Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Brightly Beams Our Fathers Mercy

Hey Everyone,

SO this week went by pretty good. My comp and good buddy, Elder Fuller, got transferred to Fakavara. Fakavara is one of the Tuamotua islands. I'm excited for him because he hasn't had a chance to serve on one of the Tuamotua islands yet, but I'm sad because we only got to serve together for a short time. He was in the MTC with me too. But, on a happy note my new comp, Elder Swartz, is also one of my friends that was in the MTC with me. This should be a fun couple of weeks. 

So some things that happened this week. Elder Tokalolo from Vanuatu finished his mission this week. Elder Fuller and I got to drop him off at the airport for his flight...it was pretty early in the morning but it was fun. 

On Thursday we had Leadership Council for all the zone leaders. Elder Sinjoux, an area seventy, and also the former Tahiti mission president, talked to us and it was really nice. Sister Bize gave a training about fear which was super interesting. There was really good food and then President Bize talked about spiritual power. I learned a lot.

Friday, I dropped Elder Fuller off at the airport. I say "dropped off" because it was I that drove. It's the first time on my whole mission that I've had a car. Our car is a 2014 Toyota Hilux. It's not the best handling thing ever, but its cool. I now officially know how to drive a manual car. I have not stalled yet. It was sad to see him go. Then I had to take Elder Souday to the doctors for his back, so that took awhile. Then we had to stop by the Mission Office because Elder Souday had to have an interview with President Bize and then we went to airport to pick up Elder Meyer who's going to be replacing Elder Souday in the area of Papehue. Elder Meyer funnily enough, is from Blanding, Utah. Blanding is where my Grandpa Porter is from and also a place of some very fond family reunion memories. We had a nice little talk about Blanding. I'm apparently the first person he's met here at Tahiti who actually knows where Blanding is. 

Saturday, we were able to do a couple of lessons. We met with our investigator we found the other week. It's the Catholic man from the Marquesian islands that I mentioned last week. So we had a really cool discussion with him on Thursday night. We showed up and they had made us carpaccio, which is raw fish cut very thinly an then covered in olive oil and other spices. IT was super GOOOD!!! WOW! It was good! Anyways, at the end of the lesson we asked if we could come back to talk again. He said, even though he enjoyed talking with us, we couldn't come back. However, I gently insisted. He said no to basically every idea I threw at him. I asked for Sunday and he said "no no definitely not!" He would not say yes to any idea or suggestion I asked. Normally at this point, I would have given up and said " fine whatever" but I didn't want to let this guy go! SO I asked for Sunday one more time, he paused, looked at me, and said, " What time?" and I said whatever time you want. So we fixed a lesson for 10 a.m. YES!! Totally won! 

However, the story is not over yet. SO we went back yesterday and discovered that he had prepared breakfast for us. We had hot chocolate, toast, doughnuts, poisson cru (raw fish) and some juice. We talked about the Book of Mormon. He seemed very interested and he said he'd read a little bit. SO at the end, I asked when we could come back, and do you know what he said..." whenever you guys want"! What!!!!????? We fixed a lesson for next Sunday! I was super pumped! 

Anyways that just goes to show that the Spirit is capable of changing peoples hearts and minds! hehehehe...this should be an interesting week.

One more thing. So the missionary concerts have started. Its where all the missionaries of the island of Tahiti get together and sing some songs. We are going to visit all the stakes here. Its a concert tour! So last night was at FAA'A. It was awesome! The stake center was filled! I don't have any special parts except I'm sort of in a Quartet but with like 9 elders.....so not really a "quartet" at all, but they keep calling us a quartet, so I'm just going with it. We sang "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" (which happens to be my mom's favorite song right now! She mentioned it in her email three weeks ago and asked me to read the words of all three verses.) We sang in all 3 languages; french, tahitian, and english. It was really cool! 

Anyways!! I love you all!! Have a good day!!!

Love,
Elder Cole Porter

Elder Temake, Moi, Elder Kokona, Elder Hill (He was my comp the whole 12 weeks at the MTC)

Flashback to me and Elder Hill at the MTC (we're modeling our crazy socks)

Another "Flashback" and "Flashforward" moment. The top two pictures are me and some of my buddies in the MTC. The bottom pic is some of my MTC buddies at the leadership training meeting this week.


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