Email No 69 - Quarterly Reports... made me think of The Other Side Of Heaven :)

Mauri Mumma,

Oohhh that’s cool... You got my letter and pictures :) Man... so what are you saying about my birthday and Christmas... You’re going to combine the two and we'll go shopping when I get back?? Ohhh ok... !!! :D

Yeah Elder and Sister Steed are leaving tomorrow... Elder Steed is the man… he’s so chill… we are really going to miss them! The new senior couple is here, we haven’t spent much time with them yet, but they seem good… I have a feeling she is going to be pretty rough on house inspections lol !

We had an alright week... Actually it was pretty average... It was only me and Elder Morton as zone leaders on Tarawa cz the other two went to an outer island for a week ...like me and Dykes did... And then President said he needed the quarterly reports from all of the outer islands that have units and braches on them that are under the mission... That was hard… but we got it done so its all good :) lol

We had a sweet as ward activity too... We had our Ward Conference this week as well haah... It was pretty cool... The ward was camping at a school and we had heaps of fun... We went there during the day sometimes and just hung out with them and Sunday we had lunch there too :) it was fun... and definitely good for the members of the Ward.

Well Mumma I love ya heaps... You’re the best :) send Dad my love and to the rest of em too...

Love Elder Nye xoxo

Email No 68 - President asked if there is a chance he might extend!

I wrote back and said "only if you want to break your Mother's heart!" LOL


Mauri Mumma..

I’m happy that your happy for me to go to outer islands :) I kind of plan to ask President if I can go... When I was in Marshalls he mentioned I still had 3 more months as zone leader and I asked him right there if it’d be okay if I went to ‘Outies’ instead :) I think he'll be okay with it.

Man that’s a cool experience you had with that Jehovahs Witness guy... I’ve never talked to one... They are here though... Maybe I’ll get a chance one day to talk with one... and that’s so true about your heart and mind being your second witness... That’s pretty cool... We're pretty lucky in this church just to have the heart in it as well as the mind... It’s hard though cz we have scriptures from the bible saying that they're wrong and they have scriptures from the bible saying that they're right... It’s just a confusing cycle of words... Most people hear though are just happy to listen :)

Elder Van Dyken is leaving tomorrow... And then I’ll be with Elder Morton for a week until Elder Lowry and his companion get back from an outer island... the next time I see Van Dyken is in Melbourne cz we think he’s going to finish his time in Christmas... He gets back 6 weeks before me.

There’s not much going on... This week we're going to baptise Nei Kaaua... Tonganibeia's wife. Well Tonganibeia's going to baptise her... Cool huh? Need to find some new investigators... Ones that are ready to hear the gospel... otherwise I just feel I am wasting what little time I have left.

Love you Mumma... Say hi to everyone for me... Tell Dad i love him...

Eeeeeeelder nyyyee :)

Email No 66 & 67 - The tide was so low, we had to do the baptising, sitting down.

Thanks for the quote about “Gifts” that you sent... sometimes I try to think if I have any gifts at all... and those gifts that were mentioned are comforting cz I know I have portions of some of them :) komol (Marshalese for thankyou)

So I’ll talk about Abemama first.... best experience of my life. We were there for 1 week... Wednesday to Wednesday... first day we got there we started work... went to all the people that needed to be taught and we also got some who joined in... so we were really blessed.. we visited every member / less active member on the island and told them there will be a transport on Sunday for church. So we were just teaching our people... Sunday came around and we had 50 something people come to church... usually only 1 or 2 families get to church.... so it was awesome as... Elder Van Dyken and I taught them about the Plan of Salvation in Sunday School... and all the members got really excited and said they'll try and come every week... there’s just a distance problem though... they live too far away to walk to the chapel and we hired the transport with our own money so that’s why everyone came :) so they really need a truck... but its the same on every outer island so it’s a pretty big problem... but having missionaries there lifted them so much... it was awesome.... and then on Monday it was Pday... me and Van Dykes went and saw the end of the island... it was fun as... and then we had a fun as FHE that night... then on Tuesday we had the baptism... we ended up having 13 baptisms... it was really cool... I baptised and Elder Van Dyken confirmed them all... we did the baptisms in the ocean and it was low tide... so we had to do the baptising sitting down :) it was funny... I fell over once haha. We were a little bummed just cz all of them were kids... the oldest was 16... but that’s what we were given so that’s what we worked with... we even found more people that wanted to be baptised the day before we had the baptism... so we couldn’t teach them in time... so if Elders went there they would have work straight away.... it’s so awesome there!!

We slept at a members house the whole week... in their hut thing... its called a Buia... its cool as... we just set up mosquito nets and slept on mats... woke up in the morning... they had breakfast for us... lunch, dinner... we were just living like Kiribati people for the week... so mean. I’ve got heaps of photos... I’ll get them to ya's.

Marshalls..... we got there on Thursday and left on Monday... it was pretty cool there... it was good to meet some of the elders and see the mission home and the office and everything up there... President tells the missionaries there that Marshall Islands is like New York City compared to Kiribati. and he’s pretty right... some places you look left and right and you think you’re in America!! So many stores and hotels and cars and banks and heaps of things.. the Elders there have no idea lol. We stayed with an Assistant and a Zone Leader while we were there they were pretty cool guys... it was fun catching up with all of the Elders and Sisters serving from our Kiribati Islands while we were there. We had heaps of fun with them... I got heaps of photos there too... good times. It was kind of boring at the same time though... I wanted to go back to Kiribati.... all of the houses have air conditioning... so I was cold every night... lol woke up with a cold every morning. I had a hot shower!!! It was amazing... stayed in there for ages! I can’t wait to get home and have hot showers every day. I ate pizza... it was kangkang as but I had a messed up gut afterwards so that sucked... I think it was the cheese. Lol! It was pretty cool... but it was like a holiday... and I just didn’t really feel comfortable with it. I was sure glad to get back to my islands and back to my work.

Elder Van Dyken will be getting transferred next week... he'll go to Christmas Island which is great for him, but I am going to miss him heaps… he’s the man! I am going to be staying here… still... and am getting a new companion. He is from Canada... Elder Lowry... it is always hard changing companions. I am sure we are going to work well together... I have always found if you and your companion do the work, then the Spirit turns your companionship into a friendship.

Good luck with everything at home… there is so much going on for you… the world seems really busy right now ... we must be getting close :)

Love you, please give my love to everyone
Elder Nye