Ia ora na i te mau taata i o ra!

This week was an interesting one. On Tuesday we started off the week by having all four of our lessons dropped. We later realized it was because the semi-weekly boat had arrived in Avera, the city located on the other side of the island. But the good news about the boat arriving was that we finally received our DVD player and fans that we had asked for 6 weeks earlier. 

So a couple weeks earlier we had set up a "coin de feu" (which means fireside, literally translated to corner of the fire) that we would be having on Sunday, yesterday. This week we really focused on visiting members and committing them to invite their friends to this fireside on Sunday. So all throughout the week we were able to see all 10 of the active families in our branch at least twice, which gave us pretty high hopes that this fireside would yield some new investigators for us. So Sunday rolls around and we are able to get a few last commitments out during church for the fireside. Then the fireside rolls around. After our week of many commitments and follow-ups we had an astounding 0 investigators show up. So back to the drawing board. This week we are focusing on just talking to people on our own an seeing what kind of results that can have.

Also another idea that we had was to try teaching an English class at the church. We had our first class last week and it had a decent turn out. We even had one potential investigator come so we will keep doing that for sure. And for some reason people here think English is really funny (mostly just the pronunciations for things). I almost feel like a stand up comedian as I am explaining to them how to pronounce words. I never thought the word "hat" would be so funny.

Saturday was interesting too because we tried to go see old investigators with one of the members and literally everyone that we tried to go see wasn't home. Again, we realized that everyone was at the huge wedding in the other city, Auti. There aren't any big weddings or boat arrivals this week so we probably won't have something like that come up again. 

And for all who don't know the word "nana" is actually the Tahitian word for bye. Just an interesting fact.

So I'm out of time for this week, mais à la prochain,

Elder Rose 

Send letters to:

Elder Cody Tiler Rose

Tahiti Papeete Mission

The Church of Latter Day Saints

B.P. 93 Mormon Mission

Papeete, Tahiti 98714

French Polynesia

Letters take 6-8 weeks (use 4-6 stamps)

Packages take 12 weeks

Elder Rose's e-mail address: cody.rose@myldsmail.net

And here is a picture of one of the many geckos that we constantly have in our house.

Hey everyone!

These past weeks have been good and interesting. Last week we were able to set up a baptisimal date with Tuarii! It was crazy because we had to call his parents and get them both to say yes. His dad was really cool and chill about it but his mom wasn't as easy to convince. I have come to realize in my time here that people have the mindset "my parents are this religion, so why should I change" And in this case for Tuarii's mom it was, "well I am this religion and my kids will stay this religion". Anyway, we got her to say yes, and in the end all was good. Then we come back later in the week to teach another lesson and at the end of the lesson we talk to him about his baptism and suddenly he has changed his mind and doesn't feel ready for baptism. So in the end, no baptisimal date for Tuarii yet but we are not giving up on him.

Some other good news though. This week we started teaching the children of the recent convert, Teoo. Their names are Noarii (10 yr old boy) and Ivee (9 yr old girl). And some other good news, we were able to set up a baptisimal date for each of them after lesson 1! Ivee has already read all of 1 Néphi on her own and is very eager to learn more about the gospel. It was just so nice to have that happen right after the whole Tuarii incident. I know that that was an answer to my prayers and was given to us only because of the grace of the Lord. I really am seeing the blessings of hard work and faith in the Lord.

And the language is coming along. I got my first semi-compliment this week on how my French was improving so that was motivational. Recently I have been focusing on French a lot more than Tahitian because honestly French is 100% necessary here while Tahitian is just super cool to speak. Its coming along though and I can definitely see progress.

Oh and we started teaching another man this week who already believes the church is true and wants to be baptised! Great stuff right! The only thing is he isn't married because his GF doesn't want to get married and we think its because if they do get married he will get baptised. So again my testimony of opposition in all things has been strengthened. Its good though. Also another thing that might be holding them back from marriage is just how big of a deal marriage is here. There is a marriage that will be happening this week in the next city over, Auti, and they are building this massive building just for this marriage. I saw probably 50 people working on constructing this building and I also saw a pile of like 1000 coconuts. We even had a lesson pushed to next week because they said they were too busy because of the marriage all this week. Evidently it is a week long thing. So yeah, marriage roadblocks, not cool.

Anyway thats my little update for this week. Like always next week will be a whole different story. But until then Faaitotio e maiti i te maitai, e e mea roa to'u here no outou i o ra.

Elder Rose

Send letters to:

Elder Cody Tiler Rose

Tahiti Papeete Mission

The Church of Latter Day Saints

B.P. 93 Mormon Mission

Papeete, Tahiti 98714

French Polynesia

Letters take 6-8 weeks (use 4-6 stamps)

Packages take 12 weeks

Elder Rose's e-mail address: cody.rose@myldsmail.net

 And this week I got to work in a taro field whaddup! In the first picture we are laying out dried banana tree leaves to protect the taro from the harsh sun.

In the second picture is the finished product, topped with coconut tree fronds.

Ia ora na i te mau taata!

This week has been a busy one, and I only have a minute to write. I am doing well and we have one confirmed baptismal date now so things are going good here in Rurutu! But I will tell you more about that next week. 

I heard it was cool to tell your family and friends where you are reading in the Book of Mormon, so I am at Alma 20 now. Right in the middle of one of my favorite stories of Ammon of course.

Elder Rose

Send letters to:

Elder Cody Tiler Rose

Tahiti Papeete Mission

The Church of Latter Day Saints

B.P. 93 Mormon Mission

Papeete, Tahiti 98714

French Polynesia

Letters take 6-8 weeks (use 4-6 stamps)

Packages take 12 weeks

Elder Rose's e-mail address: cody.rose@myldsmail.net

Ia ora na i te mau taata!

 

E mea maitai teie mahana (this week was good). Every week is great out here of course. So starting out the week, one of our investigators, Eliza, has finished taking all the lessons and is ready for baptism! Great news right! The reason I haven't talked about her yet is because she doesn't live in Rurutu, she was just staying here to visit her daughter for a few weeks and she is actually back in Tahiti now. The last thing she needs to do before her baptism is get married, which she is doing in December. Its just a shame she isn't getting baptized here in Rurutu. It was funny to hear the responses of the Elders whose ward she is going to. We called them to tell them that they were receiving an investigator who wanted to be baptised and had already finished taking all the lessons (they don't have to do anything but a baptismal interview, those lucky dogs). Elder Ollerton and I keep joking that we will get a call with someone completely ready for baptism sometime soon. We aren't really sure how likely that is though.

 

Something kind of cool too, I looked at all our investigators and saw that we have five investigators that we teach in Tahitian and the other three are in French, which might be why my Tahitian is coming along so well compared to my French. But all is well! The languages are coming along, just not as quickly as I would like them of course, but that is kind of expected. Its just super neat to be able to feel divine help sometimes. Its funny though because its not all the time that I feel that help. It seems like its just enough to give me hope that learning these languages is possible. Honestly sometimes when I'm not listening to what is being said, these sound like crazy alien languages (mostly just Tahitian) but I am definitely seeing progression in my language comprehension. Anyway, throughout all of this I have been able to see that God really does have a divine way of teaching, even if it is a bit frustrating. And I know that if God tells us to do something, we can do it (1Ne 3:7) no matter how difficult it is.

 

And Elder Ollerton and I might have some new investigators, a family of 6... more news on that in later weeks, but we have very high hopes for them. This week we did a lot of committing people to make lists of investigators and so far is sounds like some people did it, so if all works out we could possibly have some new investigators within the next couple weeks. Cool stuff!

 

And something that has been happening this week. So our house is right beside this sport building and behind that building they have a futsal (soccer) court. This whole weekend has been just a huge futsal tournament, which makes it kind of difficult to do personal and companionship study because the crowd is so loud. And that also makes it difficult because futsal is my favorite sport in the whole world. So it has been hard not to just sit and watch the games all the time but I feel good focusing on the Lord's work.

 

So yeah, that's all I have time for this week but like always next week will be a whole different story. Aru'e

 

Elder Rose 

Send letters to:

Elder Cody Tiler Rose

Tahiti Papeete Mission

The Church of Latter Day Saints

B.P. 93 Mormon Mission

Papeete, Tahiti 98714

French Polynesia

Letters take 6-8 weeks (use 4-6 stamps)

Packages take 9-12 weeks

Elder Rose's e-mail address: cody.rose@myldsmail.net

Eliza our investigator