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

Alright everyone, not much time for emailing this week but I'll see what I can do.

 

So some things that I have come to realize in my time here. These people can eat so much food and do not understand how or why anyone else would not be able eat as much as them. Also they think that the more I eat the stronger I will get, which is definitely false. I have learned also that I am able to eat a lot more food than I thought I could. Sometimes I will start a meal thinking "oh my goodness how am I going to finish all of this" and by the end of the meal I always have a stronger testimony that God answers prayers, no matter how small they are (and no matter how small my stomach is).

Some other cool things that happened this week. Elder Ollerton and I were able to teach an old Tahitian man the first lesson (Joseph Smith story). So I had practiced the lesson a bit beforehand and it went a little rough but I learned pretty much all that I wanted to say. So I get into the lesson and then we get to my part. I was able to say all that I had practiced without really any problems. It was just a really neat experience and I know that I was being helped out during that lesson.

 

Something else kind of fun that happened this week, we decided to do some tracting in Avera. And we decided to walk there, straight over the mountain. One of the reasons that we decided to walk rather than take our bikes, I still am using a members bike and the brakes don't really work. So we figured out that the walk over the 1200ft mountain took about an hour and a half. So while we were in Avera we were able to contact about 9 people (contacting here is difficult, the LDS Church here is pretty well known and people don't have the best view of it) but out of those we were able to set up one lesson for next Friday so we will be taking our bikes that time because my bike gets here tomorrow (Tuesday).

 

Something else that happened this week. Elder Ollerton and I were thinking of ways that we could get the members to work with us more and we were able to come up with the idea to get everyone to make a list of people that they think would be ready to receive the gospel and then next week on fast Sunday we were going to have the families pray and fast to choose one person that they would try and introduce the gospel to. So we told everyone about that at church yesterday and were able to commit a couple families to do it for sure but overall I think it will have a good outcome and hopefully we will get some missionary work rolling here. There is so much potential here, we just need the help of the members to get started.

 

And my last weird update for the week. Some people probably wonder what a normal meal would be like here. Here is an example of some normal meals on Rurutu. So for breakfast I usually take a bowl of water and microwave it for about a minute and add some sugar, some powdered milk, and some Milo (French Polynesian equivalent of hot chocolate mix) and then I put some Sao crackers in that to make it almost a cereal type thing. Its easy to make and pretty efficient so I like it. Lunches we usually eat at the house and it usually consists of bananas (because we have like 75 bananas in our fridge now, literally) and maybe like rice and beans. Just whatever leftovers we were given from members. Then dinners usually consist of either raw fish, which is called poisson cru, or a mixture of like rice and peas and chicken called lentielles, or just some other type of fish. But the raw fish actually doesn't taste that bad and I'm pretty sure its ok to eat because I haven't gotten sick from it yet. But yeah, fish is of the essence here!

 

So thats all I have time for this week. Next week will be a whole different story though. Until next time,

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 3-6 weeks (use 4-6 stamps)

Packages take 6-8 weeks

 

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

 

Heres a picture of me chilling with some bananas during our walk to Avera.

 

And here is a picture of our city we live in, Moerai

                                                                  The starfruit we eat.

                                                                  Our missionary house

Today at 8:38 PM

Bonjour tout le monde!

 

This week has been really good. And just full of crazy expériences but I only have time to write about a few of them.

 

Ok so first off there are a ton of people here who speak Tahitian (some even speak this crazy dialect of it called Rurutu where they don't pronounce the F's or the H's). It is just such a blessing to be able to serve and learn Tahitian here. Already I have had some instances where I can't understand like ANY Tahitian but then just like a minute later I can understand almost everything that people are saying. I had this cool experience last week where I couldn't really understand much Tahitian so I prayed about it and for about 30 minutes I only spake Tahitian and after that I could understand significantly more. It really is amazing how when we go out of our way to show our dedication to the Lord we are blessed for it. Already I have been able to see that here.

 

Something else that was pretty cool. We do a lot of OLBing here (Ouvrir le bouche or open the mouth) where we just go around to people and talk to them about the gospel and invite them to take lessons from us. So one day we were walking aroung looking for some OLB opportunities and we decided to go into this dirt road/neighborhood type thing. I was feeling really good about this road, so when we get to the first house we yell our "Ia ora na!" like 3 times, no response. So we move on to the next house. Again nothing. This happens like two more times and by this time I was just thinking "why were we supposed to come down here". So then we go down the road a little further and see this man working on his faapu (farm). So we get up to him and Elder Ollerton starts talking to him in Tahitian and after like a 20 minute conversation in we invited him to take a lesson and he accepted, so now we have a lesson with him this week. It was just really neat how it worked out.

 

This week we also discovered that the top half of our island is super beautiful but not the most fun to bike on. The city on the other side of the island takes about an hour to get to by bike because of how steep the hills are. Because we were both on borrowed bikes (from some members until our bikes would arrive on the boat) the brakes weren't that good. So we had to walk our bikes all the way up and all the way back down the mountain but I got some really cool pictures out of it, I will see if I can send them. But it was just a fun experience. My legs felt like jelly after that day to say the least though.

 

Also something else funny that happened. So on Saturday we bike over to a city about 30 minutes away and on the way back from our lesson we are walking our bikes up this hill and we see what looks like tourists pass us and we wave of course and of course they give us some funny looks and reluctlantly wave back, but as we are continuing up the mountain we see their car stopped and they are taking pictures of the "horizon behind us" (they just wanted to get pictures of us but pretended to be taking pictures of the horizon) and when we get closer to the car one of the girls asks if she can take a picture with us. So she got a picture with two funny looking misisonaries all covered in sweat and wearing helmets. It was just weird to be so amuzing to someone.

And finally on saturday all of our stuff got here! Except my bike, its on the next boat which will be here in about a week. So that was nice, I just kind of wish I had my bike to traverse all of this difficult terrain but no biggie.

 

So yeah, those are my stories for the week. If anyone has any questions about the island or just anything that they want to know they can e-mail me and I will respond in my blog letter. Faaitoito everyone!

Elder Rose

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

 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 2-3 weeks (use 4-6 stamps)

Packages take 4-6 weeks