Octobre

Soirée familiale chez les membres lundi

 Elder Barlow nametage with the minionaries

Me opening the package! So Fun!

Papaya that a member family gave us!

Hello family!

Last Monday we went on a little "hike," on a really steep paved road up the side of a mountain. But the view at the end was nice. I think I am desensitized to beautiful views. I don't think too much of it anymore, even though most people would pay thousands of dollars just to be where I am. Weird. Monday night we had a family night at C's family's house. They made me not 1, but 2 birthday cakes and sang to me in English, French, and Tahitian. Then I blew out all 20 candles in about 3 tries. Haha. It's weird to be 20, I feel old. But not really.
Tuesday and Wednesday were alright. We actually had some more stuff to do this week, more lessons, etc. That was super nice. We still had the same problem as last week, lots of lessons cancelled, but on a smaller scale. So it was bearable.
Thursday was our "conseil de dirigeants," or mission leadership conference at President's house. It was awesome. We ate some homemade enchiladas for lunch. That's the first time I've eaten mexican food in a looooong time. Sorry all the time's I complained when you made tacos Mom. Missions really do make you love your mom's cooking! President Bize gave a really touching formation on becoming better. He talked about the times when he has met apostles and prophets and what seems to make them different from other people. It was inspiring. Also, Thursday night we taught a lesson to B and her husband T. They're an older couple with grown up kids. We met B when we were eating at our relief society president's house last month. She came over and we started talking and fixed a lesson with her. She is protestant, but she has started coming to church and she loves it. We taught them the word of wisdom last night and engaged them to get baptized in December. They said yes!  Also, R, the little brother of D (who just got baptized last weekend) told us he wants to get baptized now! So we did his baptismal interview on Friday and he will get baptized this Saturday. We've been working a lot with his family. All the extended family live in the same area, so there's a ton of potential. We also started teaching the grandparents after giving a blessing to the old papi (grandpa) and healing him (or temporarily giving him relief from pain). So things are good.
Also, the new mission challenge is to have 16 baptisms for each zone by the end of October. Our zone has 17 baptisms planned before then, so if all goes well we should succeed. We decided to fast as a zone yesterday to reach our objective. Already we have some miracles from that. At church yesterday, H, an old investigator who we don't teach anymore but who comes to church every week, came up to us. She's 17, and the problem with her baptism was that her family was against it. Yesterday she said, "Elders, here's the parent permission slip thing. My mom signed it. I've chosen the 26th of October for my baptismal date. When can we do my interview?"     What? We were like "okay, that works, no problem! Next Sunday, baptismal interview!" That never happens like that, basically an easy baptism. So that is exciting!
This week should be alright. Hopefully we find some more people to teach this week. Besides that, the ward is good. I love the people here. We ate at our relief society president's house again last night and it was so fun to sit and talk with her and her husband. They're converts from 6 years ago and they're just such good people. I felt really relaxed around them. It made me think of Mom and Dad. Miss you guys!
Also, I got my birthday package Thursday! It was so fun to open it that night. I love it! Haha the "minionaries" were awesome!
The plans for today are simple. We're going to go do our shopping and then come back to the chapel and play a little basketball with some of the other Elders in our zone. Should be calm and laid back and a nice break from the week. Voilà. Thanks for all the emails and pictures and stuff.

Love,

Elder Barlow