Another week is gone... and it is May.

Hello family!

Another week is gone and it is May! I have been in Papeete now for over 14 weeks. Time is flying. There is a transfer next week, but I hope I stay here. Normally I should stay here at least one more transfer.

This week went well. We worked really hard. We went and visited our family with the fixed baptism every day this week. Their baptism is this coming Saturday. It's cool to see them changing. Apparently they used to live on the streets here and beg for their food. Now they have a pension that pays for a tiny apartment, but they are still extremely poor. But they are really starting to open up. I hope everything goes well this week, we fasted for them yesterday.

Another cool story: we went to a lesson with a member but our investigator wasn't there. Lame! That makes us feel panicky as missionaries, especially because a member gave up their time to come with us and then our investigator wasn't even there. So we prayed a little and thought of who we could go see instead. We both felt like calling a lady we had contacted 2 weeks before. She said we could come over and do a lesson, so we went over to her house. We taught the first lesson, the restoration, and it was awesome. At the end she started crying and said that when we had called she heard a voice that said "Ouvre ta porte," which means open your door, aka let the missionaries come over. She said she has been searching for something in her life. It was cool! Afterwards, we were reflecting and we realized we were totally led by the spirit to call her. Follow up with her... she came to a baptism this Saturday and loved it! And then Saturday night we did a presentation at the center across from the temple and she loved it again! But then she didn't show up for church yesterday.... the struggle. We just have to commit her to get married to her "basically husband but they're not married yet after 20 plus years," and then she can get baptized. Cool!

I have been sick since about a week before Elder Porter got transferred, over one month now straight with something or other. But luckily I am still feeling better overall. I have energy now to keep doing normal stuff. I restarted my workouts in the morning too and that feels great. I can't wait for after the mission to go on adventures with the family.

Yesterday was fast Sunday. It's the first time I've fasted in 2 months or so because I was sick. So I am excited to see what blessings come. Last night we were at the center waiting for some other missionaries doing a presentation to finish and then drop us off at our house. But what ended up happening is all the missionaries who were there had their faatamaaraa's dropped off (meals the members make for us). All in all, there were 6 Elders and 2 Sisters from our zone who were there. So after the presentation ended, we all said a prayer and then ate together! It was super fun. Our zone is awesome. To make things better, it was like 7:30 at night and I hadn't broken my fast yet so I was starving and the food tasted pretty good! And after being on a mission for a while now, I can support the saying that missions make you appreciate your mother's cooking. I miss the food back home!

That's about it for my week. Today is another super packed P Day. I just want a p day where I can actually prepare for the week and rest. Today we're doing mail from 8 to 10am, then from 10 to noon we have our missionary choir practice. Then at 1pm we have to go pick up some of our investigators because they have to go do a special baptismal interview at the mission office with a member of the mission presidency. Then afterwards, around 2 or 3pm we have to go do our shopping for the week, and that leaves about 2 hours from 4 to 6pm to clean the house and "prepare" for the week. At 6pm P day ends and we'll hopefully do a lesson/family night with some investigators. At 7pm we're going to eat at a member's house. P Day is too busy! Voilà. We actually say "voilà" all the time. French haha.

Have a good week,

Elder Barlow