Training, travel and a terrific family

Hey guys!

This week was suuuuuuuuuper busy, more like the last couple weeks have been super busy. We didn’t have a full day in our proselyting area until Sunday. We were just constantly at the boats, or at the airport picking up and dropping off missionaries. And we went to Tahaa for a training with a branch council and a ward council. Oh and four areas in the zone got “white washed” so we have been working on damage control with the transitions of the new missionaries.

The training went great. We really have a great relationship with the leaders over in the 1st ward plus two branches of Tahaa. They keep asking us to come back for Firesides and trainings. It has also help motivate them, and this has resulted in those areas starting have way more success. The missionaries of Tahaa, Cumorah Ward moved into a new house so we all got together and had dinner with them. It was really nice to get to know the new missionaries.

Funny story. We ate at a super awesome oldish member’s house the other day. And while we we were eating there was an old timey French movie playing in the room next to us. It seems that the movie was about slavery and stuff, so throughout the evening my companion and I had to try and not laugh at the insane amounts of racial slurs coming from the other room. Good thing my comp has a good humour about that kind of stuff.

Tahitian 101
Funny Tahitian language discovery while talking to a 92 year old lady. The common word for “weed” here is "Pakalolo" which is actually a Hawaiian word. So I asked the mamie how they say it in Tahitian. She said its "Papaateroro." "Papaa" means “to burn” (while cooking) and "te roro" means “the brain.” Hmmm… makes sense. Oh and computer in Tahitian is "Rorouira" which means “electric brain.”

This week we have a Zone Conference with President Fox and the assistants. It will be nice because the four missionaries of Huahine will fly down to Raeatea for this one normally. It'll give us a chance to meet the new missionaries. There are a lot of unique challenges when your zone is split over three islands.

We are teaching the coolest couple ever. They are 24 and 22 years old, and by some miracle they have already been married for four years and have two little daughters. (co-habitation is very common here). They have been progressing really well over the last couple months and we are helping them prepare to be baptized in September. And they both have a solid testimony of the Book of Mormon. They are probably my favorite Investigators.

Thanks for all you guys do! Love you!

Ta!

Elder Goodwin

Boat to Tahaa

And the view from the patio (Cumorah) chapel.

More of the view of Bora from Tahaa, Cumorah Chapel

Little dinner with the 4 missionaries of tahaa. Prepared by the couple that came down to help with the move. 

Elder Omorodion and I on our way to Tahaa

Driving the boat!

My comp and I wearing Nigerian clothing

Yay... we got a truck but boy do we need it!

Hello, 

My companion (Elder Omorodion from Lyon, France) says a medium t-shirt could work but send a large maybe just to be sure. 

Its crazy to hear that Divine San Juan is already home from Hong Kong and her 18 months are done!. It just shows how fast time flies. 

Yes! We finally got the truck. And good thing because we picked up literally sooooooooooooo much stuff from the boat. Because of all the transfers lately and the fact that the mission office has sent us four beds, four mattresses, a dryer and many other things for the houses here… the first day with the truck we drove over 200 kilometres. It was one of those days where we were out running errands from 7 in the morning until 9:30 at night and didn’t think to eat. Normally we shouldn’t have another day like that for at least another week. That way we can actually do some proselyting, heh heh.

We had some great lessons this week. We taught a lady this week who has been investigating the Church for over 20 years. She and her husband recently made the decision to get married and for the wife to be baptised in early November. She broke down in tears when she told us. That’s when you see the true fruits of repentance---when people make a conscious decision to make changes in their life and therefore feel the spirit more strongly. 

Soooo. I’m almost done reading the standard works (the Scriptures) in French, so for the last two months of my mission I’m only going to study in Tahitian. Every personal, companionship and language study will be in Tahitian. IT’S GONNA BE SICK!

Elder Gary E. Stevenson arrives this week. We will be watching the Mission conference over webex this week. Kinda sad to be out in the islands sometimes. We get to miss out on some really cool opportunities. 

We’ve been spending most of our p-days hanging with our branch mission leader, wood carving at his place. It may be something I will get into wood carving as a hobby one day. It’s a very satisfying skill to have.

Well that all I’ve got for you guys this week. Keep staying classy!

Much love

Elder Goodwin 

We got a truck!

Elder Omorodion and I realized we hadn't taken a picture together yet. So we snapped this one real quick for you guys.

Logistics, luggage and lots of change

Hey guys!

In answer to your inquiry, I don't really need much in the package. Maybe a little Canadian souvenir for my new companion. 

Heh heh, soooooo, yeah... this week was pretty crazy hectic (spell check please)! We had the hugest transfer call I’ve ever seen. Literally half our zone was white washed. (editors note: this is a term for when you take out a whole companionship and put in two completely new missionaries).  And all the missionaries were leaving last Friday. So all day Thursday, we were dropping everyones' stuff at the boat and picking people up to go to the airport. We haven’t recieved our new truck yet so we only have one Toyota Avanza on the island to get everything and everyone around. Elder Terry and I may have set a world record by fitting 9 large suit cases, 1 bike and a back pack in that little car all at the same time. We also dropped nine missionaries off at the airport and picked up 6. Just for Raiatea and Tahaa. 

So my new comp. is Elder Omorodion from France. Although he was born in Nigeria and stayed there until he was six years old. He’s a very cool dude! It’s nice to have a French companion because it helps me speak less Tahitian creole. He’s been on his mission for about 15 months now. So he’s still got a lot of time left. 

It was sad to see Elder Terry go. By tomorrow he will be with his family. It was kinda hard to serve with someone who is finishing… because he was thinking and talking a lot about school and home life. So it made me think of those things too for a while... but all is well now! 

Yes… I’ve now been on four of the five islands of Raromatai (the Leeward Island group). The only island in the group I haven’t visited is the island of Maupiti. I had a companion from there. It’s very small. Only 12 kilometres around. 

The district has changed a lot, so I will have to send an updated picture next week. The picture I sent is the old district before the transfer. 

The work went well this week, but since we are the only car on the island for the moment, we had lots of little errands that hugely distracted us from getting a lot of work done. Normally by friday we'll be good.

Thanks for the picture guys, you guys are lookin good!

Love you guys! have an awesome week!

Elder Goodwin 

A selfie in case you forgot what I look like

Raiatea District before the big transfer this week

The picture Mom and Dad sent me that I commented on...

Huahine adventures in missionary work...

La Lettre hebdo,

Hello! I am sending this early because I may not have very much if any time to email today. Because it is Elder Terry's last P-day on a mission we will be going fishing in the morning with our Branch Mission Leader, and visiting a motu with the district (motu = tiny island on the atoll surrounding the island). 

This week we didn’t really have very much proselyting time in our area. But we were still super busy. We watched our leadership council meeting over Skype for nearly seven hours. And then on Friday we took a plane to Huahine with Sister Basset---our Sister training leader.

We did a training with the Ward Mission Leader+ the Bishop + all the ward missionaries on the island. Then we did splits (trading companions) with our missionaries over there. (1 set of Sisters and 1 set of Elders) I got to work with a young missionary---we biked about 20 kilometres total that day—which was a pleasant change. 

Huahine is an insanely beautiful island. It has the water of Bora Bora in places and the island is open and beautiful like nothing I’ve ever seen. The people are extremely nice, the Polynesian attitude is still somewhat alive. And throughout the super-long time we spent biking, we crossed maybe about 15 cars. So the island is very very calm. It is probably my favourite island I’ve visited. 

Oh and while doing some contacting we ran into some people on the beach collecting and harvesting the meat from sea urchins. Long story short I got to eat some raw sea urchin! It’s very salty but I would imagine it tasting good if it was well prepared. We also fixed a lesson while doing so. 

Saturday night we flew back to Raiatea. So now we are back to normal at least until Elder Terry flies to Tahiti on Friday. I may have to cover three areas for three days waiting for my new companion to fly in the Monday after. In the mission there are 32 missionaries finishing (going home) and 34 starting. Six of those leaving are in our zone, which means a change in almost all areas... Fun times ahead!

I’m doing great out here. We've been busy as ever!

Have a great week! Love you guys!

Elder Goodwin 

Ps: I may need some hair stuff in the coming weeks… just to be able to make it to the end. 

Biking on Huahine

Huahine views

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The sleeping pregnant lady...