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!

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.

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

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

Vallee Taapuna, Puna’auia. - quick transfer

Hey guys. this week was kinda weird. 

On Tuesday night, I got a call from the assistants to President Bize, and he said that there is an emergency transfer.  So now I’m in Vallee de Taapuna in the Stake of Puna’auia. on the west side of the main island. And I’m the driver! I’m gonna get so fat. 

This secteur has a lot of work, and it is pretty much on a mountain side. It is basically just hugely steep hills everywhere. My new companion is Elder Owens from Florida. He is super awesome. He has been out on his mission just one transfer before me. Life is sweet over here, it is way different than Mataiea. 

Mataiea works off of the highway and only has dirt roads that go off into the valleys and is quite flat, Here in Taapuna Valley it is super steep, all paved and the style of the houses is a lot different. I feel like Mataiea is a lot more beautiful, but the work here is better. Just before I left Mataiea, I ate a red tuna sashimi, which is normally quite the amazing experience, but I guess it was sitting out for too long, so all of Friday night, I was puking up a storm. Then Saturday I couldn't really walk very well. But we still ended up getting a bunch of missionary work done. But yesterday and today all is well. I have to tell you, after my mission, my immune system will be rock solid. 

The Elders in my house, who cover the Secteur Matatia next to ours, are, Elder Kokona (Vanuatu) and Elder Stewart (Cardston) Dats right, two Alberta boys in one house. Infact i think Thomas Miller told me to look out for him when I posted my call on Facebook. 

Well. all is well over here, there are some changes, but life continues as normal. Peace!

Elder Goodwin

The Aritaii family and I. Good friends from Mataiea.

My Tahitian father. frere Wheeler (and Elder Elder Lo'amanu)

Me and the Mataiea Ward Mission Leader, Sava Maitai... and his accordion.

My new companion, Elder Owen and I - Taapuna, Puna’auia.

Email issues and splits with the Mission President

Hey. Tell people sorry if they emailed me but didn’t get a reply. Myldsmail had a bug. They fixed it now. I’m going to try and resend the emails that are actually showing up in my sent mail file. I love you guys. I’m on the phone right now so it's kinda ‘fiu' to type. (fiu =  is used when someone is annoyed, angry, tired or fed up)  Know that I am alive and well! Basically all my emails lately have been written on a phone, so spelling is bad and I miss-type a lot. Please ignore the mistakes, because I know they are plenty. Lately members have been using the church computer on Mondays to do genealogy… so I have had to do a lot of emailing on the phone. It is super ‘fiu.'

My area is in a slump, it has always been a slow area for the main island. Basically I’ve been working my butt off to try and make somewhat of an effect on this area’s progression. Within the first two weeks together, my new companion and I, contacted every home in the area. We could have done it faster, but we decided to pace ourselves down so that we stayed busy. 

I barely know how to write down what I have learned, because I have learned so much. I have seen how important it is to have good leaders in the Ward congregation who are willing to even sacrifice the smallest amount of time to help us. I have seen how important it is to study the scriptures, and really pick out what they mean and how they apply to your life. One major thing I’m learning is self awareness. On a mission I have noticed that I am a lot more aware of my own pride and my own imperfections. I think that is certainly a reason young men should choose to go on a mission. It's not just to baptize. The Spirit does that if you are doing your part. But I can see that young men can miss out on an amazing opportunity to grow and become more Christ-like. 

I’ve learned so much in the four months I’ve been here that I find it really hard to work it down into email form.  I’ve never been good at comunicating in general. that is something that i need to work on. I have changed a lot. My focus has entirely changed from before my mission. While I’m here, I’ve been so focused on work, that I’ve been slowly forgetting that I have a family back home.  Just know that I am here, work hard to become a better person. Every single difficult situation, every time I get fiu... but then fall back on my Heavenly Father, I become a slighty more wise person. 

The truth is that I’ve been sent into a challenging secteur. The work here is slow, and has always been slow. President Bize wants to change our secteur for the better, so he has been pushing us really hard. It is super tiring mentally and physically. I did splits with President Bize which where awesome. I totally expected him to like be disappointed in us and tell us that we should be getting better numbers, but in fact he told us that we are doing a lot of good work. He said he knows that our secteur is a challenge so he said he has a lot of respect for us. I learned a lot. President Bize is a really cool guy. and he is super focused on the work. Contacting with him is fun because he is super direct. But in his car driving around, he talks about his favorite fast food joint or what ever. He is a super smart guy and you can tell he is really setting apart his time to serve the Lord. 

I’ve learned that it is so important for leaders and members to support missionary work. Our secteur also has a large population of another denomination. I have nothing wrong with their religion and seek to build bridges, but they can be shockingly mean. I mean, not everyone is like that, some people will engage with us... but the Polynesian attitude has been lost with some. But I love what I do and I can feel my Savior supporting me. I see little miracles everyday. 

I don’t have a lot of crazy experiences, I’ve just been working and working. I don’t think I’ve used my camera in about two weeks... but all is well. My companion is so much fun. His mom is sending me a traditional Tongan dress skirt and President Bize said that if both Elder Lo'amanu and I wear it, we can wear it on Sundays. Other that--last week I went to Te’ahupoo, and forgot my camera. We went fishing as a zone, but we didn't catch anything.  Te’ahupoo is super cool, the road stops at a certain point, the highway doesnt actually go all the way around the presque ile. but it was nice. Probably the most beautiful part of the main island. Yeah we saw a shark swimming up to my bait, and when it bit, I freaked the crap out. It pulled so hard the line cut my fingers and the line snapped. it was so cool. the shark was small, maybe only a meter and half long. but it was beautiful in fact.

This morning we did this cool service project for a member in our Ward. We invited eight missionaries to come. We went out into the mountain and cut down huge trunks of bamboo, and crossed this cool river, and the member tempted us to swim, and boy I have never felt such huge temptation in my life… but we didn’t give in. It was in this beautiful enclosed area. It is one of the places I have to visit again when we visit. We carried the bamboo back, then built a huge chicken coop. We then wrangled 36 chickens and put them in the coop. There was one left at the end, and me and an American Elder, Elder Davis, came up on it and surrounded it, and it was so scared it layed an egg right in front of us. We where laughing so hard I cried. Just imagine eight elders trying to catch chickens for about an hour, it was so much fun.

it has rained every day this week, and we think we might get the remnants of the typhoon that hit Fiji this week. My tahitian is improving, we have two investigators that speak only Tahitian, so I have gotten a lot more opportunities to practice. We teach this one elderly lady. She is so so so nice and she knows my Tahitan sucks. But she says the simple things I express, say a million words. Life is going good on the main island, but there are more adventures to come. Peace out.  

Reading back on this email, I realize how bad my English has gotten.

Oti roa (really done now)

Ua here vau ia outou.

Elder Goodwin

Study time with an attentive partner

Elder McLaughlin and I today. 

No update from Elder Goodwin this week.