Merry Christmas, The Stick House, and Pet Cats?

Dear Mom, Dad, Taylor and Cami,

Hello from Christmas Island! Today's my first official mission p-day, and I unfortunately have less time to email than usual. Hopefully I can get everything I want to say down. 

It was so good to hear from all of you about things back home. How crazy that you guys have had so much snow! I'm beyond jealous. It's been very very hot here, per usual. I already have a good tan going, but it's going to be a terrible farmer's tan. We'll just have to deal with that one I guess. Anyways, try to enjoy the snow and the cold! 

Christmas Island is so much nicer than Tarawa. It is probably 3000 times nicer. The island is 29 times bigger than Tarawa (according to the Senior Couples, who may have no idea at all) and it has one tenth the population. SO nice to not have people everywhere. It makes things cleaner and just easier to handle.

Our area on the island is called Tabwakea, and it's the biggest area in the whole mission. My companion is Elder Paora, and he is awesome. He is from New Zealand, and he's a big guy. Used to play rugby. He also has a crazy good voice, and so he sings all the time. He is a former Assistant to the Mission President, but he decided he would much rather be a trainer. So I'm very lucky. He knows what he's doing. We'll be doing lots of work, teaching lots of lessons, and hopefully helping lots of people. I really am enjoying the companionship so far, and I'm excited to keep growing and working.

I literally live in a stick hut. There are no other words to describe my apartment. It is just a stick hut. We have a kitchen and a bathroom, but the conditions are somewhat (really) gross. I'm trying to just get used to it I suppose. My bed is made out of sticks, and on top of the sticks is a "Kie" - a mat woven out of coconut leaves. That and a mosquito net is my bed! I'm actually surprisingly not sore, which is amazing given the bed itself is literally sticks. So that part's not too bad! Also, our apartment is unique in the whole mission in that since it's technically "outside," some rules don't apply. Specifically the pets rule. Elder Paora and I actually have 3 cats. So they live with us and are kindof fun. Mostly annoying, but also fun. We couldn't kick them out if we tried, they can literally walk through the walls into our house. So, we just have 3 cats! Paora has named them Ginger, Momma cat, and Baby cat. Creative indeed.

We had a very busy week. We have a lesson almost every hour all afternoon every day. And we're on bike, so it makes for a lot of riding back and forth. It gets quite hot on the pavement, so sometimes we bike in the sand. In the end though, the sand is a lot harder to bike on so you get just as hot either way. Did I mention hot? 

The language is still continuing to progress. I teach about 50% of each lesson. I even get asked to lead sometimes, and that gets a little scary. Nobody has laughed at me yet so I'm proud of that. Elder Paora is adamant that he won't explain my thoughts for me. So if I want to say something and I get lost, it's my job to figure out a roundabout way to get us back on track. It's hard but a really good thing too, because I'm forced to be self-reliant and to kindof think ahead. It's not too bad.

Church on Sunday was so fun. Our branch is huge, and I bet 200 or more people came to sacrament meeting. However, on Kiribati, time is just flat out not a priority. So the meeting started a record-shattering 40 minutes late. Which is apparently normal, the schedule just gets moved back to adjust. Anyways. We were sitting next to one of our investigators, and all of a sudden I heard the Branch President announce the last sacrament speaker: me! So with no warning and like 15 minutes left in church still, I walked all the way up and I had to give a talk! So scary. I just stretched out my introduction as long as I could and then I read a few scriptures and talked about them. I made it 10 minutes before I was out of words and then I sat down. Nobody laughed though, so I was really proud. President Itinewa came up and apologized after, he had heard me talking to some members outside earlier, and he assumed I wasn't brand new. Which is technically a big compliment, but I just was fried from speaking so much. Either way, it's very good.

I like being a missionary. Being so busy is really hard and so fun. I'm glad I am where I am, and I know that I'm doing the right thing. I'm grateful for the love and support of everyone back home, and I miss you all. Prayers are always appreciated, and I am praying for all of you too! Thanks again for being so great. 

I'll be sure to write again next week! See you all soon.

Love, Dallin

Comments from Mom:

This picture is not from Dallin - he can't upload any with the internet on Christmas.  This was from a blog of Senior Missionaries on the Island a couple years ago.  These are the "nice, well-built" houses in their area.  It sounds like this is similar to what Dallin is living in right now.

Here are a couple pictures of the conditions he just saw in Tarawa.  After his letter last week we read some pretty startling articles about the conditions the people are living in.  It is shocking to say the least.  I found these pictures in one of the articles.

He is actually still quite sick, but says that he is just getting used to it and working through it.  I am SO grateful he is on Christmas Island right now.  I know he will probably be back in Tarawa at some point, but by then he should have a better tolerance and all the water purification stuff we have sent him ;)  It takes several months for packages and letters to get to him as they have to go through the mission home in Majuro, Marshall Islands.  

Thanks for all your prayers on his behalf.  He will usually have enough time to read lots of emails, so go ahead and email him if you want.  Letters will take forever to get to him.  He can open pictures we send to him as long as they are not high quality, he just can't upload any.  I'm hoping he will follow my plan, rotate the SD cards, and send the full one home for me to upload.

I think they send all missionaries through Tarawa so that they and their moms are thrilled with the living conditions anywhere else.  A pretty smart use of perspective.

We are glad he is having so many opportunities to teach and is learning to do REALLY hard things.