Motu, Service Project, and Running - April 13, 2015

This week was good. We started it off Monday with a trip to the motu. So, in French Polynesia there are islands that have a recife. Tahiti has a recife, Bora has a recife and others. The recife normally circles the entire island. The distance from the recife to the main island can vary. Here on Tubuai at closest it's around one kilometer and at farthest it's two-ish kilometers. This creates a nice shell for the island. It protects it from the ocean waves, it makes a nice lagoon of water and sometimes there are islands out on the recife. These islands make great places to visit and do a little barbeque. So Monday morning we headed out. The weather wasn't looking so hot due to rain that had been coming down for a solid week. As we were riding in the boat we could see the storm clouds coming in. Once we arrived at the motu (one of the islands on the recife) we only had a few minutes to get everything off the boat before it started raining, again.

It was still a good experience. We had a lot of fun making food, talking and walking around this little island. I'm happy we were able to go.

Speaking of rain. It rained all of the week before this week and this week the rain finally stopped on Wednesday. We were at a member's house on Tuesday night waiting out the rain when he heard a chicken crow. That one little crow told him that there would be no more rain. And what do you know? He was right. It stopped raining and hasn't rained since. There are good things to learn from others.

Like every week we did a service project. We spent the day working on the land of our ward mission leader where his son-in-law has built his house. It was just a good day of work. We would work for a few hours then take a coconut break. Work some more and then go eat. Work some more and take another break with juice. Work some more and take another coconut break. It was very Tahitian. I'm not complaining because I enjoy coconuts and being with people. So it was a win win for me.

The work this week was a little down. We had two lessons with investigators. One with our Tahitian investigator and another with an investigator named Mata. Our Tahitian isn't progressing because we haven't given commitments. The Tahitian style of teaching is slower and so as we work further into the lessons we will start committing her. Mata on the other hand is doing well. He wants to be baptized but we have to talk with his wife to convince her to not be afraid of her family. We're waiting for the next lesson with them.

Running. I've picked up running again. Friday I ran five kilometers with no shoes (I had loaned them to someone) and today I did six with shoes. I got blisters from my shoes so I might just keep running with no shoes. I enjoy running. It's a good sport for relaxing.

I love you all family. We're still out here. We're still working. We'll see what the future holds.

Elder Squires

A really pretty sunset

That's the driveway to our house after all the rain.