I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love (Ben letter/pics 3/25/2019)

This week was yet another lovely week in Moldova. On Monday we took that maxi taxi, which is pretty much like a mormon 15 passenger van but with 30 people, to Orhei, a city about an hour north of Chisinau. On the ride there, I got to meet some interesting people. So first I let a man sit down in my spot so I stood the whole time which was good balance practice. I ended up in the back by these two guys who were really having a good time. It was one of their birthdays and, so long story short, they didn't know where they were. Also, the one guy was telling me that it was cold, trying to help me because I wasn't wearing a coat. However it was probably 80 degrees in there and he was dripping sweat so I just thought that was funny. 

After we got there we spent the night in one apartment and spent the next day looking for people to teach. We came back that night and taught English so it was a good day. I found this ghetto old English book on the street and it has some good content so I'm trying to teach some of the lessons in there to our English class. 

Also this week we went to the piata, which is a giant market place, and has everything you could ever dream of. So I'm excited to go back there and check out what it has to offer for 15 lei. Also this week Petru drew a portrait of me, and it took him all of 20 mins, and it looks really good. Petru is a member we meet with every week to read the Book of Mormon with, and pray, and he's cool. Other then that the Curent is still deadly and the buses are still full, and there are plenty of people to try and teach. 

For a spiritual thought, remembering with what your are blessed with is important. I see lots of people everyday,and some of them look lonely, sad, begging for money etc. It is very hard for me to see all these people suffer with whatever problem they have, and I just want to go up to them and give them all my money, or be their friend all day, or whatever they need. But I can't. Its impossible. I physically cannot go help every person with money, sickness, sadness etc. So I got to thinking about something that I have already known, but it just makes a lot more sense to me now. And it is that God sees us all in the same manner. He knows what all of us have gone through, and what we have problems with. That's why he sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins, to know how we feel in our worst times, to enable us to get through those problems. God cannot come down to earth to help us with every little thing, and dwell with us while we are not perfect. So when He sent Jesus, Jesus formed a church, and taught His gospel to bring happiness to all mankind. He didn't go through the streets giving people money, or give them freedom from a corrupt government. He gave us reason and purpose for our lives, and how to be happy. He taught us and gave us a way we can overcome the things in our life that we cannot control.  So what is important for me to remember is that I have a message that can help all these people. It won't necessarily fix all their worldly problems, but it can bring them a better happiness then anything worldly can give you. So anytime you feel down, sad, whatever it is, feel blessed that you can know the most important thing, and that is that through Jesus and His Atonement, we can overcome these things. Make sure not to get too caught up in the stuff that doesn't matter, and always remember the things that do matter, the joy the Gospel will bring into your life.

If any of y'all have questions or want a friend to email every Monday, feel free to email Cubby.

 

Te iubesc pe tine yall

Varstnicul Stanfield

 

Hosting Elders from a different city

Ben likes his sleep.  I asked him if he was keeping his apt clean. He was adamant that he was. But I see socks....always socks everywhere

 

PICTURES (Cubby 3/25/2019)

Biking in their new area of Bikenibeu (Elder Chun)

Mom: "Cool, what's it called?" Cubby: "And that is what Kiribati people call a bird. there are a bunch of different kinds, they are all called te manikiba or "the animal of flight"

Loved seeing Cubby's webbed toes! Not so much the dirty laundry water

Wonder if they ate it?

Water station?

Elder Wright

His feet!

"if you look closely the older lady in the picture she looks pregnant but it is just a gas build up in her stomach"

 

Eel. They ate some

Really High Tide on Abaiang

Investigator with twins

Houses fell during a storm on Abaiang

Their new house he had to leave on Abaiang

Bikenibau, Tarawa

a street on Tarawa I guess and his favorite palm tree?

Toilet Paper (Cubby letter 3/25/2019)

Mauri mauri!

So I'm not exactly sure what to write in this email, so I'm going to start writing and see where it takes me. All the days and weeks are blending in like crazy here, it's wild. I'm not sure if it is because it's my second area, or because I've already been out for 6 months or what, but ut's actually tripping me out a little bit. One thing that I can think of that happened this week is when we were doing service at our bishop's house this week. They had like a weird wooden structure that held up some big sheets of metal, and we were trying to help them take the metal off. So the idea was some kid from the ward would get up there and take off the nails first, and then we would take off the metal. But, unsurprisingly, Kiribati people haven't quite mastered the art of white people building, so the beams under the metal were almost breaking when the kid was walking on them. So me and Elder Chun and this investigator named Tekaeti followed underneath the kid and supported the beams with sticks that we were carrying. But the kid got a little show-offy, and ran ahead of and was jumping around and whatnot. And as you an probably guess, one of the beams broke and he fell through. Nobody got hurt really at all, but he did fall on me, but I did dodge him and deflect with my shoulder, because my father is a tiger and my mother is a puma. Besides that, this week has been full of teaching lessons, tracting, meetings, and eating dinners. That's all I got so far this week.

for a spiritual thought, this week we started teaching this guy named Kabunang, and he is not the brightest guy in the world. He told us that he drank too much when he wwas young and it killed his brain. Anyway, he is really interested and really wants to hear about the gospel, but he has trouble understanding us when we teach and it is hard for him to read Ana Boki Moomon. So we taught him about prayer, and when we asked him if there was anything we could do for him, he just told us to pray for his help. It just kinda shows me that if we pray with faith, our prayers can be answered, because he is starting to be a little more understanding.

Anyways I'm healthy, I tangirngkami

elder Cubby


He finally figured out google hangouts so we could text. Some things we talked about...

We have not eaten the pig. 
Yes, I recommend Abaiang. (As a place to visit/vacation/travel)
They only sell short person shorts here. (He needs more)
The members are super cool here in Bikenibeu 1st.
We teach anywhere between 3 and 6 times per day usually. Mostly investigators. Alot of them are just the first lesson though, when we tract
Every Thursday we do a bunch of service, but we do some randomly as well

Do you need more toilet paper or something?

Toilet paper is fine, it was more like a metaphor for time 

Pot sa va intreb ceva? (ben letter/pictures 3/18/2019

This week has been my first "normal" week, if this is what normal is. Also I do not know what scripture I want on my plaque yet, you will have to give me some time for that life changing choice. But yeah I study a lot of Romanian, and get help from my trainer elder Marshall, Mihai and Olicia. Mihai is fluent in English so he teaches me the deeper language concepts. Olicia doesnt speak English with me and so it helps me a lot to speak to her, to help my pronunciation and fluidity. The language here, Moldovan, is Romanian. But I think the main reason its considered different is because they are all fluent in Russian and Romanian, so when they speak, they kind of switch back and forth between languages. Thus making it a little more difficult to understand, but its fun. 

We go contacting on the street a lot, mostly in parks and the street. The main street, Stefan cel mare si Sfint, is quite busy, and we can get out a lot of pass along cards and advertise for our English class a lot. Our 30 something year old water heater broke, and so we have been taking showers elsewhere.

 

A cool cultural thing here that I have already fallen in love with are the crepes or "plin". They have them in all different assortments, and they are so good. The food here in general is very good, and I have been quite impressed.

 

For a spiritual thought, prayer is very important. It's a little more of a simple concept, but it can be hard to remember. God is all knowing, so he knows what you need before you ask. But when you pray and have a conversation with Him, He will let you know what to do. For example, I pray to God everyday to ask what I need to do to help others. So I pray for my companion and think of the ways I can help him, and God will help me. I kind of think of it as a personal evaluation, but with God there to help me. But prayer is such a simple concept of thanking God for what you have, and asking for spiritual help you need. What father when hearing his child need bread, gives him a stone? Praying regularly will help you, not when you're in times of need, but always. I challenge everyone reading this to either start praying, or honestly seek about how you can pray more effectively and build your relationship with God better. 

 

Te Iubesc

Varstnicul Stanfield

 

 

We talked to him for a while. The RS ladies in his ward had rented a bus to take them to a historical site about an hour away. When they saw how big the bus was, they invited all the missionaries to join them. So he had his first sight seeing experience. He sent me a huge file full of pictures without any explanations, so I just picked a few I thought looked good...

 

I am assuming this is from his 11th story apartment. It looks really nice!

The Bus

With his companion, Elder Marshall

View from the apartment

 

7% Peach Flesh (cubby letter 3/18/2019)

Mauri my people

So this past week continues to be full of new stuff. I've figured out how rich I really am, due to all the money I didn't spend out on Abaiang. My Hawaiian companion loves Spam (naturally), but because it is so expensive here, he was limited to buying it a couple times a month. But since I've been companions with him, we've had it about 4 or 5 times. He's pretty happy about it, and me too, he is good at cooking with it. He does say though that it is not real Spam, but a weird Australian or Fijian version. The days here in Tarawa all seem to blend together, it's pretty odd. But this week has been filled with a little bit of everything, tracting, teaching, eating, meetings, etc. I think it is good to note that we share a house with our District leader, Elder Payne and his companion Elder Pule'anga, who is straight out of Tonga and is currently keeping a dead piglet in our freezer. But the point is we have a freezer, and that modern technology is a miracle. We picked up some new investigators this week, and they are progressing pretty well. It's easy to teach here because everyone is still really religious, but at the same time more open minded. Ask me some questions, my brain is currently out of information.

As for a Spiritual thought, I just want to add on Ben's last email actually. He talked about being a disciple and how it can open people up and I can say that is true. I've been trying to talk to everyone here, just because there are so many people here. And I've found that if I just try to look at people through the eyes of someone who is trying to be like Jesus, ie a disciple, it's a lot easier to talk to them and it seems to brighten up their day as well. Just another reason being a disciple is very important.

Tiabo, I tangirngkami

Elder Cubby

I happened to be at Dave Robertson's farewell open house at Jessica and Todd Merkley's house when we were emailing. Dave, familiar with the Hawaiian way suggested adding some soy and ginger and frying it up with some rice....

That's Elder Chun's way as well. I try not to eat as much rice now that I'm not biking the 30 miles every day. I'm starting to work out every morning and sometimes at night because of that though. And I'll think about burning something, it's raining a lot outside right now though.

Talking sports....

We talk about it a bunch. Chun was also a national weight lifting champion and got a full ride to BYU for Rugby. And that Walla Walla guy could be dangerous if he can find some talent, which isn't always lacking over there. Not too worried about Kennewick though. And I don't kow who else would be double teamed on our team over Sam. 

He's been out 6 months now and Todd wanted to know if he was going to burn anything. I asked about the title of his email and what his role at church is now that he is in a bigger ward...

We basically do nothing except greet people at church. And I just drank some juice that was the subject line. And what should I burn if I do?

He decided to just give something away instead of burn it. Asked about his new 'house'...

No AC in this house, or flushing toilet. Health's been good. Filtered water the whole kaboodle. I'm glad there isn't AC though, it makes me so cold. Supposedly our house is haunted, so that's fun

 

I had sent a package. He loved the jam and flavored nuts best I think, and he said the backyard was weird. Asked him why?....

 

And just the fact that there was like grass and the first world outside of it was weird about the backyard 

He said it wasn't 'flooding' just really wet? Found this pic on the mission facebook page taken on Tarawa yesterday

 

 

 

Jonas Brothers are back together but the Wright Brothers are Dead (Cubby letter 3/11/2019)

Transferred!

Yeah so last week on Monday night we got a call from the APs saying that I was being transferred off Abaiang and Elder Wright was staying. Actually took us a little off guard, we thought that I would stay. But anyway, we came in via boat on Tuesday, slept over at the AP's house and helped them prepare a zone conference training for the next day. And then at zone conference I learned that I was transferred to the Bikenibeu 1st ward, and my comp is Elder Chun. It's a lot different here, to say the least. So many people, different food, smaller area (in terms of land mass), different comp, living in a house, etc. Bikenibeu is in eastern Tarawa, and it's one of the more affluent areas of Kiribati. Our ward is enormous, and we have a ward mission leader. Wild. Elder Chun is a bit different from Elder Wright, he's from Hawaii. He's like a quarter Chinese, and the rest Hawaiian, he told me he can speak the language (Hawiian). He's two transfers older than me, so he's not as dominant in the companionship as Elder Wright was, just because he's so much younger. He played rugby and football at Kahuku highschool, seems like they were pretty good. Anyway, we whitewashed our area, so we've been doing a ton of tracting, which is always fun. I'm still not completely used to the life here, and I kinda miss Abaiang. Oh well.

Also we are teaching this dude who is always tryna be crazy philosophical, but I'm not sure if everything he says is right, but all the other Elders love him. I think he's trying to find a shortcut to perfection, but we'll see where it goes.

hit me up with questions.

I tangirngkami

Elder Cubby  



He gave us his new number so we made a quick call. I barely spoke to him as the phone was passed around to all the brothers....So he got an earful about the new pokemon stuff and bomber sports. He's sleeping in a brick house now on a bed. His companion is 6'1 and 260ish. So we looked him up and watched his film. He graduated the same year as Cubby, just came out a couple months sooner and he is a really good O lineman. 

I'm glad the senior missionaries are able to get these pictures on facebook. It's nice to see proof of life! Zone conference lunch before transfers

 

Give it away, Give it away, Give it away now (Ben letter 3/11/2019)

Well this week has been quite interesting, the most interesting thus far. On Monday morning my comp and I were just eating breakfast like normal humans, then we get a call to the office where they tell us to pack up, be ready at the office in 20 minutes. So luckily our district helped us pack and we were on our way. Our trip went something like this: 1 hr train ride to salt lake airport. Delayed flight due to bad lights for 4 hrs. 10 hr flight to Amsterdam. Fighting for new tickets with broken English to then proceed to the Kyiv flight from Amsterdam. 3 hour flight to kyiv whilst having a 2 hour conversation with a Ukrainian man who doesn't speak a lick of English. Land in Kyiv and go directly to the flight to Chisinau, about a 1 hr flight. SO after all that good stuff, and being awake for 30 some hours I finally get to sleep in my new home. We live on the 11th floor of this concrete apartment complex and it's pretty nice. My comp is named Elder Marshall and he is from Nevada and he is super dope. Everyone likes him. He is a guy a little taller then me, really good baseball pitcher. He has been out about a year. So yeah there are 8 Romanian speakers and around the same amount of Russian speakers here in Moldova. 

Fun fact about the culture here, Curent. Curent is something that will get you sick if you're not careful. Its where the air currents (wind) "go in one ear and out the other", and you get sick. So we will be in the trolley buses and it will be wicked hot, because nobody will open the windows because it will cause a curent to come in, thus causing air to go into the ear. There is a story of an elder that passed out and nobody knew what was wrong with him so they rushed him to the hospital. The doctors asked if he slept with the AC unit one, and they said yes. So he then got diagnosed with "curent". Which was not good because there was actually something wrong with him. But yeah no matter what kind of sickness you have, the doctors will always first ask if you sleep with the AC on. It is common on a windy day to see old men with cotton in their ears to block "curent". The younger generation is more progressive, so they think current cannot be caught outside, only when a curent comes inside a house or bus etc.

For a spiritual thought, it is always important to be a disciple, so people will know what you are all about. Just randomly starting religious conversations around here doesn't really work so we teach English. After they come to English class for a while they start to wonder about why Americans are here in Moldova and why we are nice, so they hear us out. If you're doing the right things and being a good example of being a disciple, people will notice and missionary opportunities will arise. 

te iubesc

Varstnicul Stanfield

We were able to video chat with him Sunday night right after we got off the phone with Cubby. The first thing I noticed was an awesome tight european haircut, and the next was a huge round bruise in the middle of his forehead. He kept changing the subject whenever I asked him about the bruise. Finally he confessed that he got a suction cup from a little toy goalpost stuck to his forehead when they were playing a flip game of football. I had a good laugh. I learned that there are 3 areas in Moldova and 8 Romanian speaking missionaries and the next one to leave doesn't leave until next December. He'll have very little diversity. Hope he likes those 7 other missionaries!
They meet up with members of the church and other missionaries a lot to eat out. He said food is really cheap and I would be jealous of the grocery store prices. He said his apt is really nice and even has a washing machine in it. But they have to take this really wobbly elevator up the 11 flights. But he's not worried, "it hasn't broken yet". The gap between the poor and rich is big. A lot of BMWs on the streets but most are poor and take the busses which are packed full at all times of the day.

His new companion is to his right

Some of them are Romanian speaking and some are Russian

Arriving in Moldova. I was shocked all of his luggage made it with all the flights chaos

A quick training meeting before he finally got 'home' to sleep

Who's that Pokemon?! (Cubby letter 3/4/2019)

Mauri oh!

This week was good as usual. It's had a weird feeling though because it was the last week of the transfer and we pretty much know someone is getting transferred. I've still never had a comp in the field who isn't Elder Wright, so I'm expecting a lot of change. There are only two other Elders in Kiribati that have been comps for more than 2 transfers. We did a lot of tracting again this week, not as much as last week though, because of how Ubwantaman has turned out. We did tract the main Catholic city for the first time, and we found out that there used to be a place we Elders would hold church there, and apparently no body thought to tell us. So we started searching for the guy who had church at his house, only to find that he had died the day before. Total bummer. On the upside, earlier today we went fishing and caught some HUGE fish. Probably 8 of them were over 15 pounds. Which is more impressive I think considering that we were handling the line with our bare hands. Got some good pictures of that.

For a spiritual thought, I guess I just want to express the importance of the Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost. We gave out a ton this week and last week, and people would ask us all sorts of questions, and sometimes just try to not pay attention. But when me or Elder Wright testified that we knew that Ana Boki Mooman is true through the power of prayer and the Holy Ghost, all questions were answered and people paid attention. Basically we can't deny the Book of Mormon and nobody can deny that we can't deny it.

Hit me up with some questions.

Elder Cubby

History of Abaiang?

I would love to explain everything right now. But we are super late for a big goodbye party with the Boritiam unit. To cut the history stuff short, Kiribati people believe there used to be giants here and they believe ancient Kiribati people figured out a way to fly on the wind. Anyways I gotta go, love you all

You can tell he's really homesick! 😉

Conversion (Ben letter 3/1/2019)

Note: He actually called me this morning in a hurry, they decided to send him and his companion today (march 5) after all. He had about 15 mins to pack and was out of breath after sprinting across the campus. He sounded excited to be in Ukraine by tomorrow. They fly out of Salt Lake today, through Amsterdam and then to Kiev. Exciting!

I am not leaving March 5th anymore, luckily. They were going to send me at the same time as the other Ukrainian elders, but they changed it back to the normal six weeks. Which I am happy about considering 4 weeks is not really enough time to cover the basics of Romanian. If I didn't say this before, like 2 years ago Romanian used be 9 weeks in the MTC. So 4 weeks would have been brutal. 

Well all those basketball games this week sound fun, I couldn't tell you how much I would love to watch some type of basketball game, because a lot of the fun elders to play with have left, and so it's not as fun anymore. Also I rolled my bad ankle pretty good, so its swollen etc, but I've dealt with far worse.

Yeah but the MTC here has been pretty ok too. I don't dislike it, but I wanna feel more effective then I am. I am working as hard as I can to learn to teach effectively, and learn the language. But honestly the number one reason I want to leave is because they have a food cycle, and it is quite repetitive. Besides that, I'm having a blast, especially because my district has become so close. It's pretty much the life here, especially because I don't usually have to worry about anything. Life is good, but there isn't anything new going on.

Elder Christofferson came to the MTC last week, and he gave a really good talk about conversion. He spoke about different levels of conversion, and how it really isn't easy to become fully converted. He talked about one level of conversion, the middle level. In this level he used the example of a previous stake president, who prayed everyday, and read his scriptures, went to church, and fulfilled his callings. But he was not fully converted because when it came to a certain point of temptation, he gave in. An example of someone a little more converted was the Apostle Peter. He knew Jesus and was committed to him. Yet he denied him 3 times before the cock crowed. And lastly, an example of the highest level of conversion was Peter, who repented of his denying Christ, and fully turned his heart to God. Elder Christofferson explained how in order to be fully converted, its more then just doing what you're supposed to, because someone needs/ wants it to be done. You don't have conversion, you ARE converted. Your very essence is goodness and conversion. It is who you are, morally ingrained into you. It is who you are in every small moment of the day. Not just scripture study and prayer. Not just doing your calling. Essentially it is aligning your will with the will of God, which is easier said then done. It reminded me of a book I read before I came to the MTC, The Compound effect. My branch president also uses this book, and this talk also reminded Him of this book. What the compound effect is, in my words, is the small  decisions that you make every moment, that all add up to something greater. Are we made of the handful of big decisions we make? How do we make these big decisions? How do we get ourselves in the position to make any big decision at all? Through all the small moments. In fact it seemed as though what Elder Christofferson was saying was that not only are those small decisions important, they are more important because of what they lead us to. The way we become converted to God is not the 20 mins it takes to do all the ordinances. It's about turning out hearts to Him, always. Anyway kind of a difficult thing to explain, just watch his talk and you will get what I'm saying. But the most important thing to remember is that although most of us will not become 100% aligned to Gods will in this life, he is always happy with every good decision we make to become closer to Him. 

Anyway,

Eu ne Iubesc pe noi

Varstnicul Ben 

 I told him life was 'meh' lately because of the weather and we had a plumbing problem...

Richland is still my favorite place in the whole world because of 3 things. 1) family/ friends 2)Bombers 3) weather/geography.

But one thing is certain, life sucks when one of things goes wrong. And I can guess based on this past email, the bombers will yet again not win state, and the weather sucks. So life is meh. I mean at least that's how it was for me. Yeah it was a matter of time before something flooded the basement, but this is probably the first time a child has not caused the disaster.

His companion is the one with the rope and Ben with the football pose