Just a Little Bleach

We were able to email with Dallin last night.  He had a great week!  The work is really picking up on Abaiang and they are beginning to see lots of re-activation and many new investigators/baptisms.

Great week, we did a lot of good work. 105 miles, I think that will be average now. We had a baptism, had 4(!) successful baptismal interviews, and taught a lot of great lessons. We also had some new investigators. I think we've worked hard enough for long enough that we'll be in a really good cycle for a long time. We have baptisms planned for the next 5 weeks. Really exciting. Plus we'll most likely be involved in the October transfer to some degree, so things are very busy but very good. 

Our whole family has been praying diligently that inspiration would come to someone about how to help Dallin stay healthy.  I actually spoke with his Dermatologist from home about his situation to see if she had any suggestions.  She said that some people's skin just can't balance itself with that kind of contamination and since there was no way to fix the contaminated water or culture anything that he should just take a "bleach bath" every day.  He just has to dilute some bleach in a bucket of water and wash down his skin - every day.  She thinks it will keep the nasty bacteria under control and cut way down on the infections.  I know that they can get bleach, because he has been diligent about bleaching all his shirts, towels, etc. trying to keep things clean.  We have sent all kinds of antibacterial soap, but it never occurred to any of us that the bleach could be diluted and used on his skin.  I immediately emailed this information to him and he read it yesterday.  He had received the same inspiration before even reading my email!!!  It seems so simple.  It makes you ponder why simple answers don't come more easily, but I guess there are lessons to be learned first sometimes.  Hopefully this simple step every day will keep him healthy.

About the bleach! Last Monday night I thought really hard about what I could do to fix my skin, and I decided to put bleach in my bucket showers haha I've been showering with a cap-full of bleach in my bucket every morning for all week. No new infections, so hopefully it helps!  I'll bump it up to two cap-fulls. Too funny I just did that on my own! Glad it was apparently a sound idea. (actually more like divine inspiration ;)

I am feeling pretty optimistic about it to be honest. We have bleach here, we're lucky because we're close to Tarawa so we get most of the basic things. Also, the service center will be coming this week sometime to fix our pump, so going back to rainwater will be good too.

While we were emailing Dallin mentioned that one of the ZLs hinted that he might be getting transferred in October.  Ed asked  him if he had some sort of elaborate spy network keeping tabs on the movement of the mission :)

I do indeed have a spy network, President Weir, Josh Sherman the AP, Elder Maisey the ZL, Elder Raika the ZL. They're not very forthcoming though, we don't know if it's Pulu or me, or if it's the November intake. But, we will get transferred eventually haha

A few minutes later...

I'm definitely not staying, my spy network told me I'm leaving in October :( but they also cryptically told me that I will be even happier in the place I'm going, and that I will be making history. So that is exciting and scary. 2 more weeks and transfers are really announced.  Pulu is sad, I'm glad he likes me.

He sent us two stories about people they are working with:

One really cool spiritual experience: We were leaving Tabon te Bike on Tuesday and it was pretty late, about 6. We still had about an hour bike ride ahead of us, and we were hoping to make it home before dark. On our way out of the town a guy on the road stopped us randomly, and asked if he could show us his house so that we could come back and teach him. We agreed, and we got off our bikes and started walking with this guy. We talked a bit, and he explained that he had just left the Seventh Day Adventist college in Fiji, and that he had been training to be a missionary in the SDA. He confessed that he used to hate our church. But he told us he had one lesson with Elder Wells and Elder Paora (my trainer!) in Bikenibeu. They taught about the importance of the prophet. At the time, he just shrugged it off and never had them come visit again. Bu he said that he was reading the Bible lately, thinking about prophets, and he decided to pray about that lesson from so long ago. He prayed 4 nights in a row to know if we needed a living prophet, and on the 4th night he received inspiration to go and find the missionaries.  I know he was led to us by our Heavenly Father. I also know that Heavenly Father has big plans for him, and I'm so excited for his lessons. Hopefully he gets baptized before I leave :(

Our baptism was a guy named Terabwena. He is hilarious, he loves being a farmer! He plants all kinds of stuff at his house, and we're actually bringing those seeds from Grammy to him on Thursday. He wears blue jeans too... because it's farmer attire. Such a goofball. He had a bad drinking problem, but he prayed so hard to overcome it and he totally conquered it. His wife is a less active, but now they're both active and aiming for the temple. No kids yet, but they want to have kids who will serve missions. Great guy. He gave us cabbage and bananas yesterday and it was awesome.

Baptism interviews happen one week before baptisms, so we have 4 baptisms this week. 3 in Tabon te Bike, one in Tuarabu. Church is great, especially in Tabon te Bike. We slept in Tabon te Bike chapel on Saturday night, went to sacrament there Sunday morning. Saturday night though they did a party for us. The new Branch Pres is trying to get everyone excited about missionary work and bringing less actives back. He's the man. Also, the Stake Presidency came to visit Abaiang.  President Tione, the 2nd counselor came to Tabon te Bike with us. He's funny.  He loves us because he's visited Abaiang three times while we've been here. He brought us cookies from Tarawa.  I am trying to take a lot of pictures! Especially now that I will be leaving here soon.

We mentioned how smart it was to save so much time  biking and just sleep at the chapel before church the next morning...

We're never sleeping in the chapel again. It was SO hot and just really unbearable. We had mosquito nets, but I got bitten a lot too. It was a great one-time experience I think haha I love president Tione. He is the man.

We asked where they do all their baptisms on this island.

We do all our baptisms in the lagoon, which is essentially ocean but more shallow and not as wavy. 

Our time was over in a flash, but we were so happy to hear about the work and feel his excitement.  He really loves this island and is sad about leaving all the people he has grown to love.  I'm sure another adventure is awaiting him.  Thanks to everyone for your prayers.  He feels the love of so many... and so do we.