eldergoodwintahiti.blogspot.com: Mataiea

This week it has been super stupid Satan-breath hot here! We haven’t gotten any rain this week so we are just cookin!

I got to go to the Tahiti temple this week. It is absolutely beautiful inside... the interior reminds me a lot of the Calgary Temple.

The house we are in has four Elders in it. Elder Ruff and I, then Elder Lee Chip Soa, a Tahitian dude who looks like a Polynesian version of Mark Walburg, and his companion Elder McClelland, who is an American dude who is in his second transfer. Elder Lee Chip Soa is a level 9000 Bible Basher and knows the scriptures inside and out. One day I said something about how I didn’t like the fake maple syrup here and he gave me a scripture reference to put me in my place.

Yoooooo, Ruff and I had our first baptism this week!!!!! His name is K-dog, awesome dude, super converted. Our Ward Mission Leader is the coolest man I’ve ever met, his name is Savas Maitai, which in itself is a short conversation. Savas? Maitai! (Ca va? Bien! How's it going? Good!). He doesn’t have a traditional job, so he just goes out and picks fruit and fishes sometimes, and occasionally he cuts down a tree for some extra money. He basically lives my dream life. He also has tons of free time, so he comes with us a lot, to go see people.

This week I ate cocoa, two types of pineapple and coconut. Tahitian pineapple is far better than anything I have ever before consumed. My poo may have been solid for the first time in a while.. must be getting used to things.

I have come to see spiders as my friends, because they eat the other bugs, which plague our life. Every time I buy cereal, it is a gamble. There has been an occasion or two where there was life present in our freshly purchased Special K.

Missionary work is hard, but actually so rewarding, it’s so awesome to watch people find truth for themselves, knowing you had something to do with guiding them. I’ve never had the chance to dive into the scriptures as I have now. We have two hours a day to study--it is actually really awesome. It is also really weird to read with Missionary eyes, I find I study for my investigators now, not myself.

Iaorana means, "may you live.” We use it for hello, and “nana" is goodbye. Spelling in Tahiti is really open, as long as it is pronounced correctly, the spelling doesn't seem to matter. You have no idea how many times I've asked a Tahitian how to spell something and they say that they don’t know...

All is well in Paradise.

Iaorana

Elder Goodwin