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