Hopefully you have had an awesome week. Sounds like you've been having
so much fun in Indiana and the Dominican and at home and wherever
other fun places you may have been.
Happy Independence Day as well! Elder Farley and I said the pledge of
allegiance the morning of the 4th, just to be festive. I felt super
patriotic. The craziest thing ever, Kiribati Independence is July 12th.
Only thing is, Independence here, lasts a whole week, starting from
the 5th and just building up til the 12th. Everyone meets up and has a
GIGANTIC party in Bairiki (the national capitol), at the national
stadium (read - dirt soccer field with bleachers, and 100,000 people).
SO dirty and so insanely busy, but also so fun! The only hard thing is
that all of our people are gone :( So we had a really hard week for
work in Betio.
Luckily, we got to take a vacation and shortcut most of the
independence pain. My next transfer I will be working the outer island
of Abaiang. It'll just be me, and my trainee on the whole island.
We're also replacing a pair of Sisters, so it's not possible for us to
stay a week out there with them to have them show us the area and get
us used to the places or whatever. SO, President Weir authorized me
and my current companion Elder Farley, to take a boat out to Abaiang,
explore for three days, then buy plane tickets to come back in.
Essentially, a working vacation. It was so fun! Farley had worked
Abaiang 3 or 4 months ago, so he still had a good handle on the places
and the different church leadership there, which made it a lot easier.
I really had so much fun jsut getting used to the area. Abaiang is
just a really long thin island, and we live right in the center
village, Tuarabu. But, we work the whole island. We have a branch at
the furthest south point, and at the furthest noth point. So we
visited all the area, and I think I biked like 80-90 miles total in
those three days. We weren't really vacationing, we worked crazy hard.
We found about 21 different new investigators for me when I come back.
I'll be going out sometime next week, the 15th or the 16th, depending
on when my new companion comes in.
After our trip to Abaiang, we came back and just worked on our
baptizees. We had 4 of our investigators here in Betio get baptized,
and it was really awesome. We were exhausted from the trip, but I
think that made it easier for me to really feel our investigators love
for the church, and I was so proud of how they progressed. I'll send a
picture soon, the internet is too slow today.
Other than that, we're prepping Farley for his transfer tomorrow. He's
going to Onotoa, the furthest South missionaries are allowed right
now. I'm bitter we only got about a month together, we were a killer
combo. He's a great companion and I guess we're just too good to be
left together. Can't have everyone getting jealous of us :) In all
seriousness though, I'll be sad to see him go. We did a lot of good
work in Betio really fast, and it was lots of fun.
My time is almost up! We've got to go hit up the independence
festivities. Today is soccer semifinals, and the primary school dance
off. Should be too fun to watch. I'll take lots of pictures.
I love all of you! I am excited to talk to all of you next week, and
the weeks to come. Email was discovered on Abaiang, another precious
gem from our trip out there. All in all, great week. I'm happy and
healthy and very glad I am a missionary right now.
Talk to you soon!
Love Dal
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