Reaching Goals - Little by Little!

Hi Family!

It has been a CRAZY, CRAZY week!

Amazingly, we have been blessed with some AMAZING successes! I'll start from the beginning: President gave us a goal before we came here. 15 baptisms before Jan 1st.  In the past 4 months they've had 6, but President said that he fully expected us to be able to perform. So 15 has been burned into our minds and our planners. We went from 0 investigators last Monday to 14 this Monday. Moreover, 8 came to church after just a week of lessons. We're totally changing our styles- its new for both of us. We visit all of our people every day, and teach little bits in depth. Every lesson focuses on the gospel, and drawing nearer to Christ through our actions and such. We essentially are on track to hit 14 baptisms between now and the end of the month. Which will give us another whole month to smash President's goal. We're so excited. I LOVE teaching with Sion. We just get such
great flow and I can really see the results in our people's lives. it's amazing. We got 7 people just from tracting and we got the rest from referrals. it's awesome. We're hoping London doesn't get slowed down too much by us being in Tabwakea as well for the next few weeks. We're essentially working 3 branches. And, we only have bikes. We're going to ask President Anderson to let us use the car to make this feasible.

Best teaching experience: BANABA.

Banaba is the husband of a less active member named Friday (yes, literally). He's shy. Like, debilitatingly shy. But he's a great guy. We just had been talking with him for a long time while trying to reactivate his wife. Sisters told us he was a waste of time, but he actually started to open up to us. We finally set a time with him! And he ran away. But we reset it with his wife. He ran away from that one too. But, we reset it a third time and we finally got him! We had an AWESOME lesson. We just essentially asked him why he thought we were there, why we were so persistent about wanting to sit down with him. We explained that we wanted him to be happy and blessed and we had the gospel and that we knew that if he had the gospel he could be happy too. It went amazingly- we both said it was the best lesson we've ever given. Specifically because it was EXACTLY what he needed, not a lesson from the book. We've had two lessons since on the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He's awesome. Great questions and very willing to pray and read. He's the man. So is Sion, it's great to have
a companion I can count on to say the right thing at the right time.

Every time we come out of a lesson with him we both are just exhausted. It's hard to teach like that, we're like on top of our game for 40 minutes straight, and we've done it 3 times in a row. It's crazy and it would be impossible on our own for sure. But I'm so happy it's working.

(Ed commented that it was a unique approach to teach a very small amount each day) It's going so well; neither of us has ever taught investigators every day. It makes it way more flexible. We still have had time for tracting and contacting. So essentially we've just been machines this week. We don't have to do 12 weeks studies or anything so we leave the house between 10:30 and 11:00 and we work up until dinner at 7:00. It's so
fulfilling. 

(How are you studying language right now?) We study language mostly in reading the Book of Mormon and just talking to people. I haven't come up with anything organized other than reading and getting back into the habit of writing words down. Gospel study is one chapter in the Book of Mormon, then I kind of figure out lessons for our
people, from PMG or wherever else is applicable for the day.

A lot of the craziness this week had to do with a very delicate situation.  You know how we took over______'s area? London? Well it became dramatic. One of the missionaries who we just took over for happens to be one of the missionaries I took over Abaiang from. So _______ made it abundantly clear that _____ is angry at me and Elder Sion. Then in district meeting on Thursday I really messed up - I mentioned just casually as a part of our area update section that we had dropped a few people. ______ asked who it was and when I said their names ___ started freaking out and stuff about how they were good and it was CRAZY. Then ______ left district meeting, went straight to the Andersons house and slammed the door. _____ QUIT THEIR MISSION. _____ was finishing in December and just decided to go home. It was so weird. So _____ is flying to America on Wednesday, and the companion is going to Tarawa.

To make matters worse, Elder Tarati and Elder Ward, (one from Tabwakea 2 and one from banana) are going to visit Fanning, Christmas' outer Island. They'll be gone for two weeks. So essentially, we're left with 4 missionaries to cover 4 branches. Me and Sion are going to work all of Tabwakea ( my old area) and London until President can save us. Banana is going to be worked by Smith and Aru, who are both out like 2.5 months. It's an ABSOLUTE mess. But, if we weren't here right now, the island would essentially shut down for two weeks. On top of that, the Andersons have 3 weeks left. CRAZY!

(We asked why Kiribati missionary numbers seem to be declining.) It's the end of the surge I think. The big wave is all going home now, and it's not being replaced as efficiently. Only one comes in November and 3 leave, only 5 in December and 7 leave. We're going to be stretched pretty thin. President just replied, he told me he still hasn't even gotten word back from the area presidency on his original request to open Nikunau. He also gave us the instruction to focus on our own goals in London and to just "hold down the fort" in Tabwakea. It's gonna be a big change for the rest of us who stay behind.  This mission especially. We only have half a missions's worth of elders in Kiribati anyways, and we have 26 on outies, plus 6 here, 8 as dl's and companions on Tarawa, 4 zl's, and one ap. there's only one spare companionship of elders on Tarawa right now, so I have no idea what president is going to do. 

(We told him a little about what we were doing in Barcelona.) Sounds like Barcelona is so fun! Speaking of Spanish, Elder Sion is obviously fluent. His family speaks Spanish at home. But he got to talk to one of the workers on the big fishing boats in Spanish and it was so fun to listen. I understood everything they said, I remembered all the words and stuff. I could not for the life of me make my brain put it together in any logical way to speak it. I just spoke Kiribati haha it was funny though. Hopefully you're remembering the promise to not have
too much fun while you're there.

So excited to be here. Next few weeks will be exhausting. Hopefully it will work of alright! I love you all, thanks for the prayers. Thanks for staying up so late too! Have a fun time in Spain :) talk to you all next week! 

Love Dal