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
Oh my goodness, they are on FIRE! I don't know how they can do more than they are already doing but leave it to Dallin to challenge himself even more. I will add Dallin's knees to my prayers about him as well. Happy to see him so happy.
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