Another week is come and gone! This week was a growing week for me. I took over the sector on Wednesday, when Porter left and Elder Langomazino arrived. Langomazino is an Italian name, but he is from here on Tahiti. He's a short, strong little guy who I love a ton! He is amazing! I'll tell you more about him later. (Sorry mom I don't have any photos of us yet!)
Wednesday was stressful. As senior now I have to make all the plans and call everyone and find something useful to do! I have a little more compassion and understanding now for my earlier companions who would sometimes call it good and just sit around because we had nothing planned. However, thanks to Elder Langomazino, we worked super hard this week!
Our sector: So our sector had kind of died the last two weeks. We didn't have really any amis who were progressing. I was pretty stressed about finding things to do. But it turns out, the Lord is in charge and placed people in our path! We got a great member reference of a family. The parents are already married (thank goodness!) and they have all already received the missionary lessons, but somehow a long time ago the missionaries forgot about them or got transferred or something. They all want to be baptized! So we'll work with them a lot in the coming weeks. We also went and did some OLB (ouvrir la bouche, open your mouth) aka tracting type stuff. We found a bunch of new amis! And we found some old amis too. We didn't know what to do at one point on Saturday, so we just started walking. We were passing the house of an old amis right as he and his girlfriend were leaving the house. I haven't been able to get a hold of them for several weeks, but thanks to seeing them that night, we fixed another lesson for next week. Yay! Super pumped for that. Yesterday also my report for the week didn't look so good (number wise). But then last night Elder Langomazino and I ended up fixing 5 baptisms for the 7th of May. Yes! The work is taking off.
This week has been different. We were really led by the spirit. Elder Langomazino is amazing. He is the most obedient missionary I have met so far in this mission, but not only that, he is cool and normal and fun! He doesn't speak English, so I have really improved my French conversational skills. We are able to "bro" in French. It's cool! He's been out on the mission for 5 months. Elder Requillart is the new assistant in our house, and he is super funny too! We all get along well, but now it's in French at our house. I call Elder Requillart farani-pai, which is Tahitian for spoiled frenchy, more or less haha. It's funny.
Conference was really good. My favorite talk was the first one, President Eyring. He said that whenever we gather together in the name of Christ, he is there among us through the Holy Ghost. I thought a lot about that this week each time we prayed to start a lesson. I felt the spirit a lot more during the lessons. There were several times we were talking and I didn't feel anything, so I would stop talking and change the subject in the middle of the sentence. I would just open my mouth and bam it was filled! And as a result, a man we talked to told us we could come and teach him and his family the first lesson. Super cool! I finally have experiences where the spirit has led me! It's amazing. What a good week. I am happy and excited for the future. Now I understand how the mission can be so fun and hard and enjoyable. I am falling in love with the people. Oh, also, Elder L speaks Tahitian! So we can teach way more people now! And I learn a lot more Tahitian by listening to him teach. We taught a family the first lesson and I recited the first vision of Joseph Smith in Tahitian! Crazy stuff. Ua ite atura vau, i te pou maramarama... I saw a pillar of light... Cool!
I am doing extremely well for the moment! Time is flying this morning, I gotta go. Love you all, congrats to the Wilkinson family for all the good news! Love you guys!
Elder Barlow
P.S. The pictures! Last monday at our missionary practice with Elder Pruett and Elder Thia.
And the last night together with Elder Porter (Tuesday night)! We were at the mission office, and the sisters came to pick something up. They left their car open, so Elder Porter and I got in and took a selfie in their car! We're so sneaky! Haha it was a fun last night together
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