I'm currently waiting for the email counter to open here at the Linnix office (Christmas island is the biggest island in the Line and Phoenix island chains, so they're clever and they call their government offices the Linnix), and it should have opened about 35 minutes ago, but the lady is not here yet, so I'm just writing a big long email before we can chat. It's probably good I've go some time this morning because this was a crazy week! SO busy. But honestly, probably the best week of my mission so far- so, so fun. Just to make sure I don't miss anything and since I've got time, I'll do a day by day thing again:
Monday: Pday! Pretty great pday. We had some Internet struggles but it was still nice to hear from everybody back home. After we internetted, we went back home, did some wash, and then we made a cake in the microwave since we don't have an oven. Not necessarily proud of it, but it was pretty good given the circumstances. Then we drove up to Banana and we played frisbee on the beach for a while! Really fun day. For dinner, we went to our investigator's house for a surprise birthday party- for Mom! I told them last Friday it was Mom's birthday. Thy had set a dinner with us a while back, but they changed it around a little and we showed up and there was a super delicious cake and all kinds of food. They are awesome investigators- Bwateriki (Patrick) and his wife Teburea. They'll be baptized this Saturday.
Tuesday: Really draining day, busy in a lot of ways that are hard to measure. We only taught two lessons, but essentially we spent 6 hours finding referrals, contacting houses and tracting. Busy. We had a lot of great investigators, but they're all so great that they'll be baptized really soon and then we'll be out of people again! It was tough, a lot of the referrals weren't around or anything so it was a frustrating day. But I think the success was that we left the house at 10:30 and didn't come back til 9, even though we really, really were tired and bored. Tuesday night we had a farewell party for Ueata, the first investigator I ever baptized. He has been here on Christmas away from his family for 20 years running the airport. He's finally retiring and going back to Tarawa, and it was great to have a little party with him before he left. Great guy!
Wednesday: Another crazy day. This week, 2 elders from our district have been gone on Fanning Island, Christmas's outer island. There's a branch out there, but no runway for planes and a normal small boat can't make it. So every 4 months the elders catch a ride out and back on the cargo boat that comes from Honolulu to just check up on the branch and stuff. Anyway, while they were doing that, we had to run their area here on Christmas, in addition to our own. So Wednesday morning we skipped studies and worked from 9-1 in Tabwakea, and 1-7 in our own area. Lots of lessons, lots of people we got to visit. Way busy, way exhausting and really fun too. At 7 we got to go to a huge party at our Branch President's house, for his daughter Taakenteiti. She turned 13 so she's a woman now I guess. Anyways there was tons of food and it was awesome!
Thursday: Same busy day, working Tabwakea in the morning and then working London the rest of the day. Busyness! But afterwards, we went to dinner at Nakala's house. Nakala and his family were basically my family when I was here the first time around. I really love them, and it was awesome to see them again.
Friday: Same busyness, but we had lots of extra stuff to do to prep for our baptism. I'm running out of steam on this email.
Saturday: Really great day! We had lessons in the morning, and our baptism at 5! Two of our favorite investigators got baptized. Tawataake is a 13 year old girl who just decided to come to church on her own and has been super faithful throughout the whole lessons. She's super goofy, but really smart too. Our other investigator is named Timon. He's a stud. He has a mental disability a little bit, but he really, really focused during our lessons and would always memorize a kind of 1 sentence main point, and he never forgot it. Really cool guy. He's buff too, because he works on the fishing boats. Their baptism was great. Unfortunately, no one came :( just us, these two, and our branch mission leader - but still, it was really awesome. We did it in the ocean, and the tide was out so Elder Sion kneeled and the baptizees just sat and then laid down hahaha! It was too funny. Timon tried to go forward, and we had to do it a couple times for him to finally get all the way under water haha. When we came back from the ocean, Bwateriki and Teburea were there! They were really late, but they were still there. Great investigators. Since it was only us 7, we just had a tiny testimony meeting after everyone had showered and cleaned up. It was awesome to hear such pure simple testimonies from all 4 of our investigators, and I was really proud of them all. Afterwards, we had a GIGANTIC farewell party for the Andersons in the chapel. Like, probably 160 people showed up. There was so much food, like a whole pig and everything. Afterwards there was all kinds of cultural dances and stuff for the Anderson's from every auxiliary in the branch. Tawataake danced with the YW, and Timon with the YSA. Believe it or not, me and Sion danced with the Elders Quorum. It was so funny. Sister Anderson did a lot of crying. They sure are loved and they really will be missed.
Sunday: We had an awesome time at church. On the way though, my bike got broken, but some random drunk guy happened to be walking with a wrench, so he helped us fix it. He also said he would fix his life, which was hilarious. He used the bike in a huge extended metaphor for himself hahaha! Afterwards, we had 11 investigators at church! And we have plans for all of them to be baptized in the next 3 weeks or so. Really awesome.
Fantastic week, I love the area here, I love Elder Sion, I love the work, and I love all of you back home!
What a great email! I'm glad Dallin is having such great success. I loved his description of the baptism in the ocean. When I lived in Miami, we had a lot of young people join the church and they used to have sunrise baptisms in the ocean...took me back to that beautiful, spiritual scene. I also loved his description of the small testimony meeting with the four investigators. Still would love to see Dallin dancing! What a great experience he is having.
ReplyDeleteSo proud of Dallin. We use something from his experiences every week in our seminary classes. What an amazing example he is.
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