Thursday, September 29, 2016

Monday 9/26 On my mind...

     

I wish I could describe how good this mango was!

     Well the single thing I think on all your minds today is that bro goes on a mission tomorrow at 5 am!!! I can say as well that that has been in the back of my mind (or the not so back) this week. I'm also just baffled at how close bro was on his pilot licence!!! What a last minute miracle. I guess God has his way of doing things. Wow. I remember how weird it was when I went to the MTC a year and a quarter ago. The very numb feeling that happens for that couple days before going in and then the warm strong welcome from God on the other side. All I've got to say is just that it's going to take some submitting of our personal wills to the Father. Eternal perspective brings about happiness in all situations. 
     Well, as far as this week for me it was great. We had stake conference yesterday and an area seventy, Elder Coward, came down from new Zealand to talk to us and it was absolutely awesome. Such a powerful talk that for a bit was focused on how an RM should act and that was a good reminder for me. Plus his accent was just gright. lol. The choir was full of angels too. I couldn't believe how powerful that little Tahitian choir was but It was like the Mormon tabernacle choir! Very cool.

Elder Packer with a hoard of children

     Had a classic miracle happen this week. We were...I think tracting is the word in English...in a neighborhood with big dogs and french atheists, (open hearts at every turn right?) when it started to rain. There was an inactive guy nearby that we figured we'd invite to the stake conference and maybe get some shelter. Sure enough, he invited us in and immediately his non-member wife came out and almost directly asked if she could take the lessons because she had taken them a few years back!! Of course the rain immediately stopped and the road even dried up before we finished the lesson. God doesn't even hide his miracles sometimes.
-Elder Clements


Thursday, September 22, 2016

Balade ou malade



Street art in progress
     Well how's it going everybody? This week I ended up being super sick with the grippe. Everybody has the grippe lately. It was a mean one that put me out almost all day on Wednesday and a little Thursday and is still leaving. It's basically like a cold on steroids. Other than that we had a pretty good week.
     Last night we had an open house at the church and even président Bize showed up. We had tons of investigators show up from our ward and from other wards. It went really well. Also this week we were able to fix a baptism! It's been kind of a long time since we've fixed a baptism so we've been pretty stoked about this. He still needs some preparation before getting baptized but it'll all work out. Our other investigator is also doing very well in his efforts to quit cigarettes. He really wants to change his life around and he's done good at showing the efforts. This secteur is finally starting to look up!!
     That's all I've got to say about that. Ya I don't have to much to say today.
Message of the week: I actually gave a talk in sacrament yesterday and I don't remember much of what I said but I did pray a lot and prepared well. I felt the spirit guiding me and telling me what I should say and when it was over people said they enjoyed it. Thus if we do all that we can, the Lord will make possible many miracles. Such help comes when we do what he has commanded and not when we sit idly by.
-Elder Clements

Friday, September 16, 2016

Staying


     Good morning everybody, It's another p-day even hotter than the last. Today is a transfer and the news IS.....I'm staying in Pirae. I'm actually pretty happy about that, I like my companion, I like our investigators and our members. The work is a little rough but it's starting to go places. Yesterday was 9/11 as I'm sure you're all aware. Even in Tahiti people recognize it. As for me, I was absolutely flooded with stuff to do starting at 6:00 am till 6:00 pm. No time to sit down. It was great. The rest of the week was a little less like that but still not bad.
     There were a couple weird things that happened this week. One is the the reason everybody here does a blackout every night for about 20 minutes. So there are these bugs. And these bugs have wings and they like light. They don't bite, they don't sting, they just kind of tickle when they land on you. A few of them isn't a problem. The thing is in this season, there are not just a few of them. we were riding up to go eat with a member on Thursday and it looked and felt like a heavy snowstorm of these things!! When we got to our member's, when it was dark, everybody is just sitting in the dark because light would attract even more of them. 
     Another really weird thing was when, on Friday, some homeless dude slept behind our house. A member brought us back (from mcdonalds lol) and upon arrival at the house me and Elder Packer shout "SDF!!!" (homeless person in french) There was some guy just sleeping on the ground behind our house! David (the birdman, as we call him) who we were with didn't really know what to do cuz he's kind of an awkward fellow. On that thought, neither did I so we just let the man sleep there and he was gone in the morning. super weird. 

Tahitian man making a drum
     On a not so weird note, we had some miracles worked on our investigators and soon we may even see some baptism dates. We had a training that the zone leaders gave that talked about being more direct with our investigators. (With salvation at stake, we need to do that better) We have been trying to apply that and really try and get our investigators to progress by reading the BOM and praying, going to church, keeping specific commandments, etc. We had some success. In our lesson with one of our investigators, we engaged (commited?) him cut down on cigarettes to 4 a day. after the lesson he pulled out his cigarettes, rolled one up and said "this is my third, I get one more." That and plenty of other great stories.
     The package that I got really was the package you sent with the pants and everything. Maybe it accidentally got in priority mail but I won't complain. It was an excellent package. I love the pen and now I can wear contacts every day till the end of my mission I believe. I loved everything but the highlight is definitely the pants. They changed my mission and possibly my life! They're so comfortable. So thanks so much.  Also that's super cool that Alaycia's got a job!! nice. 
     Alright then I'll leave you all to it. It's so weird that I'm getting nervous for bro even though I'm not there. I'll bet you're all really weirded out too. you have reason to be but know that God is always just behind him and all you with his army of angels and miracles. Be strong and take up courage and the Lord will bless you all for it. 
-Elder Clements

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Fall is in the air...

No it's not, there's one season here: hot. In fact the cooler July days have well passed and it's starting to get hotter here. It's been alright though because we a bit of wind this week from the long arms of a hurricane in Hawaii. I got the package. Sister Hauata told me it's at the bureau, I just need to go pick it up. I feel like that's one of the quickest packages that has ever gotten here. 
     This week was pretty good, we did a lot of stuff. Wednesday and Thursday and Friday we woke up early to escort the zone leaders to the ferry so they could do splits with the elders of Moorea. That's always a change but also consists of a lot of waiting. Another strange week is that we didn't eat at member's houses all week. Every day they dropped off food because they either didn't have time or something. As a result we had food that I'm not really used to like pizza. can you imagine that? pizza, twice! I had so much american food this week, it was so weird. I'm starting to realize how much the main heavily populated part of Tahiti is like america. Also realizing in how little time I'll be in America.
     Just saw the email of bro going to the temple. That reminds me, we went to the temple visitor center this week with one of our investigators. He must be one of the six people in French Polynesia that doesn't believe in God. He loved the trip to the temple and the idea of a temple in general but he still has some doubts about God which is totally fine. I'm not used to teaching people like this actually because there aren't many and the ones that there are don't usually accept us. However he is just so nice and has so many questions. He's the guy whose house we painted a while ago. We explained prayer though and he says he's going to try and pray and make the efforts to know if God exists.


Giant Tiki

     Another interesting and different and kind of cool experience I had (actually last Sunday) was the opportunity to perform a baptismal interview. I've had plenty of interview's but this was the first time I was on the other side of the desk. It was such a strangely humbling experience to get to do that.  She needed further help before being baptized but "I was led by the spirit not knowing beforehand what I should do" (1 nephi 4:6 roughly translated from french) and all turned out well. She just got baptized and married last Friday, a baptism that I went to as well. Nifty ain't it?
     Spiritual thought: 1ne 4:6 is actually a great one. When we act in faith, knowing that God will be there to catch us, our testimony grows. We need to act first, not knowing exactly how it's going to all work out. God is always there and will never let us down when we chose to obey his commandments.
Ok alors, nana.-Elder Clements

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Meetings, splits, 'n surfing


So, I'm just going to talk about the Billabong pro from last week for a moment...It was SSOOOOO GNARLY!!!! A little background: Tahiti has the 7th best wave in the world and they do a competition here every year. All the pros including Kelly Slater (who also won first place and the $100,000 prize) were here.




 We shot down there after emails last week which was about an hour and a half drive. When we got there, I thought it was over because there was hardly anybody. after we walked out to the beach we realized why. It's completely useless to watch it from the shore, you can't see a thing. about 30 seconds after that thought, a young Tahitian feller walks up and asks " do you guys need a boat?" After considering that he might be an angel sent from God (still possible) he told us it's $20 a person but that he had a nice boat with a nice view. Our entire district thought that sounded alright since we had already come down here. We paid up and waited around for a moment and looked at the scoreboards, etc. The boat guy found us and it turned out it WAS a nice boat that had a full canopy so we were completely in the shade. We headed out and arrived in his reserved place when we realized that "nice view" was a big understatement. We literally had the best seats of everybody there!!! The only ones in front were the press. Also we were on the end so we could see the surfers ride right past the boat without any obstructions. We saw some amazing surfing happen among the best surfers in the world and I even got a 9.2 (out of 10 of course, and very very rare) on video!! It was SO worth that 20 bucks. Also we were on TV because we were the closest to the cameras!! It was rad.


       So ya, we had a big zone conference this week too. We had a training from Pdt Bize, Soeur Bize, and I can't remember the others but we learned some great stuff that's going to make this secteur a bit more successful. We still have some problems with our bishop but We'll just keep being good examples and do what we can. We had some pretty good success this week although still no baptisms fixed. We found new investigators and had some inactives come back to church! That was great. I did a split with Elder Paxman this week. It was good. I learned a lot from him, he's going home soon so he's had quite a lot of experience. 

My district
     Pensée Spirituelle: Speaking spiritually in english is hard by the way. Let your light so shine before men: As members of the Lords church we are lights "that cannot be hid". This means that we need to watch everything we do so as not to offend but to strengthen and inspire. Through our example, others have the opportunity to feel the spirit and become interested in the restored church if we let our light shine forth. I have come in contact with many people who have been prepared to be taught just by the examples of co-workers, family, or friends. It's one of the best ways that we can do missionary work.
     FIN   -Elder Clements