septembre

Last week's P day!

Picture of the presqu'ile (almost island) on the back of Tahiti.

Goodbye dinner with the members for Elder S.

Hello family!

This week flew by. Things are different now. Last week was hectic, Thursday all day we were "en ville" (downtown) for the mission council of leaders. That was good. It's fun to be at President's house and learn from him and eat the delicious lunch they always make with all the other DZs and STLs. Crazy that it's already been a month since the last meeting. Friday night we got transfer calls. Elder S finished, so I got a new companion. My new companion is... Elder N! He's a super nice little redhead from my MTC group, we started at the same time. Right now he is out in the Tuamotu islands. They haven't bought his plane ticket back to Tahiti yet, so I have no companion for a week! Yikes! So this morning I dropped off Elder S. downtown, and I have no companion for the near future. I have to do splits all the time with the other missionaries or with ward members until my companion gets here. Also, I am now totally in charge of the zone as the senior zone leader. All the responsibility now falls on me!  Basically my whole P Day today consisted of driving en ville and dropping off Elder S, then getting the tire on our car fixed up, getting a haircut, and then doing our shopping. We haven't even cleaned the house yet or the car, and it's already 5pm! Stressing out, because in one hour we have a family night at a new family's house with our bishop and relief society president and I get to teach it all by myself (remember how I don't have a companion yet?). Haha yikes! I am of the opinion that P Day should be two days long. One day for getting everything necessary done, and another day for resting. I like the normal weekend of Saturday, Sunday. It works out better. One day just isn't enough. But voilà quoi. Enough complaining.

So this past week was actually pretty good. We got a super great reference from our Relief Society president. We went to see the family (the mom and Dad of the family, actually). The Dad said "why not try the lessons, why not get baptized?" So we'll see how it goes with them! The family night I mentioned is at their house tonight. Pray for me, I need to be directed by the spirit! The longer I am on a mission, the more I realize how little I can actually do to help people. It's the spirit that does everything, I just have to be there to be an instrument for the spirit to manifest itself. It's humbling, knowing that I am not good enough by myself. Weird.

Other' fun news: there have been several cases of the "dengue" in our zone, so pray for me that I don't get it! It's spread by mosquitoes and knocks you out with a flu/fever like symptoms for a week or so. A mosquito just bit my leg....

Sunday we ate with member families at lunch and dinner who wanted to say goodbye to Elder S. The people here are really so kind. It is so hard not to get fat when people stuff delicious food down your throat several times a day. But voilà, I sent some photos. Hopefullly you got them.

Also, Saturday was the baptism of E! Yay! Her mom came, which is a huge step. Her mom wanted E to get baptized, but wanted nothing to do with the missionaries herself. I'll go contact her this week and commit her to take the lessons. Then the whole family can get baptized soon! That would be cool.

Did I mention that the new mission challenge for the next three weeks is to fix 5 new baptisms in each sector? That's my new goal starting today: fix 5 baptisms over the next 3 weeks. I'll keep you updated.

Anyways, this week should be pretty crazy, working with members and not having a companion and all. So pray for me!

Love you all, gotta go!

Elder Barlow

P.S. So I got a flat tire in the car this week.... a nail was lodged straight through the tire. A member put the spare on for us, and today we took the normal tire downtown and got it all fixed up. Thank goodness for the members who helped us out! They also gave me a bunch of instructions on how to make maa tahiti (tahitian food). Cooking party when I get home? Haha have a good week!