Mauri Mari everyone! It's definitely been a tough week to say the least... So right after I finished emailing last week I was feeling super gross and sick and when I got home I collapsed in bed and spent the next day and night throwing up and diarrhea galore!! Great weight loss program I literally lost 10 lbs and the little stomach pudge I was starting to get disappeared!!! It was a rough like 3 days working even though I was still kinda sick and everything, but I did it and I was good!! Honestly, every day when I woke up just feeling like I could lay in bed all day, and I could have, but everyday when I went out and worked by the end of the day I felt a lot better! I’m all good now though!!! Back to full health. My first real Kiribati sickness felt and overcome:) AND I GOT CRAZY NEWS.
So for transfers I found out I’m staying on Tarawa BUT I’m moving areas to work with Elder Johnson.... who just so happens to be in the intake AFTER me.... Who probably speaks worse Kiribati than me.... ITS GUNNA BE INSANE AHH. For real though, it's going to weird being the senior companion and finishing a kid’s training when essentially I’m still a child and unqualified as well. It's going to be an awesome experience though. I’m soo pumped to take it to the next level. Like its going to be a complete turn to God where we literally HAVE to trust in Him in all things. I take comfort in the promise that the Lord qualifies those he calls so I know it's for our benefit. I keep noticing how many things I don't understand and how much I rely on Elder Miller to help me understand things sometimes, and that rug is getting taken from under my feet for sure! It's going to be awesome!! Literally, I’m taking it to the next level starting Thursday. Like all the people in that area will be on my being able to communicate and help them especially depending on how much Elder Johnson knows. It's going to be the refiner's fire for sure. I expect it to be ridiculously hard and I’m going to die but it’s going to be SOOO GOOOD for me. Like no growth in a comfort zone and no comfort in a growth zone right. It's going to be great. It’s funny how exact obedience means exact obedience to a T. Like the past couple of days I haven't worked out in the morning because I felt so weak from being sick, but I can see a notable difference in my energy from not working out! So that'll start back up whether I feel like my body can't take it or not.
One funny thing that happened this week was I was laying in bed after a hard day just completely dead and Christmas music came on and I just imagined being at home sitting on the couch with mom in the kitchen baking cookies with the warm smell of Christmas all around... and then I opened my eyes and it was just me on my plank bed and instead of mom making cookies it was Elder Miller boiling his leaves we picked (apparently this dish he makes where he boils leaves a ton is good) and instead of the smell of cookies it was the smell of sweaty pig outside hahahahahahahaha! I thought that was pretty funny.
Our boy Tammera is so awesome! So he just got baptised last week and he already taught Sunday School this week and all the time he wants to go out with us and just follow us around all day!! He says he has to get used to it for when he is a missionary. He told us he was going to fill out his papers today for his mission with a member and it wasn't until we said goodbye we realized... wait... he can't fill out papers he was baptised last Saturday. But he is the man for real! He always says super powerful things for people he can connect with because he just got baptised and has a huge change! So sick and awesome to watch that happen.
Then another one of our warriors Tipi he's 19 and a legit giant. Like he is taller then me and absolutely jacked. Everyone in Kiribati is jacked and ripped... they say it's because when the kids are babies they massage the babies all the time. It's a real thing like some kids don't get massaged and they are skinny!! But kids who are massages are just thick and strong!! It's a good tip!! Anyways, Tipi was telling us about how he was reading the Book of Mormon and this weird feeling shot all through his body so he got scared and stopped reading and the feeling left, then he started reading again and it came back! He got scared stopped, and it happened one more time!! He’s crazy smart- like he read the same 20 pages 3 times so he understood it and he got tons from it! So awesome. It was so funny so the lesson before that happened we brought Tammara to the lesson with Tipi and Timion (Timion and Tipi lesson together Tipi is way on track but Timion is still good but not moving as fast) but Tammara was talking about how he got his truth to them and they were like "how much have you read" Tammara-"1st Nephi" and they were like "what no way E boni kaoua?!?!?!?" they couldn't believe it and of course Tammara told them it's because he prayed about it and it was awesome because in the next lesson when Tipi said that Timion was like" There's no was "E boni koaua (Is it true)" all surprised. It's so awesome Timion has all these examples:)
It's been sad- school let out so a bunch of our people are leaving... but so are we, I guess. One girl we have been lessoning with FINALLY agreed to baptism this Saturday. She was super not sure for a long time a big part was her family told her that she couldn't come home and they would kill her and stuff, but she said she wants to anyways!!! Very exciting her aunt she lives with is kinda crazy we heard her family won't actually kill her or anything but it was exciting to watch her fight the negative pressure.
It was fun yesterday while Miller did interviews I went with Smith to go pick up the AP's Elder Openshaw and Elder Davis from their return to Marshall's and all they could say was "be grateful you are in Kiribati" hahaha Apparently Marshalls is literally America like they have Pizza Hut!! And Real groceries!!! And apparently they actually knock on doors and people are ice cold. Thinking back on the Bilimons (a Marshallese family in Indiana home ward) the Billimons were not Kiribati at all. Like in Kiribati it doesn't matter who you are if you need anything anytime people try to make you as comfy as possible. And they are constantly trying to feed you and give you drink and love to chat. Which is all very frustrating sometimes when literally they try to do so much for you like this one guy Paulo. He always insists on feeding us and it's inconvenient because we don't have time to sit around with him, yanno!!! So usually we try to escape before people feed us or try to chat and we are usually successful. but literally stark contrast.
One thing I've noticed the other day is the power of a smile. Like I literally felt like a celebrity the first time I drove through Kiribati because everyone smiles so big and waves when you drive by. EVERYONE. It's so pleasant honestly like all the time everyone like EVERYONE gives you their best smile all the time. Like I saw this cranky looking old women and I waved at her and her entire countenance just completely changed and she smiled and waved at me. This place is literally heaven on Earth.
Also if in the next package there was corn chips and cheese sauce I wouldn't be mad. or nacho cheese doritos. Or mac and cheese. Fish and rice constantly wears me down I'll be honest. I had a moment while I was sick and just feeling gross, I realized I always always feel gross and there is nothing here and I realized that's life for two years and I craved society for a second.
Its soooo weird when people are watching American movies and I see a picture of a normal home. It honestly looks fake to me at this point, like that kind of absolute luxury cannot be real. Even that photo where you were all on a couch was freaky because of how clean and friendly it looked. Like lighting is everything all the lights here are scary like LED lights but lights in the world have such a friendly tone. It's all weird, I just don't think about it, it doesn't seem real though.
Kiribati is literal heaven though, everyone is sooo friendly all the little kids are so funny they run around free all day everyday just doing whatever they want. One of our investigators was in our army and SUPER SOLID named Taumua was supposed to get baptised this Saturday got on a boat and went to this outie yesterday.... there is probably like 20 kids who we basically got to baptism but last second they left so we can't see them baptised. I count them as mine if I hear they get baptised.
Also this week I decided poverty is such a choice!!!!! Literally, if you want to classify Kiribati it's one of the "poorest places in the world" But honestly the people here have so much more and are so much happier than anyone in America. Poverty is a state of mind. You choose to be poor. You choose to let the lack of material bother you as you compare. People here, there is nothing, you wear clothes because its clothes, not because its style. Which is funny sometimes when a hardcore teenager is walking around in a hello kitty shirt.
Awh yeah! I'll get Flat Stanely all set up real good! Don’t worry, it'll be the sickest Flat Stanley ever.
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