Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Hello family!

This week was soooo wonderful! Highlights: my new companion is from Holiday Utah. He is almost as tall as me, maybe an inch shorter. He loves music and played guitar before his mission. We're basically the same person, so we get along well! He just finished his training, so he's still learning french. It's fun to show someone who's still new around. It makes me re-appreciate things. Like the little crabs everywhere, and the beauty of the blue water and palm trees. Sometimes I forget to look at the blessings around me.

Elder J.  got here Monday night on the plane at Raiatea. We took the boat back to Tahaa. My branch president and his wife picked us up. Tuesday and Wednesday we didn't have the bike of Elder J yet, so we went for a walk. Lots of walking. Wednesday we walked from our house, out of the bay of Haamene, all the way around the peninsula with the town Vaitoare, into the bay of Pouturu. We stopped along the way at several people's houses. I don't know how far that is, maybe you can look it up on google maps. It took all day. 
Once we had Elder J's bike, things sped up.

As far as missionary work goes, this was one of the best weeks of my mission. I didn't contact a single time all week. We went and visited members a lot, and the members here LOVE us!  As a result, we have tons of referrals rolling in and lots of potential for this week.

For example: one sister had said a few weeks ago that her sister has a piano at her house. Her sister isn't a member. So we went to visit the sister who is a member. She walked over to her sister's house with us and we started playing the piano. I started singing hymns and the two sisters sang. Another sister came from another room, and pretty soon everyone was singing the hymns while I was playing. They loved it! Tonight we have a family night with them and we'll hopefully start teaching them. Do you see how much more effective it is working through members like that? Playing piano, what a creative contacting technique. 
Other adventures from the week: friday we went to visit some members who live way up in the back of a valley above the bay of Faaaha. It's a hike of about 15 minutes up to their house. It was way cool, we crossed some rivers and I got my shoes all muddy and I felt so adventurous!

Church was great yesterday. I was able to run around between blocks coordinating with members and fixing appointments, etc. And today is P Day! We did our personal study in the morning, and now we're going to go clean the house really well after email. My comp still has to do his mail, so I'm going to log off quick. But that's just a little update for the week! Hopefully this week brings more good news and some potential for baptism. 
Thanks for all the letters, I'll keep you all in my prayers.

Lots of love,

Elder Barlow

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