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....