Manliness 101

So, before I tell you about my awesome spiritual adventures, let me school you all in proper fish eatery. This week, I ate fish in the manliest way possible!! An investigator handed me a fish that had been gutted and skinned but that was it. Then she handed me a lemon and said "Tamaa Maitai" which means bon appétit. I never felt more like man. I was all Bear Grylls-ing it as I tore off fish meat from the bone with my teeth! Super cool!!! Dream come true!! Best fish I've ever eaten!!!!

For the rest of my week, It was awesome!! We started off the week by having interviews with President Bize! We talked for about half an hour! We discussed the area here at Pirae and he gave us some good ideas about how to help the ward to grow! It pumped Elder Heno and I up and we worked hard this week with some awesome results! 

We were able to teach an excommunicated member this week. About 15 years ago his wife cheated on him so he asked the church to remove his name from the records. Since then he's avoided the church at all costs. He especially does not like missionaries. However, our stake president was able to convince him to come to a FHE that Presdient Estall organized at his own home. So we talked to him there and he warmed up to us. Afterwards, we visited him again and he told us he really liked us and that he wanted us to come back to teach his family! It was awesome!

Elder Heno and I did a bit of contacting this week. We were able to meet this one French lady who's Jewish. She doesn't believe in God at all and she kept telling us that she's too much of a bad person so there's no use in trying. We talked to her and she expressed to us that she really hopes that the family can be eternal. We testified that it can and she promised to read our brochure and to pray. I really hope she feels the Spirit testify to her that God exists and he loves her!

Sunday, we had a pretty cool meeting. Elder Sinjoux is the district or area or regional something 70 over the Pacific...he was the mission president here right before President Bize. Anyways, we had a meeting with him, the stake presidency, all the bishops in our stake, all the ward mission leaders, and the missionaries in our zone. He talked about how to involve the members in missionary work. It was an amazing, spiritual meeting. I learned a lot!

The meeting made me really think about how to involve members and what really helps the missionaries out. I think the best thing a member can do is offer to go to a lesson with the missionaries or hold a FHE and invite an investigator and the missionaries. There are a lot of things members can do and I invite all the members who might read this to ask the missionaries what they need help with. Missionary work does not work without the members. 

Also, congrats to my little brother, Ren. He received his mission call today and will be in the Argentina, Buenos Aires West mission!! He hits the MTC on November 18th. We'll be almost exactly one year apart on our missions. 

I love you all!! Have a good week!!!! 

Elder Porter

Our "manly" dinner of freshly skinned fish with our investigators Taaroa, Bertie and Bertie's mom who is a Sanito (remember a Sanito is someone who is a member of R-LDS church)

Me and Elder Hughes, my zone leader. He's awesome. We were sticking with the "manly" theme for these pics!

Our district: Elder Heno, Me, Elder Hughes, Elder Escoffre