Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Another awesome week

 
Baptism of Tehina
 
Ia ora na, tatou! Well it`s been another awesome week here in Tahiti. (I`m typing on a french key board right now, so forgive me if there are any mistakes in this.) We baptized Tehina (tay-hee-nah) this week! It was absolutely awesome! It`s been a long time since I`ve even been to a baptizm, It`s even better as a missionary. She already wants to serve a mission herself and I have no doubt that she will. Infact she`ll probably leave before I get back. We also had Steven (stee-vin) come to church for the first time. Geez that kid is smart! He stayed with us for class and he kept answering all the questions before anybody else could. We`re going to set a date on wednesday for him. We also have been focusing on Poerani (poh-ay-rah-nee) a lot this week. We set a date for her baptizm for the 3rd of september, the same day that she is getting married to her boyfriend that she is living with so she can be baptized.
     

Elder Purau was pretty sick this week from a virus from the mosquitoes. It was good stuff. He had a raging fever, pain in all his joints, sore throught, cough, the whole nine yards. Needless to say, we`ve been not teaching as much this week. He went to the doctor and they gave him some stuff that seems to have fixed it. Also I guess fresh coconut water can work miracles too. I`m not quite sure how I don`t have that same thing. The mosquitoes are eating me alive. It`s a little better now but the first week was bad.  My companion is still not as strict as I expected a trainer to be. Actually no one in our house is. It`s not extremely terrible, we still get some good stuff done but in my opinion, we could do a lot more.

The food here is absolutely delicious by the way. I`m not looking forward to american food again. Poisson crue is one of my favorites I think. I also like the steak-frites though. makes me think of Padre every time I eat it. It`s a big old steak cut fairly thin, but with a giant heaping full plate of fries underneath it along with a kind of sauce. Even with all that I actually have lost a bunch of weight. Everyone else has too. I saw most of my buds from the MTC the other day at a zone conference and all the Elders have lost a good five or six pounds. I actually have Sister Daniels and Elder Meyer in my district so I get to see them quite a bit.
 
                                   Our investigators in front of the Temple
 
 
      I`ll give my testimony this week that God works miracles all the time, but you have to have your eyes open to see them. Here in the mission field, God is a little less restained in his miracles and they can be really spectacular here sometimes because this is where they really matter, but they happen every day back home too. That`s something I learned in the zone conference this week where we had two members of the seventy talk to us, but It made me realize how true it is. Also read 2 Nephi 9. It`s about different stuff but I read that this week and holy cow, it`s absolutely packed with good stuff.
      Well I`m going to try  and send some more pictures this week so I`d better get rolling on that. I actually have more than an hour for email here, so that`s cool but pictures take forever to upload here. 
Also here is my address.

Tahiti Papeete Mission
Elder Clements, Dakodta
B.P. 93
Papeete, Tahiti 98713
French Polynesia  

Well, God bless you all! Till next week.
-Orometua Clements
 
that`s Tehina in the middle on top, Poerani on the left, and Soeur Liline on the right. They`re are good friends. I can`t remember the names of the kids.
 

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Safely in Paradise



So ya...wow. I am currently safely in paradise. I don't exactly know where to start. I guess I could start by saying that if I were to walk outside right now, I would see the crystal clear, blue ocean one side and a fog covered steep green mountainside with a waterfall cutting through the middle of it. Oh and lots of coconut trees. In fact I drank a coconut earlier from the coconut tree in our yard. It was absolutely delicious. We arrived in the middle of the night last Monday and there was practically the entire island there waiting for us at the airport, singing songs, putting tiare's (flower necklaces) around our necks, the works. It's been quite the week since then. I'm in the Temarua sector on the south-ish side of Tahiti. 




My companion is Elder Purau who's been out for almost a year and a half and is from the other side of the island. It really is the kind of paradise that you imagine when you think of Tahiti. We have lessons on the beach and about half of them outside, we pluck strange fruits off of trees and eat them pretty much when ever, we can hear the ocean while we're sleeping and it sounds like a dragon breathing slowly in the backyard, we see the vibrant assortment of fleurs that line the roads and are all over peoples houses, we see natives rowing their boats along the coast daily, ya...like that kind of paradise.
     As far as the people, they're what really make it paradise. I never thought that there could be so many nice, humble, loving, people all in one place! We have loads of investigators and we have a baptism this Wednesday! We'll be baptising Tehina who has come a long way in the time that she has been taught, I understand. I might be actually conferring the holy ghost on Sunday, too. I also invited another investigator to be baptized this week too and he accepted! His name is Steven, he's 9 but he is about the most mature 9 year old I've ever seen. He actually reminds me of a cross between Chuck and Riv.
     We work a lot with a Soeur Liline. She is a member that is always helping us find new investigators, she helped us find like 5 this week! We are at her house basically every day teaching lessons and such. I really am surprised at how receptive people are to the gospel. The Lord has truly prepared these people.
     As far as the language and adjusting to the culture...well...It's been a journey but I'm getting used to it I think. The first day that I went proselyting, which was Wednesday, I pretty much was done and just wanted to go home. I had a hard time that first day adjusting to how people live and just what to do and I couldn't understand a thing anyone said to me. People really do live a lot differently here. The houses are just slightly better than being outside and absolutely everyone here is dirt poor compared to anyone I had ever met I think. That shocked me that first day and I didn't exactly know how to deal with it. The next day I recovered and started getting used to it and now it just seems normal to me. The language is beating me up more than I expected but It'll get better. It feels wierd to speak english now, I don't really do it anymore.
      Overall, I'm absolutely at peace to be here and help my brothers and sisters come along side me and follow Christ. I had an awesome day Saturday when we took a trip to the temple with our investigators, 16 of them, and some of the members. The greatest moment was when we were on our way there, and I realized I was in paradise in every sense of the word. We were on an old Mercedez-Benz bus and I had Soeur Liline and her family behind me singing tahitian songs about Jesus with the guitar and ukulele, and I had my investigators in front of me on the way to see the temple for the first time, and to the right of me was the cloud crowned mountains of tahiti, and to the left was a view of the ocean like in the pictures with a rainbow over all of it. It was pretty sweet. I love these people and I'm going to do my best to serve them the best I can.
     Well I'd better go, I'll try and send pictures. Sorry I didn't email till late, we do that at night now. Love you all!! God lives and He works miracles and He loves us more than we could even know. I've seen it, I know it.
Na'na, Orometua Clements

Monday, August 10, 2015

Last American P-day!!


Bonjour tout ma famille et amis. Ia ora na to'u utuafare e mau hoa atoa.

Well this is the last full P-day in the MTC. It's really been quite the journey. Like I've said, time is weird in the MTC. It seems like so long ago I was back home but also just seems like yesterday. I've been out about three months but I swear it's been three weeks. I have learned more here in the MTC than I could have anywhere on the planet. The first few weeks I had a hard time getting adjusted and actually caring about studying, liking the scriptures, REALLY working hard, and loving and being kind and looking forward to serving everyone I come in contact with. I thought I was pretty great before this mission, I could never have been more wrong. I have come such a long way being here. I know that it's because I've committed to help God's children come back to him, so He's helping me become what I need to be so I can accomplish this. I'm still not anywhere near being done growing but I'd say I'm ready.

 We taught a man this week who is a gold tag investigator (basically a real person because we're used to teaching each other and acting as investigators.) and I was really nice to actually answer real questions and teach a real person about the way back to God. So that helped me be excited to actually help real people in Tahiti but also pretty terrified because well...they're real people and real people have emotions and get angry and get freaked out when you accidently call yourself a missionary from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day chickens. (mo'a=saint/holy moa=chicken) Then again, real people have emotions and are happy and actually want to be baptized and stuff. So ya, excited and terrified. Plus I've forgotten what the real world looks like so travel day will be quite the day.

 I've also worked my guts out this week. I've tried not to let even five minutes go by without something useful in it. I may not have done perfectly at it but it helped. I've upped my prayers from like 5 to double digits because I need so much help staying focused and have my mind on the work. Golly gee I have a long way to go, but I've also come a very long way. We saw a talk by Elder Bednar on Sunday from a few years ago about becoming a missionary. That was quite the speech. I learned quite a bit about using time wisely. I think we will actually be addressed by an apostle tonight. That seems to be the rumor going around. I'm pretty pumped for that. That will have been the second one we've seen.

I was studying when a rainbow fell out of the tree and landed on my scriptures
 

Good gantry we've been here for a long time!! I love the six weekers coming and telling us how long they've been here and then asking how long we've been here, expecting us to say a week or two. It's the same face every time we say "eleven weeks". They're eyes turn about the size of the planet Jupiter and then instantly realize how lucky they are. I actually am glad we've been here for so long. I needed it.

Well anyway, I'll email on Saturday one last time. I think I will be calling about 9 or 10 on Monday before we fly out. I'm the travel leader for all 16 of our Tahitians so that'll be cool but I'll have to be keeping everyone in check the whole time too.  Oh also Orometua Hapairai said if there's anything I need to drop off to you I can leave it with him and you can pick it up from him. I'll tell you on Saturday if I did and all the info for that exchange. Heck, you might just want to stop by and say hi, he's just the nicest guy. Well, I'll go send a few pictures so "'Till we meet" (or Saturday actually). I really know that God lives and loves us and that He is helping me accomplish this mission. I know that Jesus is our brother that loves us so much that He took the tremendous weight of our sins and died for us all.

Je vous aime!
-Orometua Clements