Week 92: Touring Ua Huka by boat -- with lemons

Hey guys so this was a pretty decent week!! 

Monday we took a tour of the island by boat. We went with Julie (the sister in law of Aldo and Marie Christine), and Aldo!! The person driving the boat was this guy named Noho; he is totally a guy that just lives at sea, and he loves his boat!! The island of Ua Huka is soooo pretty!!! It was super cool to take a tour around the island!! I also learned a lot of tricks too, like apparently when you are at sea it's good to bring lemons with you so that if you get tired and feel gross because of all the salt, you eat a lemon haha.  It sounds gross, but when you are in the ocean it's actually super good and it makes you feel more energized!!

Tuesday and Wednesday were some harder days because there were futsal games going on so everyone was busy and most of our day-time lessons got cancelled. We were able to do a bunch of lesson at night though.

Thursday we went all the way to Hokatu to see some investigators, and later on we saw Moeata after her futsal practice. She came to Marie Christine's house and we did the lesson there. We talked about the law of chastity, and we are really trying to talk about marriage with her because she is not married but she is living with her boyfriend (that is super common here in French Polynesia)!

Friday we did our district meeting and a lot of planning!

Taking over the Mayor of Ua Huka's office. He likes us.

Saturday was also great. We had a bunch of lessons to do!! We saw Moeata again and we reset Aldos baptism date -- we are going to try and to it the 24th of June!! We set up a program for him to stop smoking, so we are going to try for that and he is going to try to talk to his parents, which is going to be pretty crazy because their parents hate us!! The funny thing is that Moeata and Aldo are our most potential investigators!

Sunday we had 18 at church. We are pretty happy because we are averaging about that much at church each week now!! 

I've really been studying Jacob 5 this week, and it's super great!! I like reading it from a missionary's point of view. I really like how it talks about how the servant and the Lord worked together in the vineyard, and then the servant harvested the fruit!! We as servants of the Lord are working with him, he cannot do it alone, but he needs us to help him plant, nourish and harvest!! 

Have a great week. Love you all!

Elder Boyd

Week 91: 20 people at Church service and seven investigators making progress

Hey guys so this week was super great!!!

Monday, after emailing, we went to watch the futsal tournament again and it was the two best teams playing so it was super fun. After that we played volleyball with some of the people there in the street, and I learned again that I suck at volleyball haha! 

Tuesday we had a pretty decent day of good hard missionary work!! 

Wednesday was definitely a tough day, haha, because the boat arrived on the island. The island gets all of its supplies by boat sooooooo when the boat comes everyone is either picking up stuff that they ordered or they are bringing tourists around, or they are selling stuff to tourists because tourists are suckers and its easy money, haha. Sooo everyone was super busy and didn't have time for us. We tried to make the best of our time and decided to study and plan some stuff for the upcoming week!!

Thursday we went to another valley called Hane, which is the middle valley of the three. We saw some of our potential investigators and had a great day with them!!! Buuuuttttt, oh man, apparently Hane is totally just blowing up with the persecution!! Like holy cannoli it's startin' big time because we have a lot of potential over there! Seems to always happen this way.

Friday we did our meeting and did work and boom goes the dynamite!!!

Saturday we were pretty busy early on and then we had planning meetings.

Sunday was totally bombin because we had a record of 20 people at church!! Woooooooooo, we are sooo happy with the progression, I'm gonna cry!!!!!!!! We started off with only 7 the first week!!!! Oh man, hard work pays off, but we still have a lot of work to do!! Then I called home for Mother's Day -- my last call home from the mission.

I'm sorry that this letter was a bit small and boring haha I'll write a better one next week. I read a verse in Alma 26:22 that if we prove our faith and repent every day, God will give us amazing things. I will let you guys look up that verse and figure what He will give us!!! The goal of this life is to make covenants and keep them through faith and repentance using the gift of the Holy Ghost!! There is no greater plan, and no greater reward!!

I love you guys! Have a great week

Elder Boyd

Week 90: Parina gets baptized. If you are down and need to laugh, play volleyball with a drunk guy

Hi guys!!!!! So this week flew by super fast!!!!!

After emailing on Monday,  we went to watch this huge Futsal tournament that was going on! Futsal is like the only sport here, so its pretty intense! We later played volleyball with Melodie, Moerani (who are both investigators), and Siki (who was drunk at that time). so we were all messing with Siki big time! If you are ever down or need to laugh, play volleyball with a drunk guy!!

Tuesday was a great day!! Almost everyday of this past week was filled with lessons, like we had at least 5 or 6 lessons a day!! If you ask me, thats nuts! But yeah, bad news about "C"; let's just say that she let the persecution and the criticism got the best of her, so she said that she didn't want to keep going with the lessons, which is sad. It is so astonishing to me how quickly people can forget about the spiritual experiences that they have had! Looking back on it she never kept the commitments we gave her, and even though the lessons were super spiritual she never read or prayed in-between on her own!  Sooo.... lesson learned, never stop studying and praying or we will forget the spiritual experiences that we have had!

Wednesday we were able to recontact Marcella, also a very potential investigator. She had a lot of work and was super busy, so it has been hard to reach her, but we can totally see that she has been reading and praying during her free time, and so she had progressed even though she wasn't able to see us often!

Later in the week we had a bunch of lessons and we saw Moeata again during this week and man she is doing great! We talked a lot about baptism and the word of wisdom! 

We held our district meeting on Thursday, twas great!!

Saturday, everyone was super busy so that was our planning day, but we did our fast and it was good.

Sunday, we had a great turnout at church again; we had 18 in attendance, so we are keeping it up!!! It's a lot of work planning and running the church here, but man it's super super great, and its definitely a rewarding experience!!!

Finding the perfect baptismal spot

So today (Monday) was a special day because Parina (the daughter of Yolinda), who is 8 years old, was baptized!! Yesterday Elder Ugbah and I found a really really pretty spot to do the baptism, and we did the baptism there this morning, it was super super great! We had a bunch of investigators come and they loved it! Don't worry, I'll send some pictures!

So all of our investigators like Aldo, Moeata, Mercella, Moerani, Melodie, Reiata, etc. are all doing great, and progressing!! 

Have a great week guys 

Elder Boyd

Week 89: Trust falls, and being a light and example

Hey guys. This week was great, and it went by super fast too.

Monday we ate with Marie Christine's family. Since we live just right behind them we are always at their house! Then we went a visited a beach. It was pretty cool, but I forgot my camera haha sorry!!! Then we did family night and we had some investigators there; Melodie and Moerani came with us!! It was fun! We talked about faith and our activity was trust falls haha they are actually super great for teaching faith haha!!

Tuesday: t'was a great day, we were just super busy, but we saw an investigator named Moeata who is the sister of Aldo (who is the husband of Marie Christine) and those two are in fact our most potential investigators, and the funny thing is that their parents are like a big part of the group of catholics who criticize us and stuff!!!! So Moeata and Aldo are really loving the gospel and just soaking it up!! You can tell that they are just the examples. If they get baptized there will be soooo many that follow because everyone here loves Aldo and Moeata!! But their parents don't know yet that they are seeing us all the time. The only thing that is blocking them is their parents because they are just scared that their parents will get angry and of course they will, because they don't understand yet, but it's coming!! You can see that the Lord is totally working on this family!!

Wednesday: Nothing special just a good day of teaching!!!

Thursday was the same old. We tried to see Colette, but she was sick!! She was acting kinda weird and we found out that this girl went a talked bad about us and said stuff about Joseph Smith and all that, so we are planning to see Colette tomorrow and try to talk to her. We can't let her forget the experiences she had with the gospel. I have l learned on this mission that Satan totally tries to get people to forget their experiences! 3 Nephi 2:1-2.

Friday was a slower day so we did all of our planning and got all of that done! And we did a district meeting with those at Nuku Hiva!! When we saw Moeata again we talked a lot about the light of Christ because she always asks why the members of the church and the missionaries are glowing all the time!! Sooo we explained the its through the true gospel principles and keeping the commandments that we become a light and an example.

Saturday Yvonne came back, so now we have all four members here in Ua Huka.

Sunday was great!! New record: we had 19 people at church, and then after church we went all the way to Hokatu which is the last valley where the road stops! 

So here in Ua Huka there are three villages, Vaipaee, Hane, and Hokatu, and the rest of the island hasn't been touched!! So we went there to see an investigator named Caristine, and finally since Ugbah got his new brakes and tires we were able to go on bike!! We found a perfect spot to do some baptisms. It's perfect because it's hidden and quiet and you can totally feel the spirit better!!

Love you guys. Have a great week!!

Elder Boyd