Week 9 on Uripiv July 6, 2014

 

Dear Friends and Family,

After I emailed you last week we went and played basketball with all the other Elders and Sisters here and just had a great time.  I haven't played basketball for a long time. We then went to a family home evening with one family and shared some thoughts and I shared some scriptures in 3 Nephi 27 about the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was a good Famle Haos Naet (family home evening).

Tuesday we did our usual laundry and went to a store to buy some fish and we cooked and ate with some friends.  This island is great.  It has just about everything you need now.  There's ice cream, chicken wings, fish, cold soda, it's pretty nice.  Well, after we ate fish we went and looked for a family we found in our area book.  It turns out this family had been taught somewhere back in 2008 but never got baptized.  We went and taught them the Restoration again to help them remember everything about it and they were very grateful for us to come and teach them and they said that we taught very clear and they were able to understand "evri samting" (everything).

Wednesday we were able to teach about the restoration to a new investigator and we talked to some investigators and played some soccer that afternoon. There are many people that like to play soccer here. They are great players.  They are playing a lot now because they want to practice to play in teams on July 30th (Vanuatu's Independence).

Thursday we made a meeting with our Branch President and right as we were about to go teach we received a call from some Sisters in Lakatoro.  They said there was an olfala (old) man who was in the hospital who needed us to give a blessing.  We waited for a boat take us to Lakatoro and we arrived there at about 3pm.  We walked about 2 miles before we could hitch a ride with a truck that was heading in the direction we wanted to go.  We arrived and I gave the blessing and the family there was so happy for us to come.  A few days later we asked about the olfala and they said that he's better already. By the time we arrived back to Uripiv, the sun had already gone down.

Friday morning as we went out to teach a family here from Michigan passed by me and said "happy 4th of July!" I have to admit that it did not dawn on me that it was the 4th of July!  We had someone take a picture with the Americans. Then we went and taught 2 lessons and during one of them we taught 2 new investigators!  They were both from different churches.  We taught them about the restoration and they asked many questions that we answered about our church because they were very curious.  They were both very respectful too.  Even though we were all from different faiths we were very kind and respectful of each others beliefs. When we finished, we checked the time and it turns out that we taught for a total of 2 hours!  It's the longest lesson I've taught on my mission, but it was a great lesson.

Saturday we taught 1 more new investigator which made us very happy and we also taught one of our investigators who's ready to be baptized. We hope to baptize this investigator next Saturday.

Sunday morning we went to church and I taught about how Elijah restored keys of the priesthood for sealings and temple work. I think the lesson went really well.  Everyone was out and about for some reason so we were only able to teach a couple that afternoon. Well I think you already know from this email that the work is really starting to improve and now we have many more investigators to work with.  I love this small little island and I know the Lord is helping and blessing us. 

 

Mi lavem yufala evriwan mo mi luk se evri samting bak hom i stret mo tingbaot blo readim buk blong momon mo jusum raet.

Lav,

Elder Beynon