In The Zone!

Hi Family!  We had another great week. We have run into a little persecution from some of the other ministers on the island. Yeaaaa, it was rough. We were sitting on this buia with this guy Anibwate, and we were reading Moroni ch 7, talking about how to recognize good things in our life, and how we can receive a testimony. As we're talking, she (The KPC minister) rides down the road on the back of her husband's motorcycle. They turn around, stop in front of the house, she gets off, comes up behind us on the buia and starts just yelling. She's like, "What are you doing here? This is my sheep, how dare you" and then she was like, "The KPC has been here for so and so many years, why did you guys just come?" She seemed to think that was an awesome argument so she said it like 6 times. I was irritated and I wanted to say something really bad, but Farley held me back and then he just said, cool, alright thanks, and we turned around and finished our lesson. Right after she yelled, it was our investigator's turn to read the verse, and he read Moroni 7:14  and it was so perfect. But seriously, so ridiculous.

Yeah, persecution has begun. But its okay, I think we have a really good base. Last week we only had 9/10 in our north unit, but this week we had 17, and next week we could easily break 20. Should be way awesome.  All of the unimwaane, like old men elders were displeased with the minister because its so culturally wrong to be rude to guests, and to tell people what they can and cannot do in their own houses. So in the end we looked good I think.

Farley and I really work well together. I sometimes get overeager and try to do things that we probably shouldn't yet, and he helps to keep me in check. But I also get him to do some things he probably wouldn't on his own. Its going well.  

We had 41 at church, it should have been more. Some of our stalwarts were down with an illness in the south, and there was also a party. This week we'll be renting the car and having everyone from the south come up to the north to do a combined thing so we can all hear from President Weir. I think Elder Sion is coming too!

Combined meeting should be really good. I'm excited. (We commented that we were surprised there was a place to rent a car on the island) No, its not like we rent "a" car, we rent "the" car.  The one big donated truck from Taiwan that is like the school bus for the kids and all kinds of other stuff. Its the only car on the island, so we'll rent it, (the driver comes with) and everybody will get on down south, and we'll all drive up north to do church. We'll also pick President up from the airport. Should be really good. 

(We mentioned that his cousin Juntin will be submitting his mission papers in the next month or so.) Whoa, Justy could be out on a mission so quick! Tell him to try to come here, i could train him here on NIkunau and it would be sick. Hahaha. I'm glad he's so excited, he's going to love it. Its so fun honestly.

(Ed asked him if he was doing well with his journaling.) I love Wilford Woodruff, he is the man. I read his thing on journal keeping in the teachings of the presidents book and I've written in my journal every day since. He has heaps of crazy stories, what a guy.

(We asked if the internet would be fast enough for a Mother's Day Skype.) I think it probably could. Is that really in two weeks? I think it could definitely work, we'd just have to try and maybe it would take a time or two to get it to actually work. but yeah i think its worth a try! We saw someone Skyping a person from Tarawa here a few weeks ago, I think that means it can work to America too. That's good news. Hard to believe that will be the last one, this was certainly the fastest month of my mission. Hard to believe we've been here for that long. Way fun though.

(Ed's comments to him about finishing strong: "Time always goes fastest when you're busy and working.  Keep at it because this is the timeframe when the end seems a long way off - probably because it seems like it should be close, but you still have 7 months (which is short compared to 24, but still a long time).

This is the time you are literally "in your prime" as a missionary.

For a short time in the early 1980s the church changed the missionary service period to 18 months for Elders.  However, after just a short period - less than 3 years maybe - they changed it back to 24 because the resounding effect was to reduce the effectiveness of missionary work by sending home the most capable, experienced, seasoned missionaries right when they were able to have the biggest impact.

You're right in that zone of your mission right now.  You can teach well, you've had a lot of experiences, you've dealt with a lot of situations and people, and you know what it means to teach with and follow the Spirit.  That should be your goal every day - to teach and work by the Spirit.

I'm guilty, myself, of looking forward to when you're back home, so I'll restrain myself from mentioning it too often.")

We'll be working hard. This next three months is the long part I guess. After that its so close it's way fast, So I think its good I have lots of work to keep me busy! I've heard about that (change from 24 to 18 months), I think its true. Farley and I are both actually in that same phase, its been really fun. Same when I was with Sion. The work/teaching gets shared very evenly. I look forward to being home, but I'm happy with where I am right now. Its going well, and I'm happy with the work we're doing. I do miss ice and air con (haven't had that my entire mission) but I think its totally worth it. I'll do my best to keep everything up every day. Mothers' day skype will be great. 2 weeks from today, I'll make sure it all works out.

Gotta go!  Love - dal

A Prayer For Knees

Hi mom and dad! I'm online, we made it to p-day again. Really good week. How are you all?

Umm, we had 40 people at church this week, which was the crazy stretch goal we had set during weekly planning last week.  It was so cool! We overflowed the house we have church in in the South. Way awesome! Overall, I will give my week a 93 (Ed asked for a rating on a scale of 100). It was awesome, but I was sick a lot. For some reason I had the flu or something, but its okay. 

Also, thanks for praying for my knees because if you hadn't been I think I would have broken my right knee. (Last week Dallin mentioned that his knees were bothering him from sitting cross-legged on the floor and then riding bikes so much.  I told him that we would pray specifically for his knees this week.  It sounded weird, but we felt very strongly about it.  I guess we know why now.) We were biking in the rain and I was going so fast and I wiped out hard directly onto my knee. It hurt so bad and it has a HUGE bruise still. I was so scared I broke it. So biking was hard this week but I just hung in there and it worked out okay. Thanks for prayers though seriously I could have been in a bad situation without it.

It was an awesome week honestly. We were just talking last night about how we were pleased with what we did, but this week we're going to try and get into overdrive. There's an elder named Elder Loe, and he has opened 2 outies; Maiana and Kuria. He's like the standard of excellence for outer island work. They teach like 60+ lessons a week, baptize like crazy, and they have like 80 people coming to church. We are going to take on the records. I think we can do it, we've had two 40 lesson weeks in a row, now we're going to push it a little further. We have a baptism planned for the 9th of May. We're looking to baptize 20 people. We have 17 who have already come to church twice and we are looking for 3 more to make it to church in the next few weeks.  There are some really awesome investigators.  It will be amazing if we can pull it off.  Should be way awesome.  We'll be sure and take lots and lots of pictures.

We'll see how transfers end up. Sion's intake goes home in June, and that means that pretty much all of Tarawa needs to be replaced. Since me and Farley are both old in the mission, I would not be surprised if one of us has to leave in June. So that's more incentive to continue to absolutely destroy the work here while we have the chance.

We are really enjoying ourselves. I am being super diligent with my journal. I haven't missed a day. I read a chapter in the teachings of the presidents book on Wilford Woodruff about journals and it was so life-changing. I want to keep good journals the rest of my life. So you can all read all about it someday. Its been an amazing experience, I really can't even express it all fully. We are having so much fun.

We have a family that is a dad, a mom, and two daughters. the dad's brother is a teacher at Moroni. Whenever they go to Tarawa to visit his brother, they always go to family home evening with his brother's family on Mondays. When we were getting to know the family, he mentioned how really special that was to him, that they take a night out of the week just for the family. He says he always misses that feeling when they leave Tarawa. They've been amazing investigators, they are progressing so well. It will be cool to baptize them soon, the dad and the mom and one daughter. The other is too young, but they are amazing. The dad is named Etekia, and the wife, Ruuina, and the daughters are Tauno and Tiikoro. They are great. Etekia could easily end up being our unit leader in the southern unit, once we officially organize into a branch.

The mean village is okay. I got bit by a dog there this week, so that was fun. It didn't bleed or anything, but I cleaned it anyways. Even the animals there are mean. No real problems though.

( I asked if there were any differences in culture on Nikunau) Yes. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but Nikunau has a totally different accent than everywhere else. Its like, speaking Kiribati, with an Irish accent. Way up and down, and the intonation and things is way weird. Also, in the north/on Tarawa, they say "tu" as "soo". So I'm like trained for that. But, in the south (here) they say "tu" as too. So its hard to adjust - like even saying God (Atua) is hard, because I have to actively remember to say "atooa". Way weird.

Its been a really good time. I feel really happy about the work we're doing here, and I think its been such a blessing to get to come here. I think its really hard teaching and biking and being so busy all the time, but I think its way worth it too. There's so much to be done, its really exciting. We have to go actually! Anyway, thanks so much for everything! I'll talk to you all next week.

love dal

Making Progress!

We had a good week. We taught 41 lessons this week (personal record) and we had 23 total attendance at church. We're slowly making some good progress and its been exciting. We were exhausted. We taught our last lesson of the week at like 8pm on Sunday night and I have no idea how I was even speaking coherent sentences.  23 people! We had 9 investigators come, which is okay. we're hoping to get that number up. A lot of investigators didn't come for some reason. Its okay though, they'll come eventually. 

Our companionship is good. Farley is a funny guy. I did get dads pictures, and I am very jealous. Its fun to see Ian's face, i hope hes doing well as an RM. (Ian is like a son to us and a brother to Dallin.  He gave his homecoming talk this week in church and we had an open house for him.) When is he going to be
heading back to BYUI? We'll have to have him come down from Idaho all the time to hang out in Provo.
Good story. One day we were biking and a kid threw a stick at Farley. It got stuck in his tire and he almost fell over. It was actually kind of scary. It was in the village Rungataa. We have no investigators there. Its a huuuuuuge village and they have no desire to even have us bike through to the other villages. Every house we drive by gives us a bad feeling. We get yelled at and made fun of a lot on that 7 minutes biking through there. The stick was an extreme though. Hopefully it doesn't get worse!

I'm so tired. We leave the house at 10/11 and don't come home until like 8. It's harder than just biking long distances too, because we're stopping and sitting and teaching a lot all day long. My knees are going to be so messed up when I get home. It hurts to sit cross-legged for  a lesson and then hop right on a bike and cruise to the next one. I've been on a bike my entire mission so far haha! 

We have a less active here, but he only wants us to visit him once a week. He is a nice guy, but he doesn't really want to come back. I would try tracting or something but we're so busy with our other lessons we haven't had the chance. Its hard balancing finding with teaching lessons, we're just so short on time every day. 

We had 2 church meetings, one in the north at the house where we live and one in the south in Nikumanu. Its been good. The plane didn't come this week, so our other box never showed up. it was supposed to have sunglasses, sacrament stuff, and tithing slips in it. Hopefully we get that before Sunday next week.

Its been busy, we're just trying to have things go as well as possible. Its so hard because culturally people have no idea what we're doing. They think we come to their house to talk and to eat food, so they want us there for like 1+ hours and they have a hard time when we go fast. We tried having times set every half hour and it crashed and burned, we were just late all day long and didn't get to our last couple people even. We have to even plan on things not being as fast as we want them to. Church attendance is our biggest goal i think. Its hard to come up with talks every single week, and do the sacrament and conduct and pick songs and give the Sunday school
lesson, and to do it all twice because we have two units. Sundays are crazy, its good though.

I think i might even take a nap haha! We get fed all the time, we kind of just count on having lunch at some random house throughout the day - maybe twice or three times. We have most vital things, we could use sacrament trays/cups, more scriptures, and sunglasses. I did get that picture package.(I sent him a bunch of 5x7 pictures of Christ to give to people.  Most homes are very simple and any decoration or picture is a big deal.) I'll try to hand those out, i'm not very good at giving people things.

We use the solar stuff a lot. I love my little fan. I cant decide if I want other solar things. I think I'm okay honestly. If i didn't have it i don't even know what I would do. The little fan has been a life saver. I'll be sure to leave it for someone who needs it.Sleeping is good. We use mosquito nets and just sleep. Our 3-sided house is not really a house, its a platform thing about 4 feet off the ground with 3 walls. The rain isn't an issue, unless maybe it were to blow wind directly in the un-walled side which hasn't happened yet so I won't worry about it. Plenty of animals. Lots of dogs, cats, pigs and a horrible amount of flies. Nikunau is known among the Kiribati islands as having the most flies. Its kind of gross honestly. They like ride on our backs while we bike, its ridiculous. 

I have to go! Thanks so much for everything, I love you all. Talk to you all next week!
love dal

Most Memorable Easter Ever

(I found this picture of a big breadfruit tree.  This is kind of what I imagine when Dallin talks about the streets being lined with big beautiful trees.)

This was posted by the Kiribati Mission Nurse to her family about Nikunau.  I loved learning more about this amazing lady who was waiting for Elders Farley and Seguine when they arrived:

"We sent a couple of missionaries out to open a new island. We didn't know how they would be received or where they would live. They were very excited about the new adventure. When they landed at the "airport", a member just happened to be there and asked them what they were doing. When they told her they were going to open the area, she was so excited and asked where they were going to live. They told her they didn't have a place and she said she had a "house" for them to live in. Now this is a lady who saved her tithing for 10 years because she had no one to pay it to. She finally was able to come to Tarawa and was able to give her tithing to a bishop. She also talked to President Weir and told him he needed to send missionaries to her island, Nikunau. And there she was at the airport when they arrived...Elders Farley and Seguine. She had no idea they were coming."

- Sister Sue Alldredge

(We heard from Dallin yesterday.  Internet was not available earlier in the week, so when they were finally able to send a report to President he sent us an update as well.  He is so happy!)

We had a crazy week. Its been just amazing being here. So much fun stuff all the time. I love the family we're living with, they're fantastic. The work is going great. We had 22 new investigators last week and 9 people at our inaugural sacrament meeting. We think that this week more people will be ready to come and we are going to do a second meeting in the south of the island, so we are shooting for 40 at church on week 2, with both units combined. I think church will be the most important thing for the island, but lessons are sweet. We taught 9 lessons yesterday and we were working from 10 am to 9 pm. Crazy busy, but its so good here.

Our family is awesome that we're living with. It's cool here because extended families live together basically. The dad is named Teiaaba, and the mom is named Tarawaa. She's not here right now actually, she got on the same plane that we got off of, but before she got on she told us we could live at their house. She's an RM, served in Kiribati like 15 years ago. They also have a 6 yr old girl named Bikea and a 5 yr old boy named Tiawen. There are also Tarawaa's mom and dad, Rutia and Iwini. They are funny, funny old people. Its so fun to be around them and they're just so happy to have missionaries around. The kids are so funny especially.

We're working with referrals and finding people. It was crazy with Easter here, most people were in the giant KPC Easter party from like Thursday on, but this week people will be returning to their houses and more available. Lots of good members just go to church in the KPC because there is no LDS church yet. But the ones we've met with are totally ready to come back, so this Sunday should have lots more people.

Our stuff came in on Saturday and Monday - about half and half. We're lucky there are two flights a week here. It was lame because only one bike came in on Saturday, so we had to borrow a kids bike and it was so small and we traded off on the big one/small one because it was so painful to ride it. The other bike and the rest of our stuff came in on Monday, we're good for things now, I think I have everything I need. I'm healthy. I got a bad cold from being in the air conditioning on Tarawa for a few days, but other than that I am fine. I got over that really quick in the sun here. Its ridiculous though, I'll die going home in winter. I cant even handle being in car air conditioning a few hours a day. sheesh!.

I still love the island, its way cool. Nice and small, not long like Abaiang. We can go end to end in 45 minutes. That makes work easier because there is less of a commute and I really like that. Its not as hot as Christmas, which is nice. Its nice to not have as much biking, for sure. Its still a long way, but there are villages essentially the whole way. and logistically its nice, we live in the North tip, so we just teach the whole way out to the end, and the whole way back to our house, and the day is over.  Pretty cool honestly. There are 6 villages. 

From north to south: Muribenua (our village), tabutoa, rungataa, mwanriki, nikumanu, tabomatang. We're planning on the north unit being in Muribenua, and the south in nikumanu. So many investigators in both of those places. Its great.

We have GREAT food. This island is weirdly shaped compared to the rest of Kiribati,because there is no lagoon side. So that means that its all real ocean all the way around. and so the fish we get are big deep-sea fish, like huge tunas and things like that. They are awesome to eat and there are essentially no bones, and its tasty as can be. Tuna is like red meat, we cooked some and it was like steak. So good. We eat it raw all the time and its delish. Like just huge chunks of raw meat. Teiaaba and Tanentoa (the guy who is the melchizedek prisethood holder) took us fishing on monday. We were wading out on the reef with some sticks and lines and hooks and I caught like 5 fish in 45 minutes. it was so cool. We took them home and Rutia the old lady cooked them for us and it was so delicious. Great pday activity.

(Ed told him about going to ChikFilA for a shake - mean of his dad!)  I'm jealous.  ChikFilA sounds delicious - a lemonade shake!!  We don't drink anything cold, mostly we drink really hot drinks all day long - even in the noon sun we're drinking boiling hot drinks.  Makes you so hot from the inside - it's awful.  But it's cultural thing and every house wants you to have a drink or eat - crazy!

The villages are really cool here. Surprising how clean and organized everything is here. all the houses have a huge breadfruit tree by the road, its awesome. Really cool place. President is the man. He literally just sent us out here with no house, no idea what it would be like, nothing, and he just told us to establish the church and have a branch ready to be setup in 3-4 months. Quite a task.  I really sometimes feel overwhelmed. But I think all I'm doing is just normal missionary work. Just finding and teaching on a large, accelerated scale. That's it really. but still, its crazy to think about.

Farley is a good guy. Super funny. We worked together for a few weeks a long time ago. He's just a chill guy to get along with. We kind of struggled with our teaching style throughout the beginning of the week. Sion and I finished each others sentences, so it was very, very short sections from each of us, just a few seconds sometimes. Farley is just coming off of training, so he's used to giving almost the whole lesson. Its taking some getting used to. Finally last night we taught a really, really great restoration lesson and we were both please with how we split the time and the general direction of the lesson. Really strong spirit.

The more lessons we teach the easier it will get. Its so nice to have a clean island. All the houses/compounds have gravel floors that they have carried by bag by hand up from the beach so that their houses are clean. Its way better than sand. Great place.

I hope things will go well for all of us! Its exciting  for sure. Nikunau is a cool place. Love you all, have a great week, talk to you on Monday!

love dal