PICTURES! (Cubby 12/24)

Cubby was finally able to send pictures while he was on Tarawa for Chirstmas.

Enjoy!

 

Eating at the 'american' burger joint on Tarawa. He was sick...

Fishing

From his first week when he fell out of the netting while he slept

From his flight from Abaiang to Tarawa

Check out the Eel

Where Cubby sleeps. His bed is on the left. Their bikes in the back

View from inside the Chapel

The 'hotel resort' on Abaiang. Just cabins, not much inside.

Missing Nei Temouti (Cubby letter 12/31)

Cubby's letter on New Years Eve 2018

First of all thanks for all the packages, all the stufd is way useful, already eaten or currently in use. In terms of things, I haven't been this excited during Christmas for awhile

Even though a bunch of this last week was spent in Tarawa, it was quite an eventful one. So we took an airplane to Tarawa on Sunday, but they didn't have any of our tickets, so I had to drop like 200 big ones for us and the sisters to get on the plane. Good thing I hardly ever even use money out here in Abaiang I guess. It was a cool flight, but it was literally ten minutes long, Abaiang is pretty close to Tarawa. We stayed with the Elders in Buota that night, and surprisingly most of them had worked in Abaiang before. Basically they related to us how there is hardly any work... which we didn't need them to tell us that. They did give us some good tips and surprising information about the people though, so that was good. The next day was combined pday, which was alright, I played rugby for maybe the first time, and we watched 17 miracles. We realized at the end of the day that our Christmas calls were way early in the morning and Buota is on the other side of Tarawa from Moronai Highschool, were we would be calling. So we stayed in the Eita house that night with like none of our stuff, which we had brought over from Abaiang in cracker buckets. We woke up on Christmas and did our calls and yadda yadda, which was way fun, I just wish they were a little longer. But after that we had a huge lunch and they had all sorts of food, mashed potatoes, turkey, ham, an Australian rendition of stuffing, and ginger bread. It was really good, and I found out that they don't usually eat turkey in Australia and New Zealand. Poor guys. Anyways that night we were staying in Eita again, and the elders there invited us to their district Christmas party. That was way fun, the food was different though, all we could buy was Kiribati food, so that is what we had. Very different from the party President Larkin put on. Somewhere in all of this fancy food eating, my stomach got destroyed, but that's a story for another time. Before our flight the next day we figured out that our big suitcases were actually being stored in the Eita house, so we grabbed a bunch of stuff which was nice. On the way back we had way to much stuff, but we were way determined to bring it all back, so we used the duct tape I got for Christmas and did some ghetto packing. Air Kiribati is pretty lax on their restrictions on what you can take on the airplane so we were all good. Fast forward a couple days and we were just getting back into the normal schedule, and we get a call saying that the sisters in Tuarabu (1 hour away from Tabontebike via bike) were moving to Tarawa for a week or two and that they wanted us to move into there house. So we packed up all of our stuff and moved down the next day, which included bringing a bunch of our stuff down in the morning, helping the sisters all that day, returning, tying up some loose ends in Tabontebike, and returning with our suitcases on our bikes in the dark, which was fun. So the last couple days we've been picking up some of the Sister's people, who are way more solid than any of our people, and basically figuring out that everything is way better and easier here. They have like seventy people that come to church and their Branch Presidency doesn't smoke and drink so that is cool. We got final approvals to move into the newly built house near Tuarabu, so it looks like we might never stay in the chapel again, which is weird. Feels like I've been transferred almost.

Anyways, tekeraoi te waaki

Elder Cubby

In our phone call we learned that he buys soap for the village to do laundry and in return they do his laundry. I asked who was going to do it if they moved....

I had to do all my laundry today, Nei Temouti is the lady who used to do it. I tangirngkami and have a happy new year!
 

Did you play tackle rugby?

no, it was just touch rugby. A bunch of guys from Samoa and Tonga were playing and I think one guy was kinda frustrated that he couldn't outrun me.

  

Ben asked if he was able to bring his new football to Abaiang

I did bring it. Sometimes we do sport based workouts so it'll be used. And the little kids will be shocked to see a brown rugby ball 

Do the mosquitoes bite the natives and what do people do for money?
 

The mosquitoes do bite the natives yes. They just don't have crazy reactions to the bites, and they use bungas as well. And the people collect coconuts and split them and dry them out. They then sell them to some sort of factory for a standardized price per pound. We help them split sometimes for service, it's like cutting wood. 

Are you doing anything for new years?
 

Mauri kain abau!

And we're having just a big dinner with the branch later tonight. Also I realized that I'll beat y'all to the new year and that on my Birthday I won't be 19 years old. 

We sent a christmas box that included a small air bed. We asked about it...

 I could not fit that bed in my bucket or get it on with duct tape, so I left it in Tarawa. A lot of the Elders there sleep on the ground, so it will be well used eventually. As for stuff... I'm not sure, I got all the stuff I've ever wanted here and more for Christmas. Me and Elder Wright have already eaten all the cheese plate stuff, I'm not sure he's eaten cheese as good as that even in America. I think the cheese plate actually made me miss you guys more than the call did, which was an odd feeling. Yesterday we biked back to Tabontebike for church because the Stake President was coming,  and we wanted to finish up the Temple Class. We're going to this other branch this week I think though

To my Fans (Cubby letter 12/17)

So an interesting week I suppose. On Tuesday, they picked us up on a boat to go to zone conference on Tarawa. They were supposed to come at four in the afternoon, so we planned a couple lessons before we left, but they came just before ten in the morning, so we missed them, which I was a little sour about, but not outwardly. Tarawa was pretty interesting, it is far more advanced than Abaiang, but definitely third world. Elder Wright insists that it is just like America, but I have to remind him that it is not. We stayed in Teorereke for two nights, Elder Gurr and Elder Patterson from the MTC stay there so that was pretty fun to see how they were doing. The first night we got there, they took us to this member's house who is trying to open up a Kiribati burger shop, so we got to taste exactly what that is. There were cooked onions, some canned ham, and egg, and some meat sauce on it. All on a donut bun. A lot of flavor was there, it was pretty good. I also bought chocolate milk at one of the stores, it's called Indomilk, it's actually a very high percent cream, it was pretty good. Only problem is that I haven't had dairy products in over a month and it really hurt my stomach. Sleeping in the house was pretty rough too, it was so cold. I also think I got a fever the second night there. As soon as we got back to Abaiang and spent the night though, i was all better. I think it was just something about Tarawa, it was odd. As for the rest of the week, we had two people literally ask us to be baptized, which was nice for a change. One of them lives way down in Borotiam at the other end of the island, so we had to bike down there. We went past it to the very tip of the island just to say that we did. Took us 2 hours and 22 minutes. The only other good thing I guess is that I've become better at throwing rocks at dogs. They wake me up at night so I'm teaching them to fear me. 

Elder Cubby

True Religion Genes (Cubby letter 12/10)

kam na bane ni mauri I suppose

Sorry for the weeklong delay, the internet didn't work last week. It was a pretty good two weeks though. The work has picked up a little, we've more than doubled our teaching pool, not bragging about that, our teaching pool before was two. Elder Wright had been pretty unmotivated for the past week or so, mostly because our work has come with little to no success. But through some subliminal messaging I think I've helped him overcome some of that. I feel like I could communicate more clearly, but this is more effective and way more fun. I'll just go through some highlights, on Monday last week we went fishing from the beach. The funny thing about Kiribati fishing is that they use basically all the stuff we do, except for the pole. So you just kinda throw the bait with the fishing line on it. The fish are so easy to catch that it really doesn't matter. All we caught were kinda small okoaka, which I think might be sea bass. I almost got this enormous fish, probably the length of my arm, but it broke the hook off the line. I was actually pretty upset about that. Me and Elder Wright took the branch to Takerano, the other tip of the island, for a picnic. It was pretty successful, more people came than usually come to church. Apparently most of kids and a bunch of the adults had never been to the other side of the island. I know for a fact that Ben couldn't rest until he had been to both ends, so that kinda confused me a bit. We picked up some new investigators who seem solid, which was good, because we have not been teaching very many lessons. We learned how to make a sweet soup made out of breadfruit, which was easily the most organic thing I've ever done. We found a coconut, and scraped the inside of it out and squeezed the coconut milk out of it. We were about to use some sugar cane to put in it, but the guy who was teaching us found some sugar at the last second. It's still raw sugar, so still organic. Y'all from Portland can be jealous. We fixed Elder Wright's bike through hammering, which was satisfying, albeit unorthodox. We only had five people take the sacrament yesterday because our branch president started us on time and everyone was out late on Saturday, but a bunch of people showed up for our temple lesson, which went well I think. 

Anyway for the spiritual thought, I just have something simple. We've been getting in the habit of baring our testimonies at the end of the first lesson, and I usually go after elder Wright. I always end by saying that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the people we are teaching can know this is true it by reading and asking God through prayer. It's just a constant reminder to me that this is the Lord's Church, and I can bare testimony of it with confidence, because it is. It reminds me of how great it is to do the Lord's work, and excited for those who are about to begin doing so as well.

I tangirngkami

Elder Cubby

What are you doing for excercise? What's the recipe for that soup?

Elder Wright is actually very into fitness, so we work out for about am hour everyone morning starting at 7. We would start at 6:30, but it usually takes about a half am hour for the dinner from the night before to finish its course through the both of us. And the recipe is about 2-3 ripe breadfruit, 2 coconuts worth of coconut milk, and sugar to taste. Boil in a pot until soupy and eat over rice. The soup itself can have some... interesting textures, but you don't notice them with the rice.

We do plyos, runs, abs, push ups, sprints, the works. Elder wright saw that I looked athletic and decided that I would be good to work out with. And we use these big buckets for dumbbells most of the time actually.

Clear coconut water or with the fat?

It for sure isn't clear. It is white. We make the coconut flakes with this weird metal thingy and then put them in a thin cloth and squeeze out the milk. So whatever you think that would be.

I am just really interested in what the Okoaka is in English, if there is a name for it. We eat it for dinner almost every night. Apparently Elder Wright ate bone fish every night in Abamama, and was surprised to know that it is actually quite sought after in the first world.

We can't find a translation for Okoaka fish....