What the heck is going on (Cubby letter 1/7/19)

 A lot of mission firsts this week. First time an investigator came to church (8). First time not having at least half of our lessons fall through. First baptismal dater. All sorts of stuff. Tuarabu is really strange. We had about 75 people at church yesterday, which felt odd after having about 10 the week before in Tabontebike. It's weird that the two cities are on the main island. Well anyways, a good week. It rained pretty hard for about 3 days in a row after pday, when we got home those nights we were soaking wet, and there was no way to get the clothes to dry. So the one shirt and one pair of pants I had left got pretty dirty. I think we really tore up the island during those days, we took all the sisters investigators, which was a lot, but we decided to really start working in Borotiam (other end of the island from Tabontebike) and we picked up a couple new ones there too. They haven't really had elders there for about twelve weeks now, so they were pretty happy to see us. Also the branch president's son pooped on our porch, which was an interesting way to start Thursday. I've started getting my stomach practiced in milk again, I eat this weird Aussie stuff called Weet Bix every morning with water and milk powder. It was rough at first, but I'm good now. Anyways I can't really think of much more, besides that we finally got permission to move into that house they're building us, and it's almost done. 

I tangirngkami 

Elder Cubby

 

I told him I was sending a package and about Ben giving his farewell talk on sacrifice next sunday. His response...

 

For then package, what I said last week and maybe another one of those camping towels, get one for Ben too. I thought about Ben and Tyler today, it's a bit funny to me that they are all alone now. As for sacrifice, all I can think of is time preference combined with it being putting others above yourself. I started sleeping on the ground again because my back was starting to hurt during lessons and I couldn't focus, but the bed is more comfortable. Lame example, but it's what I could think of. 
 

Things of note I just thought of

We met this American tourist who somehow made his way to Abaiang from the Marshall Islands. He was an International relations major in college and apparently he went backpacking in Moldova once. I'm assuming one of the few people in the world to have been to both places. 

Me and Elder Wright just found a guy with clippers in the island, so we just got some sweet islander haircuts. Pretty sick

 

 Isaac saw an article that a cyclone had hit and many of the moms had not heard from their sons today. An island named Tamana was hit hardest.

Tamana is actually an interesting place, there are no missionaries there, because everyone belongs to the KUC there ( Kiribati United Church) and they basically try to kill anyone who doesn't belong to it. The mission president before Larkin went there to try and open relations but was thrown in jail for two days. And some elders in Tarawa just emailed me and said that the causeway between Betio (population 30,000) and the rest of Tarawa is flooded, and a couple houses were knocked down.

 

Talking about pictures...

 

the people here are obsessed with pictures, they basically expect you to bring pictures of you and your family to church, so the picture book I have has been well used.
they were very interested in the fact that Sam is so big. And some of the women here were talking me that I should tell Sam and Chancho that they will come back here and get engaged. They like bigger guys sometimes. More fit for the work here I guess. And Chancho didn't have a shirt in one picture, and a younger girl was nearby.

 

Of clothes pins and flies and music...

 

I gave a bunch of those clips to Nei Temouti, she used them for our clothes. You guys are lucky you have no flies, we have to stay on top of putting band aids on our wounds, the flies eat at them and they get bigger if we don't.
They really like upbeat music here. They are really bored all the time, so they like to feel something when they listen to music I think. Some old country songs get kinda popular here oddly enough. If you want examples of what they listen to, Elijah L is the most popular artist here.