Week 20? I'm so bad at this

Bonjour tout le monde!

This week was another great one in Hikueru. I'll start by saying what we did for pday last week. We went fishing with a fishing pole and just a little bit of fishing line. We were just on some rocks because the water was too deep but I threw the line in and within like 5 seconds, I caught a fish. It was awesome haha. I thought to myself, "this is going to be eeeeasy." it wasn't. That was the only fish we caught. This week was pretty rewarding because one of our inactives went and talked to our Branch President and he's fully repented. He said that they're going to advance him to Priest pretty soon. All that rests is his wife. She said when he fully comes back to church, she'll follow. I'll definitely pray for that. They're just awesome. We had an open house at the chapel saturday night and the whole island was invited. This place is so small...But there were lots of non members there. The presentation was given by our branch president's brother about the plan of salvation. It was really good. After we were able to fix a lesson with two non members for the next saturday. We're suuuuuper excited. It's been a while since I've done a first lesson with brand new people haha. It'll be like a breath of fresh air. Things are going great here. Elder Barfuss and I work hard out here. It's not always easy but we're here for a reason. The Lord needs us here and knowing that makes it that much more rewarding even when I feel down sometimes. I know that our Savior is always there to help us get back up when we fall. And that's the amazing message that I can share with these people. It's pretty lucky of me. 

Well that's about it for this week. Love you all!!

-Elder Christensen

Week 19

Ia ora na tatou!!

So things are going great here in Hikueru. I won't say a bunch this time. First off the members here talk about me and my companion. they say celui avec les lunettes, Il mange bien!! Mais le petit, Il ne mange pas beaucoup! Which means the one with the glasses. He eats well! But the little one, he doesn't eat a lot haha. So basically I'm known on the island for eating a lot. It's true. I eat a loooot. I gotta be careful. I'm getting kinda tubby haha. It's a good thing I do my sport each morning.  We found another inactive to teach. In Tahitian. we teach in Tahitian a lot now. It's super awesome. I'm so grateful for the gift of tongues. Without Heavenly Father, I would be nowhere. I also figured out that Elder Barfuss and I are the 5th and 6th missionries here since the '90s. I feel very privileged to be here. Last little thing. Our first counselor is super sick and his wife and their oldest son. We visited them last night and we gave them some medicine. The spirit really does direct this work. They said we were heaven sent when we showed up. I love when I get confirmations of promptings we follow. So for this week that's about it. I love this Gospel and I know it's true. Heavenly Father does love each and every one of us and he's always there for us too:)

Love you all

-Elder Christensen

photos:

Traditional six month mark "sock burning" 

Life on the island

Week 18

Hey everybody. Not a whole lot to say. right now we're working with
some less actives to keep the word of wisdom. A family that we teach
said that they would start by stopping coffee. They didn't drink any
all week and said that they didn't even have a desire either. That was
super cool. I know the Lord is on their side 100 percent. We're
teaching even more in Tahitian now. it helps so much. Elder Barfuss
and I are killing it. But that's not a super humble thing to say. Ah
well. We work hard with that language and we're seeing the progress.
Also we tried praying in English the other night for planning, but we
got scared and couldn't bring ourselves to do it so we prayed in
french haha.Also we're probably going to miss general conference. It's
like a 99 percent chance. Things are pretty slow out here in Hikueru.

Also I've been out 6 months???? Suuuuper weird. But awesome.
We found a lizard in our microwave. She was living in the glass
between the door of the microwave. I say she because she also laid
eggs. It's okay though, because we got to clean our microwave and now
it's super clean.
We saw a whale this week too. It's the season for them to be around
here. It was awesome.

We got to teach Luke 15 this week to a few inactives. I love the three
parables in it. Basically. The Lord will never every abandon us and
it's never too late to come back to his fold. He will always welcome
us with open arms:) I know that that's absolutely true. I've felt his
love in my life so many times.

Love you all!!

Week 17

Ia ora na tatou!

So this week was a blast as usual. First off I want to apologize if I
don't email back always. Emails here are a struggle. We do our emails
at the church and the internet runs off the phone service here. It's
pretty slow. Then we go to a member's house to finish our emails and
email President. We can't email President here because it'll crash the
computer. But currently those members that we go to left this island
to go to another motu. So we can't email President and it's just super
slow here.

So I don't have much to say, but this week we taught again in
Tahitian. Elder Barfuss and I are really noticing a change with our
Tahitian because of the reading we do in the Book of Mormon in
Tahitian. So that's actually really fun. The plane came thursday like
usual and the store guy (everyone just calls him papi pronounced like
poppy) he took the plane and will be gone for two weeks. Because of
that we can only drink water at our dinner appointments. The members
feel super bad because of that because Tahitians love their juice.
It's literally just syrup mixed with water and it's going to kill us
not really but it's pretty sugary. I think that's a word. It is in
french. Sugary...

Anyway I found a nacre this week which in English is
a mother of pearl. It's super pretty. I was pretty content when I
found it.

Currently we are working with three different inactives to stop their
addictions. They all want to stop. Yesterday we had a lesson with
Frère and Soeur Pouira and they got super pumped up when we said we
were there to help them keep the word of wisdom. I got pumped. Maybe I
just assumed they did too haha. But the longer I'm here the more I
realize that we're here to fortify the branch. Our objective is to
invite others to come unto Christ. Invite others. Not just members.
Not just non members. Others. Everyone. And that's what Elder Barfuss
and I do. And I love it so much. It's pretty hard sometimes because
it's almost the same routine each week but still it's important that
we're here.

That brings me to my little thought. We were teaching some inactives
and we read together Luke 15 which is awesome. I won't explain the
whole chapter but it includes The Prodigal Son parable, the 99 sheep
and the 1 lost, and the woman searching for her drachma. Basically
what we taught was that the Lord will never abandon us. Not ever. And
if we search for him he'll always be there too. Basically we have no
excuses haha. Because he's just always there:) I know that's true. And
I get to testify of it every single day. I truly am lucky.

Well yeah that's about it for this week.
Love you lots!
-Elder Christensen