Cubby pics 11/11/2019

Mother Nature is a Little Nervous about Me(Cubby letter 11/11/2019)

Tuesday November 5

The first day in a while that we didn't have something to do in the morning, like District Council or service. When we first left the house we met an old lady who was raking/sweeping leaves. I told her I would do it for her, so I raked for about 30 min while Elder Bartley talked with her. The rest of the day was pretty normal. We had 4 lessons planned but we ended up teaching 2. One lady that we taught refused to pray because she was certain she would cry and be embarrassed. The other lesson was our first with a younger couple. After dinner we were invited to learn a dance with the branch. Elder Bartley was excited because we were told is a New Zealand dance and he has heritage there. But when we got there they were doing a excersize dance, kinda like Zumba. That was only one half of the branch though because they are doing an intra branch competition, so me and Elder Bartley might go see what the other team is doing.

Wednesday November 6

Had district council today. For language training we did something like 20 questions and my thing was Bambi's mom so it took awhile. Me and Elder Bartley had no food in our house so we ate at a restaurant afterwards. Their half cooked fish was okay but I've had better. Anyways after that it was just a typical day. Meaning that only 2 out our 5 planned lessons went through. They were good lessons though. At one of them there was a girl we never met before standing right next to the house before the lesson started. I asked if she wanted to join us, and she made it sound like we wouldn't want her there, most likely as an excuse. Usually when people refuse the first time, I let them be, but this time I kept thinking of a Jeffery R. Holland talk that talked about a missionary who put his foot in the door when somebody tried to shut it on them. So I tried to convince this girl for like 20 minutes with no success. After the lesson was over though, she came back and I asked her if we could schedule a time with her. She said she would talk to her mom. But right then her mom walked up, and we already knew her. So we scheduled a time with both of them.

Thursday November 7 

A disappointing start to the day really. We had a service to start the day, it was to chase pigs and tie them up, but when we showed up, nothing happened. The lady we were gonna do it for said that they had all ran away and that they would have to do it later that night. Pretty normal day besides that, we taught this lady about our reason for living on the earth. She liked the lesson because before we started she asked out of the blue how we get to heaven. We forgot to confirm dinner, but it was alright because the people we had scheduled it with was the house that all the members were going to practice their dance. So when we showed up to see if they remembered, they didn't but we had an excuse for coming to their house so they weren't embarrassed. But we did have canned fruit for dinner which was a bummer.

Friday November 8

A normal start to the day, studies etc. But we had to go down to Tabwakea to take needs and whatnot. We were starving from the night before having no dinner, so we made a deal with the sisters that they would make us lunch if we brought icecream. So we had chicken for lunch. So after that we went back to a bunch of lessons we had scheduled. We had 4 scheduled and 2 went through. One of them was a first time lesson, which is always exciting. Nothing really too exciting happened after that, besides that we had dinner and our car alarm went off during it.

Saturday November 9

Another service appointment fell through in the morning. And then directly afterwards a morning lesson fell through as well. But that was okay because we had weekly planning to do, and we had a lot to discuss because last week Elder Bartley was sick so we didn't do it. After that we went to find some people we knew and set up times with them. We ran into one of our investigators who told us that her husband got drunk last night and that some crazy stuff went down. She seemed like she just wanted to sit and talk for awhile, so that's what we did. Essentially the entire camp where she lives got drunk the night before, so I got asked a bunch if I wanted to go drinking, and one guy asked me if I wanted to sleep next to the road. I'll pass this time. All the rest of our lessons fell through, but we met some new people, which is always fun. We got called by the APs and they told us transfers. They told me I was staying, same companion. It's kinda crazy, only one other person before me has stayed on Kiritimati for 5 transfers, so I had kinda assumed that I was leaving, but I guess not.

Sunday November 10

A pretty average Sunday. One of the speakers in sacrament meeting spoke about focusing during sacrament meeting, and how it would benefit us, and I think I was among the few people who listened. This is called irony. And during the second hour this old guy names Bwaketi (literally translated to Bucket) was telling stories about when he got drunk, and everyone in the elders quroum was dying of laughter. Afterwards we had some lessons, although one of them was just talking to one of our investigators who just recently seperated from her husband. We've seem a lot of family situations that aren't very good lately.  It's definitly made me thankful that I come from a steady home. Also more than ever I know that a home founded upon gospel principals can and will bring happiness and stability in our lives. Sometimes I just wanna grab people here and shake them and say "can't you see what you're missing? Can you not understand that our message holds the keys to all your problems?" 

 

Tri-Cities represent

Tri-City Potatoes!

Living space

Wut? (This one he actually captioned)

 

Киев or киïв. Don't make no sense dog (Ben letter 11/11/2019)

Hello

Can you hear me? 

Man I miss middle school.

Anyway these past 2 weeks have been good, full of miracles. Last week we went to Kiev for a mlc, and I got to go through the temple. It was such a good feeling to see the church in Ukraine. It is still young and small in comparison to the states, but nevertheless I could see what Moldova is headed towards. 

 

This last week we had a mission tour, featuring elder Golden of the 70 from south africa. He gave some very practical advice. The way to teach culture is to teach application. Interesting and useful. 

 

I also did an exchange this week with elder Marchenko in Balti. It was a city that mostly spoke Russian so it was fun to improve. Between going to Ukraine and Balti I picked up some more Russian but still not even close to really have a full convo. It reminded me of how when I first got into the mission I couldn't understand anything, and that's just frustrating.  

 

In the past couple of weeks I have been very absorbed in missionary work. I am trying to become a better instrument in the Lords hands, and boy do I see miracles everyday now. It's like the heavens opened when I put down my pride! Wow I guess the Book of Mormon was right this whole time. It is really just showing me how open he heavens really are, and it kinda scared me.

 

The power and authority of God are back on the earth today, and it's real, and I see it everyday, and I see how the Spirit puts thoughts and words into my mouth to help people come closer to Christ. We must let down our pride and our sins, and become instruments in the Lord's hands, and we will see miracles and blessings. 

 

Vă iubesc pe voi 

   Vîrstnicul Станислав 

 

YSA activity

Branch activity

Language teaching

 

A level 3 Pathfinder Bard(Cubby Letter 11/4/2019)

Tuesday October 29

Solid day. Woke up and had service, but this time it wasn't chopping coconuts but getting the coconut meat out of coconuts that we had already chopped. It's actually harder than it sounds, we're a lot slower than your typical Kiribati person. We came back for studies, but I was struggling to stay awake the whole time. There was also a leadership council in Tarawa that we were invited to, so we went to Tabwakea to phone in. It went pretty well, I mentioned that we started calling the different companionship everyday to see how they're doing, and the APs were about to make it a mission policy until President Foster said something along the lines that Zone Leaders can implement that in their zones if they feel inspired. So that lasted about 2 hours. We went back to Banana after that. A lot of our lessons didn't end up happening, so we spent a good amount of time contacting. Elder Bartley hopped in on a volleyball game, and let me tell you, he can spike the ball very well. All the Kiribati people were stunned after every time he hit the ball, it was pretty funny. 

Wednesday October 30

We had district council today. It was pretty good, President Foster called in. He talked about how missionaries are not allowed to sit in the back of our truck anymore, which was funny because the missionaries here tried to convince him otherwise, with no success. He told us that the stick house that the Elders currently live in is going to be closed because of issues with the land that it's sitting on. He also told us that the plan currently is to never send senior couples out here ever again. It was mostly just a regular day besides that, we had two lessons planned, but they fell through. So we contacted a lot of people. We've really been focusing on getting new people recently so we've talked to a ton of new people and set up a lot of times, but at this point most of them just fall through. We had dinner with an RM who served in Oklahoma, so she made some pretty American food for us. 

Thursday October 31

Since it was Halloween today, me and Elder Bartley decided to dress up as one another. So I wore one of his ties and he wore one of mine and we switched name badges. It didn't really confuse anyone because most people here are too shy to try and read English, but we had dinner with the Branch President, and he was calling in me to say a blessing on the food, and he noticed. The day was pretty normal I guess, we 5 lessons planned and 4 went through. We taught the Restoration at 3 of them. I really like teaching the Restoration because the logic of it is so clear and then the Spirit usually is there and then your brain and the Spirit work together and all of a sudden you understand again why you're on a mission. Good stuff. Dinner was at 5pm and only went for an hour which is a change from the standard 7pm start 9 o'clock finish. Hours after 7 are kind of culturally unacceptable to be out and about, so we just eat dinner at those times.

Friday November 1

Elder Bartley woke up sick today. So he was pretty out of it the whole day. The missionaries needed us in Tabwakea so we went down there. We were asked to make an inventory of the medicine cabinet at the senior couples house, so because we were using it, Elder Bartley got to sleep in a pretty nice bed. And he  slept for probably 5 or 6 hours, all the while I was identifying all the medicine we had from Amoxicillin to after bite cream to parasite curing pills. That was really the only thing that happened besides that last night my worst fear came true and I got bit by a centipede that was half a foot long. 

Saturday November 2

So definitely a change of pace from yesterday. Elder Bartley woke up a little sick, so we drove down to Tabwakea to get some medicine and salt for him. But while we were doing our business we got a text from the APs saying that  the Sisters were seen inside the Elders' flat at 11pm on October 22, and they asked us to investigate. They also asked if it was a good idea to essentially white wash all of Kiritimati so all the missionaries could be supervised more closely on Tarawa. We investigated and the incident wasn't as bad as reported. The APs also asked for reports on each missionary and recommendations for transfers, so we wrote the most accurate and detailed report this world has ever seen. So in the end, they probably won't blow up Kiritimati like they were originally thinking, but we do have to move the Elders to London on Monday. That whole thing took awhile, but afterwards Elder Bartley felt good enough to work, so we had 3 lessons, and they all went pretty well.

Sunday November 3

Cool Sunday I guess. We had 5 or 6 lessons planned. Church was pretty good, we had a new investigator come to church for the first time. I was pretty worried about him at first because he's pretty shy, but a guy he new from work and his wife sat next to him. Whenever I looked over at them talking about how to sing, what the lessons were about, or what was gonna happen next. Made me feel pretty good. Most of our 6 lessons fell through, but we did find someone that we haven't taught for awhile. He was working on his smoking problem when we last saw him, and when we met him today, he told us he had quit. I could tell he had, because he was a bit heavier, which often happens to people here, they quit smoking so they are hungrier more often, and therefore eat more and gain weight, it's pretty funny. At the end of the day I conducted a baptismal interview with one of the Sister's people. He is 10 years old. He's a pretty mature kid, but whenever I asked him what he believed he gave me a line of what the sisters told him to say. So we decided to hold off the baptism for one week, to give him time to pray about Ana Boki Moomon. 

 

The centipede that bit him

the bite on his back. looks like it got him twice. It ended up swelling a lot more, but nothing Benedryl couldn't take care of.

 

Little Bunny and the Big Cartea lui...(Cubby letter 10/28/2019)

Tuesday October 24

So we had a service planned for the morning (Elder Bartley loves doing services), but it didn't go through, because the guy we were gonna do it with wasn't there. And his wife wouldn't tell us what it was. Anyways, so we got home and got ready to teach religion at the primary school. We went a half hour late, because when kids here see white people it's like half their DNA turns into a monkey. We go because if we don't, teachers will beg us to come every time they see us, but we're thinking about not going anymore. Plus none of the other religions come anyway. The rest of the day was spent tracking down all the people we didn't visit on the days that I was sick, and we had more success than I thought we would, somehow managing to get times with all of them.  

I can't remember if this was today or our lesson on Monday, but we showed up to a lesson with only a basic lesson plan and it was obviously not the right lesson to present at the time. So when my companion was opening in prayer, I prayed to know what lesson to share. I immediately thought of Mosiah 3:19. So we shared it and in the end the man there said that it seems like whenever we share a scripture with them it is parallel to their lives. I reflected for a moment and realized that 80% of the time I have an experience similar to this it's with this family. 

Wednesday October 23

Started off with District council. This was an especially important one, because me and Elder Bartley introduced a bunch of new district goals, and a new accountability system. The missionaries were wondering if it was from President Foster, and we answered that it was from us. Shout out to Ben forgiving us the idea. Anyways we spent a long time eating lunch, because the sisters made pizza. It's funny, we made some daily goals, that the missionaries were saying that they might be hard to reach because of lack of time in the day, but yet we spent a long time for lunch. Anyways, we had a bunch of lessons planned, but a lot of them fell through. We ate Octopus for dinner, it tastes fine, but the texture isn't my favorite. 

Thursday October 24

A slow start to the day, both me and Elder Bartley woke up with pretty bad headaches, so that slowed us down a bit. But besides that, the day went pretty well. We met some people who were apparently told that they were gonna be baptized about 8 years ago and then nobody ever visited them again until yesterday. One of our investigators moved, and the bad news is we spent 1 hour driving/getting lost in the woods, and the good news is I think we found a secret road to Tabwakea from Banana. Nothing else too notable besides that happened, we taught some lessons and we talked tona bunch of new people. We had Bacon for dinner which was a surprise. 

Friday October 25

So the day started off with studies as usual, and we had a lesson at 10. It fell through, but it's okay because we met the largest lady I've ever seen, that can still walk around. Also she was not interested in our message. After that we went to Tabwakea to take out garbages, do other needs, etc. We went down to London and we got some referrals for the other elders while we were doing our business. We came home after that and weekly planned, which was soooo fun. Anyways, we were pretty far behind our goal of talking to people at this point, and we did not have very much time left. So we hit the city (well the most populated part of Banana) and got it done. Then we had a lesson that was just a brief overview of the Doctrinebof Christ. And then dinner, which was good because they had raw tuna with coconut milk, which is essentially one of the greatest foods ever.

Saturday October 26

A pretty good. We chopped coconuts in the morning. I got a blister on my hand from it because unfortunately missionary work is more of a pen and paper thing than a hatchet and coconut thing most of the time. After that we came back and watched General Conference, but this time it was in Kiribati. It was great language and personal study, but that's good because we counted it as all of our studies. We had lunch with the branch between sessions, but it was kind of a last second idea, so it consisted of dried fish and coconut. My eyes were opened to the fact that dried milkfish is way better than dried flying fish. Anyways, we didn't really have any lessons that went through, so we talked to some people that we already knew and some that we didn't. We did meet a bunch of drunk dudes which is always fun. 

Sunday October 27

Started with General Conference today. It was supposed to start at 10, but 11 was what we got. In between the first and second sessions we had lunch with the branch. Everyone just stayed at the mwaneaba and ate together, which I thought was interesting. Anyways, nobody really stayed for the second session because a member died in Tabwakea, so everyone went to the funeral. We didn't, we had lessons. We were also trying to up our game of talking to people on the street, but nobody was really in Banana. We met some people but they were kind of just wondering why we were even out on a Sunday. So not a super eventful day. 

Sunday night however, I did a fair amount of wrestling with some rats. That was exciting but not my favorite kind of excitement. 

Moldovance (Ben letter 10/28/2019)

Wahwahwee wah

Elder Stanfield here once again.

This week was another good one. Not much happened that I can think of, besides that we got the cops called on us, and I received a death threat call. This week we are going to Orhei and then to Kyiv.

Also for a cool experience, I felt prompted to talk to this old lady, but the thing is usually talking to old people is not too effective, because they want to talk for 45 mins about everything besides Jesus. Even when we do, it's about how we are a sect to the Orthodox church. But anyway after about 20 mins of this lady ranting, she started to really open up and started to ball. Sufficed to say she has had a hard life, and feels completely alone. She came to the park hoping for someone to talk to, and she was here until nighttime when I arrived. She was ready to go home until I stopped and talked to her, and boy was she grateful! Anyway, it is important for us not to suppress spiritual promptings, even if your reasoning is saying no. We must always be on the Lord's errand. "There is a purpose in life far beyond living comfortably" - Elder Christofferson. 

 

Vă iubesc pe voi toți 

Totul e ghine și vorghesc sincer 

Vîrstnicul Станислав