Pray

Hey Everyone,

I don't have a lot of time today....we had a pretty busy day of driving...I'm very tired. This last week was awesome. We got to meet some cool members and we found a bunch of really great potential investigators.

We've been working with an older investigator this week. A lot of his kids are already members and his wife was baptized a year or two ago, but then she died right after her baptism. It was very sad. We restarted the lessons with him. He's been taught multiple times. By multiple missionaries. But, During our first lesson he accepted the invitation to be baptized. His baptism is this Saturday and we are very happy for him. He's progressed a lot. It should be a good baptism.

We've been working with other investigators this week who just need to get married but their waiting for some papers. They've also been taught many times by missionaries. Apparently, the first time Elder Fuller and I talked to them, the husband had a dream in which he read the Book of Mormon, prayed to know if it was true, and had a warm burning throughout his entire body which woke him up and which he felt even after he was awake. The problem is that he's afraid or embarrassed to pray for real while he's conscious!!! This is a problem I have never come across before. So that's been our little project. We read Alma 32 with him and it went really well. We'll see this week if he prayed. Would you all pray for him, that he will be able to pray?

Anyways, Elder Fuller and I gave talks in church on Sunday and they went really well, I was going to talk about how to fight against Satan but during Sacrament I was prompted by the Spirit to talk about something else. I talked about the story of the brother of Jared and how it applies to member missionary work. Basically the idea is that it doesn't really matter what we do to do missionary work. It only matters that we do something!! God expects us to make a plan and then he'll help us to succeed. We just have to have faith and get to work.

 I love you all. Have a good week!

Elder Cole Porter

Pics of Paea

Zone leader conference

I didn't get an email from cole until 8:30pm tonight. The Internet is down in Tahiti apparently. He only had time to say "hi. I'm doing great! And I'm very happy." And then he sent me a pic of the Zone leader conference. 

Random pictures

Random pics of my last few weeks in Papeete. 

Amazing Conference

Hey Everyone! 

SO this week passed by pretty quickly! I'm in my new area, Paea. The ward is called Orofero and its super pretty here; very different from the city. Much more "island-y", and green. 

There's a lot of potential here in the area and these next couple of months should be awesome! 

Not a lot happened this week. We were busy with transfers, and conference. We had a couple of lessons but I'm still getting used to everyone and their situations. 

I really enjoyed conference this year. I think my favorite talks were by Elder Kearon and Elder Holland. Elder Kearons' talk made me really excited to come back and serve. I love giving service and being on a mission has helped me learn how to connect more easily with strangers so I'm excited at the prospect of using this new talent. And As usual Elder Hollands talk was amazing. I loved how he said "We get credit just for trying." It was probably my favorite talk ever! 

Anyways, sorry its a short email this week. But I've just been busy figuring out my new calling, doing paperwork, and trying to meet the people in this side of the island. But next week will surely be exciting. 

I love you all!! Have a good week!

Love,
Elder Cole Porter

The road leading to our house

The Ward building

New comp, new investigators

Hey Everyone! Hows it going? This week was pretty cool! I got my new comp Elder Barlow. He's from Moses Lake, Washington. It's been a blast with him. We had some really cool experiences together. 

First off, Anoun was baptized on Wednesday! I was an amazing service! Her family and friends showed up and the Spirit was very strong. She bore her testimony afterwards. Her reading assignment from the day before was Mosiah 5, and apparently she liked it so much that she read the entire chapter during her testimony. It was a little different, but very touching and nice; and her family definitely felt the Spirit. 

This week I got to teach my first active Sanito member. Sanitos are members of the Community of Christ church or The Reorganized Church of Jesus christ Of Latter Day Saints. I've taught some before but they were never active members. However this week, one of the older brothers of our new convert Betty is an active deacon in the Sanito church here. We taught him about priesthood authority and the Restoration. It was awesome. It's very easy to teach Sanitos because they believe in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. We have high hopes for him.

Secondly, we had a super cool miracle this week. So we have an investigator named  Skyano. He is a young man who is ready for baptism but something was blocking him. His mom is excommunicated and she is getting rebaptized this Saturday. We invited him to get baptized with his mom this week, but he kept saying maybe. We discussed it and it seemed like he wanted a confirmation from God that it was a good decision. So, in an act of faith, during a lesson, we all kneeled down and Skyano said a prayer asking for a confirmation. After the prayer, we told him to randomly open the Book Of Mormon to a page and read. So he did. And where do you think the scriptures opened up to? He opened to 4 Nephi verse 1 which says "And it came to pass that the thirty and fourth year passed away, and also the thirty and fifth, and behold the disciples of Jesus had formed a church of Christ in all the lands round about. And as many as did come unto them, and did truly repent of their sins, were baptized in the name of Jesus; and they did also receive the Holy Ghost." He read it, smiled, closed the book, and said " okay, I'll get baptized." It was so awesome! The Spirit was very strong. Needless to say that there will be two baptisms this Saturday! 

I know the Lord answers prayers! I know he loves us! He will always support us in our righteous efforts. I love you all!! Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Cole Porter

Me and elder Barlow with our sweet new fanny packs.

Paea

Hey Everyone,

So we got transfer calls this week. Well I didn't really get a "call", because I live with the AP's, so they just looked at me and told me. Haha. I'm getting transferred to the zone of Paea in the ward of Orofero. My new comp is Elder Fuller, one of my best buds from the MTC and we'll be Zone leaders together!!!! This is an awesome transfer. I'll finally be in a car for the first time on my mission. Paea is an awesome stake and the ward is super cool. Plus our house is air conditioned! YES! Score! I'm very excited to leave but also very sad. This has been an amazing ward. Since I arrived in December, the ward has been able to accomplish 14 baptisms in total. And Its been awesome to be able to work closely with the assistants. And I'll miss elder Barlow. He's been a great companion.

So the work here was slow this week. Its the start of vacation season for the Tahitian people. Which means they leave and go on vacation. I know what you're thinking. Uhh......they're taking a vacation from one of the most beautiful places in world? Yes. I don't get it either!!!! So the work slows down a lot right now. 

One investigator, Raurea, went to Bora Bora to get baptized by her uncle so we are very happy for her. She'll be heading back later this week. 

Elder Barlow caught the new sickness that's going around here and its been extremely hot this past week so we've been taking it easy. The lessons have been pretty normal.

Thursday night was Reactivation visits and Elder Barlow and I had no where to go. Bishop came up to us and asked us where we wanted to go and we said we could probably visit the Marurai Family. Maeva the young daughter is a recent convert and her father is not a member. So we went with Bishop and we had an awesome lesson with the family. The mother was  very happy that a leader stopped by and the father was receptive to the message. He's seriously considering mariage and baptism now. It was awesome! I was very grateful.

So Sunday was our last Coordination meeting with the ward and because both Me and Elder Thia are leaving this area, the ward made us some food and gave us some treats. A couple members bore their testimonies and thanked us. I got teary eyed when Anoun and Betty both thanked me. I am so grateful to have been a tool in the Lord's hands to change these people's lives. I'm sad to leave this awesome ward but happy for the chance I have now to do it all over again somewhere else. 

I love you all!! Have an awesome Easter week!! See ya next week!

Love, 

Elder Cole Porter

My old MTC district. We haven't seen each other, altogether, for a long 

time.

Saying goodbye to the ward!!!