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 

Investigators

So this week was pretty cool! Monday we had a Family Home Evening at the temple with 3 investigators. Its a couple named Taaroa and Bertie and Davis (the nephew of Bertie). We talked about prophets and we watched a couple of Mormon Messages. It was the first time we had a lesson with Davis. We gave him a Book of Mormon and fixed a lesson with him for the next day. So then on Tuesday we saw him again and he had already read 13 chapters in the book Of mormon. WHAT? and he understood it all too. He told us he wants to get baptized and serve a mission. It was super cool. 

Then Wednesday he had another lesson with Taaroa and Bertie. We wanted to fix their marriage and baptism for the first week in October. They were actually excited and they agreed to get married on the 2nd. However, Bertie's mom, who's a Sanito (remember I told you all that a "sanito" is someone that's a member of the Re-organized church of Jesus Christ. They do not have anything to do with our church) anyway, she is really against her Bertie's baptism so she was scared and wanted to push the baptism back till December. Sunday we took them into our bishops office after church and we had a big discussion. Bishop LAcombe calmed their fears and they agreed to get married the soonest possible which is probably next week or the week after. Heno and I were super stoked! 

​We were also able to contact an excommunicated member named Jean-Ives. He was really hesitant at first to talk to us because we were so young. We did a FHE with him and the stake president a few weeks back and he said we could stop by again. So Friday we went and visited him and he was super excited to see us. We talked for a bit and then HE asked US when we could come back...​that never happens!!! He told us he likes us alot and that he's comfortable around us. Its really amazing watching the spirit work in peoples lives! 

Well i love you all!!! Have a good week!!

Love,
Elder Porter 

First Bapteme!!

Bonjour Tout le Monde! J’espère que vous alliez bien! Cette semaine était carrément top pour nous. I actually just realized I was writing in French, sorry, my bad. Anyways, How are all you doin?! This week was awesome for Elder Heno and I. This week I performed my first baptism. His name is Angelo and we've been teaching him for awhile now. The service was awesome except that I almost messed up with hand positioning and apparently I body slammed him into the water. I was so nervous that I must have not taken care to be gentle. Everyone "oohed" as he went in because there was a big splash. oops! I was told at least five times, "Haere maru elder", which means take it easy in Tahitian. But other than that, it was a very beautiful service. One of the hardest things about this mission is that most of the people we teach are already members. They're just inactive or excommunicated. There's a great cultural difference in Tahiti. Most Tahitians just don't see the need for marriage. As you can guess, this really makes it difficult for us to get people baptized.

We also had a really special experience this last Tuesday. We were trying to find an inactive member but we couldn't find his house. There were only two or three houses on his street and all of them had giant gates in front. We were about to leave when I looked in the window of one of the houses and I saw a picture of the Tahiti temple. We decided that that had to be his house. As we were walking up to the gate, there was a man that walked out of the house. We started talking to him and he told us his name was Tamatoa. It wasn't the member we were looking for but as we were talking we learned that his mom was a member in our ward and that he was excommunicated 10 years ago. We asked him if he had 20 minutes for us to do a little lesson with him. He said yes and he invited us in. We talked alot about forgiveness and the importance of the temple and the church. His wife is French and she doesn't have a religion and his son just turned eight. At the end, he gave the prayer. It was such an amazing prayer. He thanked God for having led us to him and he asked God to help him forgive because he's still bitter about being excommunicated. He then told us that we were the first missionaries he's let in his house since he was a member. He told us we were different and that's why he let us in. Elder Heno and I were so happy after the lesson! We are going to continue to teach him. 

I'm very grateful for the Spirit this week. Through His guidance, we were guided to someone who had been prepared to hear our message. 

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

Elder Porter

     Elder Heno, Angelo and me.

    Two of our investigators, Thierry and Dornella.

Lots of learning!

SO this week was pretty cool! On Tuesday we had a Multi Zone conference with a lot of other missionaries! It was awesome. All the Zone leaders gave lessons and then President and Soeur Bize gave a lesson on obedience. I learned alot! 

  So I never told my mom, but I've wrecked on my bike 3 times since I've been here. Nothing to major, just my pride, but this time I landed on my elbow (picture below). It doesn't look to bad but it hurts like crazy!

Thursday and Friday, I was sick so we weren't able to get a whole lot done....Then Saturday was really cool, We had two general authorities come down to speak to us. There was Elder Pearson from the seventy and also Elder Lynn G. Robbins! I learned so much from them! Their talks were awesome! One thing that Elder Robbins said is that "Behind every conversion story, there is a miracle"! Such a cool quote.... 

This week we've been tryibg to help one of our investigators get baptized. His name is Angelo and he's been working really hard to prepare himself and he passed the baptismal interview last week so his baptism will be this Saturday! I'm really excited for him! 

We also have been working with a couple named Taaroa and Bertie. They are so ready for baptism, they just have to get married first. However the problem is that Tahitians LOVE picking special dates for another special event. They want to get married on their sons birthday in December. They want enough time to prepare themselves. We are trying to help them see that they are prepared now to get baptized if they just get married. 

Well that's about it for this week! I would just like to finish my email by thanking my family! I'm so grateful for them and all that they do. I love them all so much and I thank my Heavenly Father every day for the blessing they are in my life! I love you all so much! Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Porter

My elbow took the brunt of my most recent bike wreck.

Me and Elder Heno at our ward building in Pira'e. 

Me standing in front of our ward bulletin board trying to look contemplative!

The ward building in Pira'e.  The building design is so different from anything back in Arizona. This one is two stories.

Work is good...who knew?

So this week was a blast! My new comp is the bomb. He's like a French version of Robbie (Robbie is one of my best friends. He's on a mission in Santa Rosa, CA right now)!!! Its an awesome companionship! 

This week we had a lot of difficulties with the work. There were alot of cancelled lessons and investigators who wanted to be put on standby. We ended up doing contacting. We were able to find some really cool potentials. 

Today was a pretty cool P-day. We started off by going to a "fiesta". There was a challenge a few weeks back and all the missionaries who succeeded were invited to a fiesta with real Mexican food. It was SO good. I had sour cream....I haven't even seen sour cream since I left on my mission. Best food I've eaten in a long time. Then afterwards we had a sport activity in Faa'a. We played soccer for about two hours then we went to the chapel in Farepiti to play volleyball and basketball. 

We've been teaching this family for awhile now and the parents have a hard time picking a date for marriage. They finally decided that they wanted to get married in april of next year. So this last lesson we tried to convince them to get married by the end of this year. They have son on a mission who's the only member of his family. He gets back next year so we proposed to them the idea of getting baptized by this November so when their son returns next year, they can immediately go to the temple to be sealed as a family. They actually really like the idea. They said they were going to think about it so we'll see if they decide to or not this Thursday when we visit them again.

I didn't have any big spiritual experiences this week, just the realization of how much I like working. I find a lot of satisfaction in working now, especially in the work of the Lord. I know this is his work. 

I love you all! Talk to you all soon.

Love,

Elder Porter 

My new comp Elder Heno, Elder Garbutt, and me

Goodbyes and hellos

So this week was awesome. It was Elder Jessops last week and we worked super hard. We were even able to get standards of excellence. Elder Garbutt got his Visa but he's not going to leave until September 5th. Also, my new comp will be Elder Heno. He's from Paris and he's super French. I'm going to be the senior comp and the district leader which should be fun. He's gonna get here later today. 

So last night we had our last Missionary concert at Mahina, my old zone. I got to see a bunch of members from Papenoo and Faaripo. It was a lot of fun to talk to them. A lot of them still remembered my name which was awesome. The concert went really well and I got to say goodbye to a lot of good friends who are leaving today. 

We had a pretty cool experience Thursday. We teach a family who has a son on a mission in the West Indies. He's the only member of his family but his dad, mom, brother, and sister take the lessons. We teach and eat with them every Thursday. This last lesson, the older brother Steven invited his girlfriend to come. She was extremely intelligent and interested in the gospel and she understood scriptures and had an answer to every question. It was awesome. What makes her special though is that she's a French teenager. French people are so hard to teach. She's the first French person I've taught on my mission. French people are generally more reserved and usually reject the missionaries but she was open and friendly. It was awesome. She might be one of the few French teenagers in Tahiti who's taking the lessons. 

I didn't have any large grand spiritual experience this week, but I'm grateful for all of you and your support. I know this church is true. In my entire life I'll never be able to deny it. I'm grateful for the Saviour and for the Atonement. I know he loves us. As Dieter F Uchtdorf said, " He wants to Forgive". I love you all! 

 

Elder Porter 

Me and some of my friends at the concert in Mahina!

Blessings blessings blessings

Iaorana tatou! Hey everybody!! Everythings awesome here in Pirae! We had a pretty good week here! Both of my comps will be leaving soon. I've had some cool experiences this week. 

So Tuesday, Elder Garbutt and I got a call asking us to go to the hospital to give a blessing. We live like a block away from the hospital so we get calls all the time asking us to give blessings. So we went to the hospital and we were met by a lot of people. The person who needed a blessing was a 15 yr old boy in a coma. Earlier that day he was hit by a car and he fell into a deep coma. His parents are members but inactive. So the dad went with us into the room because only 2 visitors are allowed in the coma unit. His head was wrapped in a cast and there were a billion machines hooked up to him. I asked if we could say a prayer before the blessing. The father asked me to say it. Even before starting I felt the Spirit so strongly. I could feel all the love and prayers of his family and friends. Its a feeling I felt at a members house the other day who's wife has cancer. Its a feeling of deep peace and a dependance on Heavenly Father. Its a feeling I hadn't felt since my Grandma Porter died. My grandma passed away many years ago, but I strongly remember that their house was always reverent and peaceful. It was a powerful feeling and as soon as I started praying I started crying. I felt compassion for this family and I felt their sadness. I know the spirit of the Lord was in that room. After the prayer we blessed him and we left a small message about the temple and Gods plan for us. The family asked us to come back the next day for a prayer and another blessing. Elder Jessop and I went back the next day with our Ward mission leader. The blessing went well but only Heavenly Father knows the what is meant for this boy. 

As we were leaving more people asked us to give other blessings. We ended up spending an hour and a half there and we gave 5 blessings. It was a very special experience.

Last night was the missionary concert here at Pirae. It went awesome. There were alot of investigators and the Tahitian beach soccer team "Tiki Toa" even showed up. It went really well. I hope the concert helped some people feel the Spirit. 

I love you all!! Have a good week!! 

Love Elder Porter