Monday 28 March 2016

Busy week - lots of teaching

I’m good regarding the shoes. (in response to a question) All of my shoes are holding together really well. Elder Traydon Stewart is the Elder from Cardston. He is in the same house as Owens and I. Tell his family that he is cool dude. 

This week was actually pretty tough. We had a huge transfer today, so I was driving missionaries for a good portion of the day... fantastic. 

We have a bunch of investigators right now. In fact we average about 20 lessons a week. We are hoping we will find more people who are interested. Do me a favour at home and be nice and support the missionaries you have now. 

My bike is in great shape. I’ve used it a couple of times for splits--in fact my bike is still in Mataiea, seeing as we have a car right now.

I’m really sorry about how bad I am at emailing, nothing crazy happens here, we just kinda work. But I suppose I am not good at remembering the little moments that might be interesting. 

Funny thing that you might want to hear about is that since there are so many missionaries from Vanuatu in our district, I have been in a house with two so far. So I have been learning bislama on the side. Bislama is an English-based creole language. Sometimes it sounds a bit like a 5 year old heard English then wrote it down. “Mi likim yu" is how you say I love you. So the other day there where two RMs (returned missionaries) that served in Vanuatu in our Ward, so my companion and I started talking to them in bislama and we could sustain a conversation. It is super easy to learn for English speakers. So in my home coming talk I am going to bear my testimony in English, French, Tahitian and bislama. In fact I could probably bear my testimony in bislama right now. Heheh

I have chosen my Tahitian name. it is FaufaaMaitai... which mean a 'good win' but more the feeling of a good win.  I have ordered a tag that says OROMETUA FAUFAAMAITAI and I should get it in a couple months... heck yeah! 

Other then that, life is pretty steady.

Peace out fam jam!

Ua here vau ia outou!

Orometua FaufaaMaitai




Our district.

This week's bonus photo!




Monday 21 March 2016

Some P-day adventures

Bonjour,
Hey guys… I'm on vite fait. How’s it going? My email this week is pretty lame because nothing too crazy happened, we just worked a lot. Lately I’ve been just learning Tahitian with members, and I’ve been reading a lot, and doing the side by side scripture study. I’ve actually been learning a lot. At this rate, I know within the year I will be able to speak it. It’s a tough language because the structure is so different from European languages... like super different. Example: Ua hinaaro vau ia faaite oe. which means “I want to make you know" or "I want to make you see.” However, directly translated it says "want I to make seen you." Its kinda tough sometimes to understand the direction on speech.

These last two weeks have been a lot of work, we have been doing a lot of lessons, but our secteur is very small so we often find ourselves not knowing where to contact if we dont have a lesson planned. It has shown me the importance of members when it come to finding people. 

Port-a-port is not productive, and there is definitely a better way. For instance, my companion and I ran into a guy while contacting that has a room in a recreation center in our secteur. We ended up working out a deal where my companion teaches a bunch of young men-aged guys how to do jiu jitsu... and I’ve been learning a lot as well. So we showed up to this place, and everyone was looking at us funky because they recognize us as the missionaries. Then my companion impressed the crap out of them by taking on a guy who has done three years of MMA fighting. It was quite the sight to behold. So basically now, all those guys are super chill with us, and the fellow who takes care of the room told us to start leaving with spiritual messages. I see a lot of potential with that. We do it Mondays and Wednesdays.

Funny thing that happened this week... we got home once at the end of the day, and this day in particular was dang hot. When we pulled up—Elder Kokona was sleeping half in the house and half out. So I pulled the car up right beside him, as slow and quiet as possible, and honked the horn. Long story short--we almost had to rush him to the hospital because of a heart attack (joking). Fun day all around

Just know that I am working hard and just trying my hardest to be a good missionary. I hope there more opportunities to teach on the horizon, but one must have faith. I love you guys, keep it real. All is well in paradise.

Elder Goodwin


Random pictures of the week. Elder Owens (Florida), Elder Stewart (Cardston) and Elder Kokona (Vanuatu) and I on the tour of the main island.





























Elder Kokona from Vanuatu.
 


An ancient Tahitian sacrificial place--back when the second of the ten commandments didn’t apply.



Maraa Grotto 
Maraa Grotto




Your average Taapuna sunset! Yes that is Moorea.






Tuesday 15 March 2016

Busy day...

Busiest P-day ever. Long story short. Car had to get repaired. Did the tour of the island with a member for six hours and ended up not having any time to email. I am alive! I will answer emails next weeks. sorry guys. 

Elder Goodwin

Monday 7 March 2016

Climbing the hills of Vallee de Taapuna, Puna'auia

Hey guys!

I really like my new secteur. It is very different from Mataiea. It is very hilly and has a lot more paved roads. There are some super-rich houses in our secteur (see picture of the gate), and there is a less affluent, more normal part, where we do about 99 percent of our work. 

Our apartment isn't in our secteur. It is just off the highway in a servitude called Chan 1. Basically the house is known for having missionaries in it---so people steal from it every night. We had someone find a way to open the window in the other Elders' room, and he entered into the home while everyone was sleeping. He stole some money and not much else. Thankfully I have my wallet under my bed. So one of these days, if the see a news report that four missionaries tied up a robber and forced it to eat stale crackers until he promised never to come back, It might have something to do with us. Long story short, the other day I had an interview with the French Gendarme, and we made a report related to the break in, so my name is on some official document thingy. FUN TIMES. 

Up on the mountain you can see all of Moorea from here. I haven’t gotten a chance to get a good picture because it has been too foggy to get a good view, but I will get some pictures in the coming weeks... it is beautiful.  

Fun experience of the day. there is this crazy old guy we call Papi. He is super nice to us, and we do lessons in his house. He really likes looking at the sun and praying in weird ways. He says he speaks Hebrew, and he talks and it kinda sounds like Hebrew. We asked him how he learned it, and he said he has a Hebrew bible. We asked to look at it and he pulled out a German bible... hahaha. He says he is the last remaining decendant of Abraham and he likes to talk to Jesus, and Jesus talks back through him in a really weird voice, We tried to talk to the 'other voice’ once. I’ve never felt like I had to cast out an evil spirit before that moment... because what ever is talking, it is clearly not Jesus. When I asked it what its name was and he starred at us all scary like. There are two things we can learn from this guy. Don’t stare at the sun and drugs are really bad for you. 

Thats just about it...

Elder BonVictoire

Contacting in the wealthier areas is a challenge!



Cool dog and our chicken named Randal... too bad about mission rules!



The future of missionary work...


Elder Owen