The first week on a tiny island! Rurutu, is not fiu

April 30, 2018

 

Dear Family and Friends,

 

A lot happens in a sector that has been closed for a while, so bear with me.  The email is long.  It was a crazy, incredible week - filled with miraculous members and new traditions. 

I underlined the highlights if you are fiu, (not interested in reading) :)

We look for ways to be integrated into the community.  We held a discussion with our Bishop and found 3 inactive families that he wants us to focus on.  We were invited by a member to teach English in a school for 2 1/2 hours, which went wonderfully, and even had one of the students come to church this week.  We ate with them and were able to discuss with the other teachers about our purpose as missionaries.  

Side Note: Luckily Tahitian Teenagers are respectful to us, I don't know if in America it would work as well as it did here.  When we ate together, it was poisson cru lait coco, chicken lait coco, fe'i, taro, et po'i banana and everyone dung in with their hands.   It is more old and traditional out here. 

 

A member brought us to the City Hall/government building, where we passed by every office, kissing everyone's cheek in the whole building and talking with them.  We wondered if we could start an english class so asked if we could write a proposal to the Mayor.  But then the Mayor saw the member that we were with and left his meeting to invte us into his office for a meeting with him.  He will help us fix one day in the week when we can teach English Class at the City Hall. 

We had another occasion to participate in traditional Rurutu Protestant Traditions,

1. The first was their Mass.  Here in Rurutu the women Have TO wear their huge woven hats to church. Some are as big as somberros, others have little windmills attached.  I'm thinking of getting one with Christmas lights all over.  That'll blow them away ;) 
2. The second was the Tama'a. They chanted songs and then head over to the cafeteria where we ate fish and taro with our hands.  In a matter of minutes all the adults had finished.  It was an eating frenzy, while pastors tried to share a spiritual message to motivate the members to donate their tithing money.  No worries here, they collected over 520,000 dollars this weekend! 
3. The third was today, PDAY, the Parade of Homes "Food Edition".  Where we march to people's houses in a huge group, we are greeted with baby powder and perfume, then we walk into every room in the house and eat food the food that they have set out.  After the third house they brought out beers so we had to leave, bummer :/

We have seen several women in this Branch that are ready to work with us.  Some that have been here since the creation on this Branch, and have sincerely fasted and prayed for missionaries.  We have just about met all of the active members, during our visits this week, and have committed several sisters to do splits with us this week.  Sr Kendall and I are moved by the dedication of these women, and our Branch Mission Leader in their desire to serve and find amis. Our Branch Mission Leader really is giving it his all, he looks out for us and is ready to get working. the Lord will work miracles through these dedicated people.  

Sunday: There we about 60 people at church, we gave both a talk and the second hour got chosen, 2 seconds before, to give the lesson for the 17 youth in the Branch. 

We took two tours of the Island, and the city of AVERA is situated in between two big mountains, with incredible views, I just don't know how we are going to get our bikes to the tops of the mountains, to get there hahaha

We look forward to getting our bikes so that we can be a little more independent.  Sr. Kendall and I are doing well!! And we are safe and well looked after.  

 

Several members have told us that they have been praying for missionaries. There hasn't been a baptism in a year.  God has a lot of things planned for this Branch, and we need to be directly in tune with the spirit to be able to catch all his whisperings.  Wish us luck :)

I love this sector! The Savior has heard the members prayers'.  Now time to get to work :) 

Here we go, me and Sr Kendall.

Until next week!!!

 

Love 

Sister Spencer

PS

LOL- While doing Door to Door contacting with a member, a drunk man came up named Rocky, who was so impressed to see Sisters on the island. He ended up coming into the house with us for the message that we shared.  He sang along, shared his thoughts about something, and he offered to give the prayer.  He decided that he wanted to be a missionary and would help us find his friends that needed the gospel.  The member was cool with him but finally got him off our backs. Good thing we'll never see him again.. on this tiny island ;)