Hello Hello everybody!
This has been a great week. I love the work here. Slow and steady,
little by little, person by person, the work here progresses and it is
glorious to behold and to be a part of. Just for fun I'll share some
random things from the week. Friday morning I woke up and saw a
massive double rainbow, so since I live on a tiny island, I walked a
couple hundred feet to the bank of the ocean. The rainbow literally
went from horizon to horizon touching the ends of the island curving
away in the distance. But then I noticed that it was low tide. When
the tide goes out the island basically gets another couple hundred
yards of semi puddley beach. In the puddles I saw the rainbow continue
all the way up to me. Not to brag but, last Friday, I was the pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow!
Also, I finally found out where Santa vacations for the summer. We
were trying to find an investigator's new house last week, so went to
a random house to ask for directions. While we were talking with the
people there an old shirtless man in a lava lava walked up (pretty
much 90% of men are shirtless in lava lavas). He had a nice pot belly,
white hair and a nice trimmed white beard. My first thought was, It's
Santa! So I casually asked what his name was. He said Chris. Everyone
around laughed, so I asked again to have him tell the full story and
they all said his name was Christmas, Chris was just a nickname
(people here don't have nick names, so he was just showing off for the
white people, that's why everyone laughed). So it's TRUE! Santa
vacations here under the name of Christmas! (Actually a realatively
common name).
As far as stats this week, lessons were low, but 66 people came to
church. The record for the island is 77 back when they were able to
hold church in a bunch of people's houses (The elders then did splits
to make it work, but we don't have people anymore to do splits with).
A few months ago attendance was in the teens. We had 66 with everyone
getting into one of 2 trucks or walking all to the same place. Plus
2/3 of them didn't even have us by them to encourage them to come. I
am so pleased with the progression of these people to show their faith
to come.
Also this week we had a beautiful baptism of a cute older couple.
Tetauea (Tay t ow E ah) and Taroaiti (tah Rose) are both in their mid
fifties, but look older after a life of hard work under the sun. I
love both of them and have enjoyed helping them through the end of a
long road to baptism. They were taught when elders first came to the
island and got married then, but ended up being dropped because they
just couldn't stop their word of wisdom problems. Tetauea smoked and
drank and Taroaiti smoked the equivalent of 2-3 pack a day. Shortly
before I got here they had just started lessons again and were taught
about Fasting along with a challenge to fast for the strength to quit
those things. When I got here Tetauea was pretty much done, but
Taroaiti was just starting to lessen the cigaretes. She has now been
free from smoking for about a month. She said that she was offered a
cigarette a couple weeks ago, so she submitted to temptation and
smoked. But after one puff she was so disappointed in herself and also
her head and teeth hurt and she truly commited to never touch one
again. It amazes me that with the help of fasting and the gospel a
person could quit smoking so thoroughly in such a short time that even
the desire for it was gone. I was blessed to be the one to perform the
ordinance for this wonderful faithful couple. The church is true and I
love it!
--
Elder Morley
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