Monday, November 28, 2016

18 Months

   

    I'm officially on the six month count down!!!!!!!!!!!!! What the heck happened?! That last six months felt like a week. The sisters that I started with are going home next week! I'm just gonna keep truckin for this last 6 and ramp up my efforts and faith even more than before.
     It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Everyday the mailbox is crammed full of letters and "go get your package cuz it's too big to fit in this box" slips. About 20 packages a day!!  This causes no problems getting the packages to the missionaries of Tahiti but for the elders in the marquises and the Australes, and the Tuamotus, the only way to get their load of packages to them is by boat. So ya we spent hours this week whipping our Hilux around the docks on Papeete throwing boxes of all shapes and sizes into various storage containers to be shipped off. Next week is transfers so It'll be even busier.


Cleanin' the truck


     Friday was good too. We did a split with the zone leaders just like bro. It was also black Friday which sadly has seeped into Tahiti this year. The split went well. I got super sick for about an hour which was excruciating but passed miraculously fast. It really was a miracle so that was cool. After that I was able to completely enjoy the split and get rid of the stress I'd had all week. Elder Paxman who I was with goes home next week! 
      Yesterday was our primary program and it was awesome! Everybody felt the spirit and we had tons of investigators at church. One comes every week now and is most likely getting baptized very soon but we STILL don't have a date.  I've gotta go now, we're going shopping in Papeete with E Paxman because he's going home next week. See y'all!!

-Elder Clements

Thursday, November 24, 2016

The arm of the Lord

The Zone
     This week went pretty well. Nothing too big happened except for our zone conference with a member of the 70, Elder Cardon. We had a big meeting on Thursday with our zone, Mahina, Papeete, and faaa, and he, his wife, president and sister Bize gave us some really edifying training that was also fairly humbling.
     Elder Cardon was talking about faith. He told us all that he would call a few of us to talk briefly about what the Lord has taught us about listening to the Holy Ghost. He asked those who were alright doing that to stand up in faith to volunteer. About 7 people stood up not including me, I figured that was pretty good. The thing was that Elder Cardon looked shocked at the turn out. He proceeded (in a fairly chastising manner) "Help me understand why no one is standing up!!" "You are the arm of the Lord, telling people every day to act on their faith to keep commitments! But you don't have enough faith to stand up in a zone conference?!" It was complete shock to everybody there but everyone realized that it was absolutely true. Even Elder Cardon was shocked and he didn't even finish the rest of his planned talk but instead talked about faith and WHY we don't act on impressions from the spirit. It was a REALLY good reminder how important it is to act in faith. It's true that as missionaries we ARE the arm of the Lord reaching out to bless the families of the earth as promised to Abraham. We need to be instruments in his hands. 
     So other than that, this week was pretty slow as far as missionary work and busy @theoffice. Saturday was extremely stressful because we had ended up with multiple things to do at the same time which is physically...very hard to do. Somebody needs to add another hour to the day! I did another baptismal interview this week and we had all the Elders from Moorea (the island next door) sleep at our house because they were there for the big zone conference. Those guys are nuts!! But ya that's pretty much it. We still haven't seen any snow fly yet. I'll let you all know when it hits. I've found a new hobby, I'm taking a drive around Utah via google earth. They've really improved their technology lately. So ya that's about all. 
-Elder Clements
playing Petanque


Wednesday, November 16, 2016

One year older and wiser too

     


     So ya this week was fairly eventful seeing as how I started writing down what I did this week so I can remember when it comes time to send emails. I don't know how many other things are lost in history because of a lack of doing so. I turned TWENTY this week! How weird. For my birthday it was a pretty good day for missionary work: 6 lessons and some investigators that are practically begging to be baptized. It was really hot and humid too because it's been raining like crazy and it's summer now.  We celebrated my birthday with the Atiu family that night because they found out it was my birthday. It was really great.  They even made me a cake and poisson cru which I thought was super thoughtful!

The Atiu Family


     OH MY MY! OH HEY HEY! HERE HE COMES, THE PRESIDENT!! That's a lumineers song I've been singing all week cuz we've got a new president!!! Messieur Donald Trump!! Trump in french is pronounced like "trompe" which means to deceive. That's literally all I have to say about that. Even in Tahiti that's all everybody is talking about is the fact that Donald Trompe is the president. LOL!!
     On Friday we took a trip to the exact opposite side of Tahiti to Taravao. I swear everything that goes wrong, goes wrong over there. Turns out the sisters locked their bikes in a storage unit and then lost the keys to the storage unit...so of course we had to go down there to get them out. Driving down there took forever because it was a standard tropical rainstorm and even with the wipers on all the way we had to slow down to about 20 because I couldn't see anything!! We finally got there and the sisters showed us the storage unit. I tried to use nonexistent lock-picking skills to open it but clearly that didn't work. We ended up having to take off the sheet metal walls on the side and slide the bikes out the slot. All this in the pouring rain BUT it worked and the sisters can stop walking to all their lessons. We had some other stuff to do on that side of the island and took the other way to get home so we drove around the entire island and spent about 3 hours total in the car.
On Thursday I had another opportunity to do a baptism interview for a young man. This kid was way cool and ready to be baptized and it turns out he has the same birthday as me!! The day after I went to his baptism and it was one of my favorite baptisms ever. His testimony was very powerful and showed that God really helped him get to this point. 
     We found a couple really potential investigators this week too. One is the girlfriend of an inactive member in our ward who is really interested in this church and why it's here, what the missionaries do, etc. She even talked about baptism. The other one is a girl that has been taught before but seems to have changed a bit since the last time. She lives in a house that is pretty much Babylon itself. It's only her brothers and sisters but because the parents have basically left these kids alone (they don't even live in the same city) most of these kids from 15 to 25 ish participate in about everything they shouldn't. They even have a small marijuana plantation behind their house.  However she is the most level-headed of them all and doesn't participate in any of that stuff and instead would like to come to church and will go to France next year for school. super cool!
     A sad piece of news is that I had an allergic reaction to mangoes this week! SO not cool although the symptoms aren't too severe and I think It's only one type of mango. My lips just itch and burn and my eyes too but that's nothing benadryl can't kill right? So there's my week. I heard bro's story. THAT was something. I've heard some good possessed stories but that takes the cake! Have a good week love you all!
-Elder Clements
                         Still at the office...


Thursday, November 10, 2016

More Pizza?!?!

     
     Well hello everybody from the mission office in Papeete, French Polynesia! I had a fairly good week though mighty stressful as well with all that we have to do. We went all the way to the other side of the island again this week to deliver stuff and inspect a potential new house (more like a mansion!) for the sisters. We went countless times to the boat docks to deliver stuff to the islands, went with president to get mail, etc.
Boat dock, my second home


     So this week I had the opportunity to attend "conseil des dirigeants" (leadership counsel?) at presidents house with all the zone leaders and such. It was a great experience and I learned a lot about being a leader and it was very spiritually edifying. AFTER the first part of this meeting, president asked us to go get pizzas. Little did we know he had already ordered the pizzas and had sent us with the money just to pick them up. We thought we were supposed to order them as well. SO! When we got to the pizza joint we ordered 9 pizzas and payed for it with the money president gave us and later picked it up and took it to presidents house. Upon arrival we brought the pizzas and president said "Elder Clements! this isn't the order I made! hurry take them back!" Me: "uuuhhh, no these are the ones we ordered." President: "What?! You ordered pizzas?!" and so on. President thought it was funny but sister Bize got after us pretty good but forgave us. All in all, we ended up spending $240 in pizza and had 19 pizzas hahaha!!! Oh la la!!! We had a pretty good laugh and are now famous so there's some good that comes from everything.
     A really cool quote that president shared with us in our meeting that I'll try and translate: "The capacity of a man to lead depends on the number of decisions that he will have taken in his life." And thus, even if its a bad decision it helps us grow. Ok well that's about all the time I have today due to all the missionaries shuffling in and out of the office asking for things. We had an investigator come to church for the first time, the fast went well, and I get along pretty well with my companion. Keep it up, proud of you all, love you all! have a good one!

-Elder Clements
Guess who's truck the black one is

Getting to use the iPhone 7...surprise of my life!


Friday, November 4, 2016

Halloween

     Hi family and happy halloween!! We don't have much planned for the day actually. The most halloween-ish thing I'm doing today is wearing a black and orange local tie... mais bon. 
     This week passed really well actually. I really felt a strong desire to share the gospel and the true urgency of the message we share. I read the article that grandma sent me, about Standing as True Millennials.  It WAS super powerful and really inspired me to improve this week.
    Actually President Bize just sent an email about that also. We are all supposed to fast this coming week with the question of how can I be a better instrument in the hands of the Lord. It shows that, that man is inspired because I too have sensed a weirdness among the missionaries lately. There are too many that don't seem to be focused nearly enough on the work and even act in ways that does not at all portray a representative of Jesus Christ. So I'm glad that president said something because it is getting a little worry-some when a fair part of the missionaries have an air of still being in high school. SO ya.  
     On a more optimistic note, I got to translate sacrament meeting for a Hawaiian yesterday! That was cool but so much harder than I thought. I can think in french and I can think in English but thinking in two languages at the same time is extremely difficult but I think he was able to understand a little. I really felt the gift of tongues kicking in an extra gear, It was great. 
     As for "les affaires au bureau" we have been super busy with all that this week. On Wednesday we had to take an all day trip to Papara to replace Elder Packer's bike and another one that got stolen. taking note that it was Elder Packers birthday when he got his bike stolen :(
     Ok y'all that'll be the end of it today, I also can't send pictures because I forgot my converter at the house :( Next week hopefully. Glad I got to send a decent mail today. Ok alors, je vous aime. Dieu soit avec vous jusqu'au revoir!

-Elder Clements