeopardy board in PowerPoint that we're going to use.

Saturday

This lady in Taravao 1 was getting baptised, and she insisted that there be eight Elder present at her baptism (she saw a baptism with four and wanted more). Luckily we have eight Elders in our zone. It was quite funny. So we went and did that in the morning. We gave a four-part talk on baptism and the gospel (Blater, Peel, Mauclair, and I). Afterwards we went back to our sector, did a lesson, and then went to our service project. We got to help our investigators make their firifiri that they sell for a living (they're like donuts but without frosting). It was lots of fun, and we were actually helpful. Then we went and worked on the program for our activity when all of our lessons cancelled so it would be ready for the meeting the next day.

Sunday

So our stake missionary concert thing arrived, and we did the first two this Sunday. We didn't attend our own ward, instead we went and sang at Toahotu and Vairao for both of the sacrament meetings. It was so fun and nostalgic to be back in those chapels again and to see familiar faces. People still remembered me, even though it was the beginning of my mission and missionaries are easier to forget when they don't speak as much French. It was very heart-warming really. Then we went home just to get ready and then go to our real concert with all the missionaries at night. This one was at Papeari, so again, lots of nostalgia being in the old stake center and seeing President Tupai again. We also did a very impressive concert. One of our better ones, I'd say. This one and Arue have reportedly been the best ones (I always ask Elder Smith (the director of the choir) what he thought as we drive home).

See you all soon!

Elder Harrah

-the trap

-we came through there

-there was a large field of taro next to the trap