Week 11 - Kiritimati

What's up Fam

Hows it going? I feel like that moving house is going to be really tough considering that down stair is a mess. how is the storage in the new house?

My poop problems are still occurring... I hope as well that it doesn't happen for my whole mission. However, it is not effecting my work at all which is good. It cant be the Kiribati food, I do eat raw fish occasionally but an easy meal people make for us will be chicken, rice and noodles. 

This week has been really good, I actually worked in London the whole week with Elder Darm. I have improved in the language so much, as I couldn't rely on Elder Darm to say everything as he has only been out a month longer and is still learning too. So instead of just bearing testimony I actually had to teach and ask questions in all the lessons. My conversation skills with people is getting a lot better as well.

When I heard that I'd be working with Elder Darm I was worried because how limited our Kiribati was, but we had really good lessons and are progressing well with some new investigators. One of them is Mirarin and have been really successful with her and she is progressing so much. We've taught her God is our heavenly father, prophets, restoration, Book of Mormon and Plan of Salvation 1st and 2nd lessons. 

I'm just blown away that God would trust Elder Darm and I (greenies) to teach investigators these important doctrines and we have, no doubt, had the help from the spirit.

Even though I'm enjoying working in London I do miss Tabwakea and I worry for our investigators. There's only Elders Johnson and Hungai working in Tabwakea 1st every other day. I just hope that they're doing okay and are being well prepared for baptism. 

By the way, I baptised an 8 year old Atenti in London, his parents are members but for some reason they like to get the missionaries to baptise everyone. It went really well, I did the baptism pray in Kiribati and it was an ocean baptism.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, I just forget to take pictures because I'm working hard.Only been burnt badly once and that was when we went fishing with AP's. Akea kanganga ma mosquitos (none difficulty with mosquitos). sleeping is good, clothes are slowly get less and less white but nothings broken yet. 

I hope you guys have a really good week this week and have fun moving.


Love Elder Berends

Week 10 - Kiritimati

Mauri au utu

This week has been really good, I still have poo problems. I'm constipated and I can't get this one poop out and at the same time diarrhoea makes it around the poop I can't push out. Sorry about the imagery but I'm doing really good, it's not getting in the way of the work.

This week has been very busy as Elder Afatasi found out on Thursday that there were tickets booked for 2 elders to go to Fanning Island and the boat was leaving Saturday. As you have heard Elders Afatasi and Dinsdale went
leaving me to work with Elder Darm (from California, and has only been out for 9 weeks) in London every other day. I'll still be working in Tabwakea with either Elder Johnson or Hungai, but only every other day. I'm also leading the work in Tab 1st because I know our investigators best, which scared me a little, I feel like I have little personality because Elder Afatasi would make all the conversation and I'd just have my input in the lesson. However after working with Elder Darm on Saturday I was forced to use what I know to make conversation as both of us are very inexperienced and I got pretty good at what I wanted to say. There was a lot of beating around the bush because there were words I wouldn't know but they understood.

Sunday morning I attended London sacrament meeting where I was asked to bless the sacrament, which I'd never done before, as well as speak, which is the usual. I spoke about building our faith (ONIMAKI) and testimony (KAKOAUA) on Iesu Kristo, and plain and simple truths of His gospel. I also shared Helaman 5:12, which went perfectly with what I was saying.

After London Sacrament meeting Elder Johnson picked me up so we could go to Tabwakea 1st branch. There were 3 of our investigators who attended church, which is good but we were expecting at least 6. Tabwa, (late 20's) one of our new Investigators, attended church and she is progressing really well. She is seventh-day
adventist and was told by he church leaders not to take lessons from us, so before we came to teach her for the first time she was really worried. But, she told us in our 2nd lesson with her, once we started teaching she felt a burden being lifted and felt like she didn't have to be told what to do. That's what I love about Ana Ekaretia Iesu Kristo (His church Jesus Christ), we know that God respects our agency and the way we teach as missionaries is we teach the doctrine and invite the investigator to find out if it's true for them selves. I'll talk about an investigator each week.

However, I'm very excited for all my investigators, and I'm really excited for them and their families. If everything goes to plan there should be 7 baptisms on the 28th of this month.

Question/Answers time:

So have you heard from any of your school mates?
- not since the MTC :/ Might shoot them an email and see how things are going with them.

Have you started thinking in Kiribati yet?
-I am in a way. Saying prayers in English is difficult because I keep using Kiribati grammar and say 'ao' instead 'of' and and little things like that. When teaching most time I don't have to translate what I want to say from English to Kiribati any more, I just say what I want to say in Kiribati.

What has been the most challenging meal so far?
- food has been really good, had no problem with raw fish, turtle tastes sooooo good, still need to learn to love SPAM but the most challenging drink is Karewe (coconut tree sap). It's just so hard to finish a full cup of that and act like you like it. Also what's really great about Tabwakea is that our members or Investigators feed us all
the time. After teaching a lesson they'll be like, "KAM TANGIRIA AMWARAKE" (you'll love it/want food) and they'll like you more if you let them feed you.

That's all I got, I'm so happy to hear that you have found a house and I hope you guys are happy with it and that everything works out. It's going to be weird coming home to a different ward. Also we don't hear about anything, so yes I'm very safe here in Kiritimati. Is there any other news about the world that I would like to know?

love you guys
love Elder Berends

Week 9 - Kiritimati

Danien wrote a long email, but lost it when it didn't save to drafts. So while waiting for his companion to use the internet he hand wrote everything he could remember from his email and took photos of the pages and put them in dropbox for us with some photos from the week.

Mauri!

[writing what I can remember from the email I wrote that didn't save as a draft]

So good to hear that Youth is going really good (Felicity is the YWs president and recently had a convert baptism into her YWs group). And send my congratulations to Emily and Mark (his cousin and her husband who had their third child last month) as well as Andrew (a friend who recently became engaged).

Dad! Be careful, I want to be able to go on some hikes with you without having to carry you on my back! (Mark tore a calf muscle/ligament/tendon? Last week, the third time in 6 weeks)

I'm praying for you guys that the house situation won’t be too stressful (after 10 and a half years we are moving house). Hope all of you are happy by the time it’s all over.

How was your week???

This week has been full of sickness.

On Monday night I ate a partially uncooked Hot Pocket not knowing it was a bad idea. On Tuesday I woke up vomiting and pooping so I didn't feel too great. However I was able to push myself to do 7 Lessons before I had to return home.

On Wednesday Elder Afatasi and I picked up the APs from the airport and then I went on splits with Elder Johnson, which was fun.

Oh, and we got hit by a motorcycle! Out of nowhere a motorcycle going 60 km/h hit my, and Elder Johnson’s, handle bars as well as Elder Johnson leg, ripping his pants open. It was a miracle no-one was hurt.

On Thursday Elder Afatasi got sick and vomited so that day was spent nursing him.

Friday and Saturday I got sick again so not many lessons done.

On Sunday I still felt like poo. And to make things better I was asked 1 hr before church to speak in sacrament meeting. I spoke about “Nakoa ni Ibonga” (Priesthood). I didn't go too badly, but was struggling to think in Kiribati.

Monday! APs took us on a fishing trip. Elder Hungai, Peeti and Openshaw caught some really big “Urura” and the APs, Openshaw and Davis, both caught themselves a shark! I gave it a go and had something really big on the line but the line snapped. But it was a great day!

So, overall, not too bad a week, was good to have the APs around. Sickness was a real pain, all I want to do is get stuck into the work. So I can’t wait to be healthy again so I can be 100% while teaching the Lord’s gospel.

Week 8 - Kiritimati

Mauri Mauri! 

ngke, internet is slow here in Kiritimati and I don't have much time, so I'll try and explain as much as I can. 

So Tarawa was really cool, Pigs, Dogs and Cats everywhere, Kids running around naked turning anything they see into toys, everyone stares and smiles at you. Can see ocean on both sides of the island its so skinny, its very crowded living, houses are built with what ever they can find. Rubbish everywhere, very busy but I love it so much. Its so different from any place I've ever been. 

For the couple of days that I was in Tarawa, I went on splits for teaching mainly with Elder Smith and Elder Afatasi. First full day I went with Elder Afatasi (my Trainer/companion/dad) to teach some lessons. The Kiribati people are some of the coolest people I've ever met, they always smile, always offering food and drink and laugh at everything. 

Elder Afatasi is from Utah but his heritage is Samoan and he's been out for 21 months. He is a really good teacher and we are going to work really well together. I'll tell you more about that later as I have a lot to say. Second day I went with Elder Smith to teach lessons, (btw, we were teaching in Eita 1st branch) and it went really well. Elder Smith, from Utah, is really cool, he loves film and television as well so we talked a lot about how good the church videos are getting. Have you seen the addiction recovery series by the church? They are really good. Oh, and he was actually the guy from the bullying video the church made. 

On Saturday, Elders Afatasi and Smith had 5 baptism which was really cool so the whole day was pretty much organizing that. Sunday was church, Elders Osborne (also came to Christmas), Larsen and I were asked to get up and say something because none of the speakers showed up which apparently happens a lot. Caught me off guard but didn't go to badly. On Monday I spent the day helping Elder Openshaw drive Elders going to Outer Islands to the airport. I didn't know at the time but it Awkwardly came up in a conversation that he was the Elder mentioned in Elder Andersons talk in General Conference, he's a really good Elder. 

Monday afternoon Elder Peeti (kain New Zealand), Osborne (kain USA), Afatasi (kain USA) and I flew to FIJI! We landed in FIJI around 9 pm, checked into the hotel, showered in a WARM shower (Afatasi and Peeti were in awe of everything because they'd been in Kiribati for so long) and slept. Woke up the next day, our flight wasn't until 11:55 pm so we decided to catch the bus to an internet cafe and then to the only Maccas in Fiji. 

The Bus in Fiji didn't have doors or windows and had party music always playing so that was fun. The internet cafe was sketchy, emailed for 2 hrs then caught the bus to Maccas which was amazing! Hadn't had a Big Mac in for ever, however, it made me sick. The Kiribati food was fine with my body but maccas just gave me the runs. 

Fun fact: the word for Diarrhoea is "BEKA NAKO" which directly translates to "poop that goes". 

Anyway, so I didnt feel so good for a couple of days. We finally landed in Kiritimati on Wednesday morning. Kiritimati is beautiful, its a lot less crowded, cleaner, bigger, hotter, people talk faster and its just an awesome place. 










Because there isn't any senior couples on the island any more, there isn't any sisters, so Elder Afatasi and I got the sisters house and Elders Peeti and Osborne got the stick which I'm kinda jealous about. But I cant complain about having a mattress. I'm serving in Tabekea 1st, and we are white washing the area. To help Elder Afatasi get situated with area we went on splits with Elder Dinsdale and Elder Hungai. Afatasi went with Hungai because he had served in Tabakea before and I went with Dinsdale and worked in Bwanana. It was interesting teaching lessons because Dinsdale has only been in Kiribati for 7 weeks so our language was pretty limited. But it was good to see how he used his limited language so I learnt a lot from him. 

On Friday I finally got to work in my area, the day was just spent visiting area investigators and getting to know them. The same happened on Saturday. Rooti, Tatonga and Margret are a family that we are teaching. We first started teaching Rooti, who is 10 years old and she is already progressing so much. We have had 2 lessons with her and on Sunday she brought her Mum and Dad to church and there we organized to have a lesson with the whole family. So after church we went to their home to teach and before we even started Margaret asked when are we getting baptised which was a shock. We set the date for end of November but Margaret and Tatonga just need to get there marriage papers done. Fred is 16 I think and he is also taking lessons, we committed him to baptism but we haven't set a date yet. Earaitabeta (Elizabeth) is 30 something, she's married with kids. The Husband doesn't really stick around for lesson but one of the kids who is 10ish loves the gospel and he is always asking questions. Elizabeth is also progressing so much, she has a baptismal date for end of November as well. Rete and Kobururu are 15 and 16 girls, and we have taught them once and they already have a baptismal date. Aokotino, 16, is the same, he has a baptismal date. 

And last but not least we have Reewi, who we haven't managed to have a lesson yet. On Saturday we went to his house and in a hammock we see a Big 100% naked man, Passed out and smelling of Alcohol pretty bad. I just remember thinking " I hope that's not our investigator". We ask who ever is in the house where we could find Reewi. He laughs and points at the Naked man in the Hammock... So I think we might need to teach him the Word of Wisdom and maybe Modesty. Anyway, I love Tabekea so much and im so excited get to know the area teach more people. Its so amazing seeing people feel the spirit and wanting to change there lives. I'm sorry I haven't being answering your questions mum, but once I get settled I'll be able to answer them and share more spiritual experiences. Also don't send anything to Kiritimati. it'll get lost. If you want to send me stuff now, send it Tarawa but I wont get until I get back there. I'll write everyone individually next week, Love you all so much, 

Love Elder Berends.