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. |
No comments:
Post a Comment