I am currently in Rungata, which is close to the really big church .
The 'big grass roof building' is a perfect example of a Mwaneaba, but it is broken now. The pic is kind of old.
So as far as member attendance it increased by 3! We had the daughter and grandson of a less active member (possibly a melchezidek priesthood holder), and a woman who is both deaf and dumb baptized. It was a good day. I still have the baptismal pants we bought, but since E Tonini has lost at least 70 pounds on his mission, his baptismal pants didn't fit. So he asked sister Waldron to make him a new one that was a Sulu (I think that is what Americans call them). She made 2 because she wan't sure how big he was. One was too small but fit me perfectly so we got a matching set! Kiki just happened to have a white one too, so we made him a tie so that we would all be matching! That kid is so cool.
Last week we had the highest church and Mel Priesthood att since my 2nd week. We had 42 present and 4 mel. We had 3 investigators confirmed and 3 other investigators in attendance. 1 is a solid man who is more active than a lot of our members, but he isn't married yet. Another was an investigator of Elder Farley's that has come to church twice in a row now, but had never come for 6 months before that. The last was a referral who we had contacted his parents but not him, but he came to church just because. It was a greatday!
Nikunau is one of the few if the only island here with natural lakes. It is pretty much the only one wide enough for it because it has no lagoon. Bill, the man on the far right has been asking us on and off for months, literally since I first got here, if I wanted to go see them. He always asks, but we didn't want to do something so touristy on a Sunday. But Every Single Time we have rescheduled something goes wrong, so we can never go. So this time we decided to go for it. In that picture there is me (with my fancy homemade camera case, Tanentoa (on his first week back for a month), Elder Tonini (so cool), Taboi (the man that was less active until I came back with E ToninI) with his son, and Bill (a prospective Elder). It was so much fun. The only problem was that after we had left our house for 2 min it started pouring. We were soaked! The lakes were really pretty though. Life is good!
Elder Tonini loves those type of church pants. As Missionaries we are not allowed to wear them to work in, but we may have purchased a matching set for 'non working' times, just in case.
The only other cool story this week is that since Elder Tonini and I work so well together everything else is going well. As you know there is a lot of persecution on this island. The biggest/most vocal opponent of the church is an RM minister named Tio (so_) He makes all of his people too scared to even be in the same room as us. So to combat that we started teaching seminary in the Primary ion the town where he has authority. Now all of the kids of the town love us. They are afraid of him, but they love us. Last week we had 8ish kids in the class, but there were loads of kids watching at the windows. So we told them that it was against the rules for them to watch like that. If thyey wanted to watch they will have to do it inside, sitting down. So a FLOOD of kids ran in. We had 30+ primary kids of all religions. We had been teaching for about 5 minutes when Tio walked in. He boldly interrupted our teaching and tolds rthe kids that it was only ok of Mormon kids to be ibn a Mormon class. They all got afraid and ran away. But within 5 most of them came back and either said sorry for being afraid and running away, or quietly watched at the window because they still wanted to listen. Then as always there was a lunch for all seminary teachers. We made it our goal to make Tio smile. So Elder Tonini and I put on some of our comedy routines and got Tioo to openly laugh. Nobody can hate a companionship this unified! The work is great and life is awesome!.
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