Failure, success, and a little Tahitian equals an excellent week.

Hey guys.

This week was really interesting. The whole companionship unity thing has been doing miles better now. We found some common ground and things are going really well. But all-in-all this week was tough. 100% of lessons this week got cancelled. I’ve never had a ‘perfect' week before. But we still managed to find a couple lessons, although they were unplanned, fall out of the sky opportunities. 

Honestly this week wasn’t all that special. We ended having a bunch of extra unplanned time, so we took advantage of the time to build relationships. We visited our Ward Mission Leader everyday this week. Our WML is an older Tahitian man that can’t really walk. He can’t go out with us because he doesn’t have a car. But he is an incredibly smart and well read fellow because he reads a lot. He doesn’t really speak French very well. Everyone in the ward tells us that his Tahitian is the best in the Ward by far. So we go to his little wooden shack and talk to him in Tahitian and laugh with him. And because of that, my Tahitian has been improving in leaps and bounds. I’ve also been reading the bible a lot in Tahitian because it is written in the original Tahitian. 

This Sunday was a fast and testimony meeting for us. Normally this meeting was supposed to be reserved for the Tahitian language. The first two testimonies were people who forgot about this emphasis, so they bore their testimonies in French. When I got up to go bear my testimony, everyone thought I was just going to do it in French, but I bore my testimony and engaged the Ward to do missionary work--in Tahitian. The Ward flipped out. Old Tahitian people are sometimes a little self-conscious when les "taata marite” (Americans) come and speak Tahitian when their kids don’t always speak it very well. All the testimonies after me where in Tahitian and people were being super warm and friendly to me afterwards. WHY didn’t I do this months ago?. 

Even though the overall work kinda sucked this week, I feel really good, because we worked mega hard. And I learned a lot this week. 

E mea au roa te vi. Ua hinaaro vau ia amu te uri. 

I like mangos. I want to eat dog meat. 

Elder Goodwin

Tuesday evening I got to drive the zone leaders truck to take my companions to Tiare (near Hitia on the north side of the island) to eat with Elder Faatau's family before he left for Australia.

Elder Eperania (my companion), the other Iri Uouo (white skin) is Elder Dalton, Elder Faatau, Elder Langomazino and me.

Honestly, this camera is made to take pictures of kittens!