The rain finally stopped! It trickled a little bit on Friday,
but the last of it was for the most part on Thursday. But that is when Elder
Nonu's bike broke, so we have been walking until he gets it back...
Anyway, last Monday we went to the Anderson's for family home
evening. (They almost always hold a family home evening at their house on
Mondays) We thought there was going to be lots of people but there was just me
and my companion, [Timothy] (a recent convert in our ward, he is pretty
awesome. He is Cantonese, but was adopted by English parents when he was a
baby, and has lived everywhere, so his accent is interesting. He used to be a
total punk/goth thing, piercings all over, Mohawk, club every night, but now he
is actually quite respectable. ;P He is 34, but still seems pretty young. Haha
he is fun) who came with us, [Nick] (he is a YSA in the other elder's ward, but
we see him all the time. He is the man. ), his sister (she is pretty young, I
think about 9 and investigating the church), and of course, the Andersons. We
talked about the pioneers, it was awesome!!
Tuesday was pretty good, but in an average sort of way. Not much
to say, we were still getting hit hard with the rain. We were going to do
what is called rescue nights, where we get with the ward members and go visit
less actives, but we were waiting and no one showed up. Turns out (pretty
predictably, actually), they had cancelled it, and texted everyone but us, but
hey, missionary problems. :P
Wednesday morning we went to see an investigator named [Pam].
She has been meeting with the missionaries for quite some time and she got
married last December. She has been saying she will get baptized, but she keeps
pushing it back, but she finally set a date for Saturday a couple
weeks ago, and she had her baptismal interview today! Which she passed.
After that, we headed out to Takitumu. While we were visiting
Sister [Tyler] (one of the regulars we see, she is an older single sister and
she is awesome. She loves her animals and she was the one whose goat we were
chasing) we had a pretty unique experience. Apparently sometime during the
night, one of her goats was giving birth. Something went weird, or the mama
goat was too wimpy or something, anyway, when Sister [Tyler] found her, she had
a dead baby goat hanging half way out of her. Just it's head, leg, and a small
part of another leg, and we did not know how to get it out. She had tried
pulling it out, but nothing had happened. Now Sister [Tyler] LOVES her animals,
so she didn't want the momma goat to get hurt. So we were worried about being
too rough or something. She asked if we could bless it (not in complete
seriousness, mostly just in a curious way), and we said no, but we could say a
prayer? She said ok and asked one of us to say it. Me and Elder Nonu did not
really know what to say, so we sort of looked at each other and had one of
those mental exchanges of who was going to do it. It fell to me, so I said a
prayer basically asking for the goat to be ok and for us to know how to help.
We couldn't figure out what to do. So Sister was [Tyler] going to go see if she
could call the vet, so she went back up to her house and it was just us and the
goats. We didn't know what to do, but we felt prompted that we should just pull
it. I told my companion that I said the prayer, so he got to pull...
So Elder Nonu grabbed some Taro leaves (Taro is a plant with
large leaves that grows all over the south pacific. Specifically the root. The
islanders love the stuff, they can't get enough. I don't think it is THAT good,
but it is ok. The leaves [which, if eaten without being cooked properly, make
your throat all scratchy, so they need to be cooked for a while], called Ruko,
are really good, I will send a pic), and wrapped it around the head so he
wouldn't have to touch it with his hands. I held the goat from the front so it
wouldn't try to walk away, because it was obviously uncomfortable (and I think
it was completely justified). At first it wouldn't budge, but he gave it a tug
and it gave most of the way out, and then all the way out onto the ground. It
was cool! It was pretty sad though, because the baby was dead, and the mother
was trying to clean it off. But oh well, there was nothing we could do about
that. It was just a cool experience. :)
Then we went to Sister [Kelly]'s house (another regular who
happens to be another elderly single sister. There is a lot of elderly people
in that branch. They are awesome though) She talked a whole bunch and gave us
food. (They do both of those things a lot :D)
Then we went to go see a referral. It was a cool family, all of
them. But it was mostly the father/husband that we talked to. And not as much
out of choice. He was cool, like I said, but he would make a very good
democratic liberal. Talking for ages about wars started to make money, money in
general, conspiracies, unhealthy food and how come it is more expensive, how
all religions are vehemently fighting each other so none of them must be right,
how he is open minded but seems to know everything, and how the US is all about
making money and not helping people. Man it was hard to listen to. But at least
he wasn't angry or blaming us for any of it. Just the world in general.
On Thursday we were really hungry, so we went and got breakfast
after studies. It was way nice because I don't eat much breakfast anymore.
Mostly because there is not much time to make a meal in the mornings, so you
need something that is readily accessible and easy to eat, usually I get
granola, but anything like that isn't safe around these Island boys. Man they
can EAT! They eat so much food, I don't know where they put it. I have seen
missionaries eat as much as 3 burgers, a thing of fries, and a drink and just
barely be full, or still be hungry!! Haha, so it is hard not to get fat. (I
think I have already gained some weight. :( But I am still skinny for now!!
Ha!)
Anyway, we talked to a lot of tourists. There is heaps of
tourists there and usually we don't talk to them as much cause they won't be
there for long, but this week we talked to a good handful of them. While we were
biking around we saw a low section of the road completely covered by a stream.
It was flowing over it and cascading off the other side. So we jumped around in
it for a while. Got pictures it was pretty flippin sweet.
Then we went to a food
shop to see someone we have been getting to know better and she is a potential
potential investigator. She is cool, but we haven't talked to her much about
the gospel yet. Anyway, we were going to talk to her, but some other guys came
in and ordered some food, so she was busy making it so we weren't able to talk
much. We got some milkshakes just to give us a reason to come back. (Usually we
get smoothies, which are REALLY good here BTW, but they had no fruit)
So then we saw another
person (who is actually related to Elder Nonu, just like everyone else. Man we
have met heaps of his family.) She was out with her son collecting coconuts for
her pigs. They love them. So do all the animals. Man I have seen everything
from pigs to chickens to dogs just go nuts over the coconuts. I took some
pictures of her week old piglets, they were super cute. ^_^ Elder Nonu's bike
chain kept coming off throughout the day, so that night while we were going
home, and it just wouldn't' stay on, he just got fed up with it and chucked it,
which I think broke some things, although I can't say they weren't broken
before. So we took it to the shop and we have been bike-less for a couple of
days. Lots of walking, but not a lot of people live close, so it was kind of a
struggle finding things to do.
Friday was Friday the 13th!!!! YAY awesome day. Anyway, we did
our bible studies class at the college (high school). As we were going home we
were offered a ride by a lady from another religion who was also teaching at
the college (all the religions do it). Since it was only her in the car, and we
aren't allowed to be alone with someone of the opposite gender like that, we
said we couldn't. But it kind of caught us off guard, so Elder Nonu said we
couldn't because we have rules. Haha I think she thought we weren't allowed to
ride with other religions. Anyway, then someone else came from the AOG church
who had also been teaching at the college and there was a man and a women so we
accepted that one. Hehehe.....
We went to the market on Saturday morning. Then we
walked to Telecom (the phone service shop thingy of here) to talk with some of
the YSA that work there. (From the other ward of course, we hardly have any in
our ward) Then we had [Pam]'s baptism!! It was really awesome!! She was
baptized with an 8 year old named [Jordan] who is her husband's sister's
daughter, so [Pam]’s niece. Like I said though, it was really good. It was one
of the most spiritual baptisms I have seen. I loved it! Though when we were
filling up the font, it wasn't very full, but since [Jordan] is pretty small,
they were worried it would be too deep. Turns out it was not too deep at all,
in fact it should have had more. When my companion (who baptized [Pam]) got in,
it was just over his knees! He is really tall though, like WAY tall, so it is
not as shallow as it sounds, but it was funny. :) Then on Sunday we
just had meetings, talked with some people in our ward who were waiting at the
chapel. (Two youth and two of our three YSA...) Did some family history, more
meetings, and then a walk to see an awesome family.
That was the week! That was a really rambley email with a lot of
probably unnecessary info, so I hope you felt patient, and thanks for reading
up until this point!
I also included some pictures of our living quarters!
I also like this video. Enjoy: :)
LOVE Y'ALL
-Elder Clayton-
1:
2: Sad a bit graphic picture of baby goat that we pulled out.
3-5: Flooded section of road/scenery
6-8: Cute pictures of Piglets
9: Dodgy, but welcomed washroom
10: Front door
11-14: Front room
15-16: hallway/bathroom
17-18: Our bedroom. My bed is the one my companion is not on.
.JPG)
