Tuesday, May 9, 2017

May

Riding bikes around Vaitoare!

Pic from our zone conference a little over a week ago at Raiatea.
Hi family!

This week was actually awesome.
Monday night we had our family night at the chapel with President Bize. So many investigators came! Funny story: President Bize shows up to the chapel and gets out of his rental car. He's wearing a floral shirt and flip flops with his khakis instead of a white shirt and tie. He walks into the chapel and he tells them "The church says no meetings on Monday nights. So I'm here as a family!" It was hilarious. It set a really good tone though for the family night. We had a little lesson, then several big group games and some small desserts afterwards. All the investigators loved it and said they were surprised, it was different than other things they've seen. There was a really good spirit there.
Last month sometime when I was at a split at Raiatea, Elder J and Elder M were here at Tahaa. They didn't get off at the right stop for the boat, so they ended up in Haamene without our bikes (which were in Vaitoare all day). They ended up walking all around the bay of Haamene, which isn't very effective. But they contacted a lady named H who didn't seem too potential. We kept contact with her and invited her to the family night. She came with her daughter and loved it! We set up a lesson and went and taught her on Friday.
Friday we get to her house for the lesson. It turns out she has studied with several religions, but doesn't feel like she found what she's looking for. She had an old Book of Mormon and had started reading. We left a brochure with her about the Restoration and she had read it all. We sat down Friday to teach her and the first thing she asked was "How can I know if it's true?" What?! No one ever understands it that well. It was like a textbook moment! So we explained the Book of Mormon and prayer and the promise in Moroni 10:3-5. She committed to read and pray. She asked how the Holy Ghost responds to us. We answered that it's through our feelings normally: peace, joy, hope, a warm feeling inside, etc. She was like "Oooooh. That's what that is." She committed to get baptized on May 20, in less than two weeks! Sunday she came to church with her 16 year old daughter. We went to teach her daughter after church and she agreed to be baptized too! So we will have two baptisms on May 20! So excited! What a blessing. It will be a little crazy with the daughter. She goes to school at Raiatea every day and doesn't get home until 6pm. But she has to go right to bed because she wakes up super early to catch a boat to school in the morning at Raiatea. So yesterday we gave her a bunch of brochures to read during the week, and this weekend we'll teach her everything so she can get baptized with her mom next weekend! Woooo! So cool!
Other people came to the family night too. A couple, T and S, came and really liked it. They seem to be somewhat interested by what they see. They invited us to eat with them next week. Elder J and I accidentally contacted them in February when looking for someone else from our area book. We started teaching them occasionally.
Those are the major updates for my week! I'm out of time, but I'm loving it here at Tahaa! I don't really want to get transferred. We'll see how it all works out in 2 weeks.

Talk to you soon via skype!

Elder Barlow

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