Week 4: First time for Everything

June 18, 2018

Week 4: First time for Everything - 28 May 2017

Yadra Vinaka,

This week has been great. Have been learning a lot about how to approach certain people and subjects when talking to people. My Trainer, Elder Dunn, is really bold at times in how he discusses the Gospel or people's personal lives. But 99% of the time its done out of love and it has made me realize I need to be bolder in my dealings. Elder Dunn has also taught how for us as missionaries we need to make sure we're leaving a good feeling behind when we eat or talk with people. Don't always need to share a message or head down that road with them, but make it so eventually they will be open and desire instruction/messages from future Missionaries. "Don't delay their conversion." -Elder Dunn

So this week I got to finally go to Malake Island which is something we do about 2-3 times a month. The Village is closed for the Missionaries. Meaning we can't proselyte there, but we can teach lessons at our members house Brother Wilson and be escorted around by him. We waited about 1 hour for a boat ride out to the island. Once there, I had to pull up my sulu to wade from the boat drop off to the shore of the island. Yea I was in the ocean! The island is a whole different vibe than our other areas. Everyone was super nice and very welcoming. Got to teach the first lesson to a family (2 kids and a mother) who plan on being baptized in about 2 weeks. When we got back to the mainland we went to another Koro I hadn't been to yet. Was dark when we arrived, but when we stepped out of the car the Whole village lit up as if it was day time. No it wasn't due to our presence, but as I looked up I saw the biggest meteorite I've ever seen. That was really cool to me.

Had a member of our ward pass away a couple days ago. So Saturday we went to the hospital as asked, to participate in the funeral service day. Next thing you know we get to the hospital and we're led down to the Mortuary. Elder Dunn and I then watch as they pull the deceased lady out of the fridge and put her on the table. They then hand us gloves and ask us to pick her up and put her in the coffin. Already taken back by the first corpse I have ever seen, I was in shock. So yea, we picked her up and put her in the coffin and for the next couple hours as we went through the funeral service I was in a daze. I snapped out of later when we had lunch, some of the best food I have had since my Mom's cooking. Unique and unforgettable experience for sure.

Overall a Very interesting week. We had Raki our top investigator come to Church and the joy it brought to me was crazy. Really is an excellent/satisfying feeling watching one of your investigators come Church. That gets you juiced up for more work.

Lastly, I have come to love Drau ni Moli (leaf of lemon). There are lemon trees everywhere out here. So I just pull off some of the leaves then boil some water and pour it into a cup with the broken up leaves. It is so good. Definitely going to try growing a lemon tree later in life.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Love,

Elda Richardson