Sharing my spirit

Hey everyone, So this week was good! We had a baptism yesterday of one of our investigators. IT was awesome. Her name is Betty Ta'i. The ward came out to support her and her family was there to. Our Bishop also came a gave them a really beautiful marriage blessing. 

We found a new investigator this week. Her name is Anoun and she's awesome!! Apparently, she's been praying for us to show up to talk to her. She's been extremely prepared by God to receive our message. She accepted to be baptized on the 27th of this month which is her birthday. She came to church and loved it. She was also at the baptism of Betty and she cried because she felt the Spirit. The ward is really happy because they all know her because the rest of her family is all members. 

So we had our interviews with President Bize this week and he told me that I have a problem with teaching a lot of lessons without ever getting a baptism. He told me to read Chapter 11 of Preach My Gospel which talks about commitments. I was kind of mad at him at first for saying that. And I came up with a lot of excuses in my mind, like,  I've never been in an amazing area that gets a lot of baptisms or where the members work a lot, or I've always been in sort of not very good areas. But I humbled myself and asked God how I need to improve? And I also asked whether or not President was inspired to give me this counsel. So I read the chapter and I was drawn to the section about Bearing Testimony Often. As I was reading, (and my mom's  going to love this), the Spirit told me that " You are very good at helping people understand that the message is true but you're not very good at helping them feel that it's true." My mom's been telling me since forever that "I don't open up and let my spirit show. And that I'm too closed off because I don't want to show vulnerability. And if I would just let my spirit guide me and shine through me, instead of just using my brain and knowledge, it would make all the difference, not only on my mission but in my life." So this week I decided to try and bear very sincere testimony during all of our lessons. I've already seen the difference. I also learned that Heavenly Father knows me and inspired President Bize to tell me things I needed to hear, even if they were hard to hear. And that I need to trust in my leaders (and my mom).

I know that this church is true. I know that this is the Lord's work because I see His Hand as He helps and works with His children. I know He loves us and I know that the true Gospel and Church of Jesus Christ were restored by a living Prophet. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love,

Elder Cole Porter

Betty and her husband (with me and Elder Edmunds) at her baptism.

View of my area with the mountains in the background.

Me and Elder Edmunds with our ward mission leader, at his home.

Happy new year!

Hey Everyone!! I wish you all a very merry new year! This week was pretty fun for us. The work was a little slow due to all the partying but we've seen some good progress in our other investigators. We also had some cool experiences. 

We have an investigator named Betty. Her boyfriend is a member named Tane and they are going to get married this Saturday and she is going to get baptized afterwards. We're really excited! She's been taught for a couple of years but she's finally getting baptized! She's super ready!

So on Tuesday, we found two new investigators who are Pentecosts. They were really cool. They were really open to the Book Of Mormon and they said they were going to read it. At the end of the lesson, the guy did the prayer and it was awesome. We all held hands and the prayer involved lots of hallelujahs and amens. Sweet!!

I really like the new mormon message, "Look Foward to Your Future". It talks about the story of Lot's wife and how we shouldn't look back on the past. Its really inspiring. My new goal for this year is to focus on the future and forget the past.  

Thats about all for this week! I love you all!!! Have a good week!    

Elder Porter

Me eating Fafaru (remember? Fafaru is that dish they make where they take raw fish and soak it fermented sea water for days or weeks. It smells like a sewer, but I'm really starting to like it!)

This is a pic of the "plateau of Taravao". It's a little piece of land that connects Tahiti-iti (little Tahiti) to Tahiti-nui (big Tahiti). 

Hiking on pday

Me and Elder Heno

Me and my comp elder edmunds eating New Year's Eve dinner with a member family.

Elder Heno made me jean shorts. And I'm super happy to be wearing them. Can you tell?

Mission Christmas party

Hey Everyone 

Hows it going in Gilbert? Christmas was a blast here. So the Christmas Party for the Mission was so much fun. We watched a movie, played games, and i got a panda bear for my white elephant gift! Swag! Elder Heno and I also got to visit some old investigators! 

I got to Skype my family on Friday which was awesome! My mom cried a lot but that can't be helped. The Wifi worked really well, which has never happened in all our skyping sessions so that was a plus! 

Then We had the baptism of Karine. She's the woman we've been teaching who's son is on a mission in Canada. And because of his weekly emails home, her heart was softened and she allowed us to teach her. Pretty Much the entire ward showed up which was really cool to see. Even President Bize came! It was so special.

Afterwards, Elder Heno, Packer, Edmunds and I went to eat at the Tani's house in Pirae. They're a family that elder Heno and I taught when we were in the Pirae sector.  It was awesome to see them again. They made some delicious food! and then we lit some chinese lanterns that worked perfectly! 

I was incredibly sick on Saturday actually! I was pretty much confined to my bed all day! oh joy! That was fun, but Saturday night was even better! We had a super mega huge dinner with a family in the ward. I have never seen so much food! There was....just to name a few things, cigale (which is like a big locust), lobster, crab, raw chinese fish, raw coconut fish, sashimi, steak, chicken,  tuna kebabs, MekaMeka kebabs, pasta, fries, fafaru (which was extremely delicious), taro, po'e banane, roasted pork, and dessert! Crazy right?! It was so good! Afterwards we all drank some Martinellis! super classy!

Anyways! This week was good, notwithstanding my being sick and all. I was really grateful to be a part of Karine's baptism. I can't imagine how her son must feel. I was just really happy to be able to help!  I love you all! Have a awesome new years!!!

Elder Cole Porter

Me and my old comp Elder Isabell at the Christmas partyKarine and my comp Elder Edmunds.

Christmas dinner with the Tani family

The mega huge dinner with a family in our ward!

Christmas in Tahiti

Hey everyone,

This week was good. It was a lot of hard work that paid off. It was a lot of walking and a lot of sweating because it was so hot. So we should have one baptism this week on Friday, Christmas Day! She has progressed a lot and we're excited to see her be blessed. 

We attended a FHE last Monday night and we met a new family. The dad is inactive and his wife and kids are Catholic. We talked with them and it was apparent that they both wanted a change in their life. When we did a lesson with them during the week, we saw that there were some problems between them. We found out later that the dad is not really there for his family and that there were some pretty big problems in his life. The wife wants to bring her family into the church but he gives no support. We're working with the ward here to help them workout their problems. 

The ward here has been really helpful. We have some awesome members who go with us pretty much every day to teach investigators. Investigators are so much more comfortable if there's a member there with us. We had one member who went with us to see a couple and he talked in Tahitian for awhile and I didn't understand everything but he convinced them to think about a baptismal date. It was pretty cool. 

I really enjoy the Christmas season, even if you can't really tell that its Christmas here. One of my favorite Mormon Messages is "What Shall We Give?". It's a video where a family does a bunch of little kind acts of service while MOTAB sings in the background. The theme is what shall we give Christ for Christmas. We've been inviting all of the investigators to do that. Reflect on what we can give Christ this year. 

Thank you all for the support! love you all

Elder Cole Porter

Crazy weather

Hey everyone,

So this week was interesting for us. The weather was crazy. The temperature got into the 90s which compared to Arizona doesn't seem that hot but combined with Pacific island humidity, its killer. On Saturday, it rained super hard! We all got soaked that day! I'm pretty sure there were some parts of Tahiti that were hit with overflowing rivers and mud slides. 

So last Monday, We were filmed by a TV crew! We sung 3 Christmas songs and it will be broadcast Christmas Eve to all of Tahiti. And as a Christmas gift to my Mother, they put me smack dab in the middle and I was literally forced to smile for like 3 hours! My worst nightmare, my mom's dream come true.

This week the work was a little slow because the vacation has started. During vacation times in Tahiti everyone goes away on a "vacation"! I guess they don't realize they live in PARADISE!? We are helping Karine prepare for her baptism for the 25th. She officially confirmed that she is ready and she's been making efforts to obey the word of wisdom! she's progressed a lot! Her son is serving a mission in Canada and he's apparently very very happy that she's getting baptized! We are really proud of her! 

This week was probably also the week where I worked the hardest! We walked about 70 km this last week, which is about 43 miles. I've never been so tired. The crazy part is that we didn't have an amazing amount of lessons or new investigators. It took a lot of work to accomplish the little things this week but it was worth it. We have a lot of investigators who progress towards baptism. And I pray they will accept the gospel and be baptized.

That's it for the week. Love you all!

Elder Porter

Our zone 

Eating lunch

Stormy skies over the temple

Gingerbread house

Hard Work

Hey Everyone,
So this week was pretty crazy. It started off with a giant film night last Monday. We did it in this neighborhood in the volleyball/futball court. We had a projector and big speakers and we watched a film called "Facing the Giants". Its a film about football and how a coach uses the bible and prayer to motivate his team. Tahitians love this film!! And we had 60 nonmembers show up to watch. It was a fun night. I was the technician!

Tuesday was alright. Nothing big really happened. We had a couple of lessons and found some new investigators but that's it. Then on Wednesday is when we had some cool experiences. I went on splits with Elder Temake my zone leader. We met with a new investigator named Karine. Her son is serving a mission in Canada and she's very open to the lessons. We invited her to be baptized and at first she was resistant because she wanted to wait until her son got off his mission, but then we explained that its important to be baptized quickly so you can become protected in the church. Elder Temake invited her to be baptized on Christmas so then that way, she'll be able to Skype her son. She liked that idea and she agreed to be baptized. Then we started talking to another woman who lives next door and as we talked to her we discovered she had already received the lessons from missionaries. Her sister is a member and she wants a life similar to hers. The husband showed up as we were talking and we discovered that they were BOTH ready for baptism!!!! We engaged them for Christmas as well and they agreed. It was such a strong testimony builder that the Lord knows all things and all people and will guide us, as missionaries, to those searching for the truth of the gospel. 

​Saturday was the big concert at Paofai! It was awesome! The President of Tahiti was there and I was like 3 feet away from him! The missionaries sung last because we were the best (in my opinion). It was funny because we sung at like 10 at night...way past curfew but oh well...!! Everyone loved us...we sang a traditional Tahitian tarava, Glorious by David Archuleta, and O come Emmanuel in french. We got home at like 11! So much fun! The choir was made up of only Teenagers, kids, and young adults from all different sects and religions. I highly enjoyed the Pentecost choir. They were amazing. 

Anyways thats about it for this week. I love you all! have a good week! 

Love,
Elder Porter

Here's a picture of the whole choir (with all the religions and sects performing together)

Here's another pic from the concert. This is a little more close up. The lds missionaries are in the blue t-shirts in the middle of the picture.

Another concert pic....

A pic of the president of Tahiti speaking...

Walking!!

Hey Everyone! So this week was was straight crazy sauce! It was a lot of hard work, but work that payed off! My comp and I got a new phone from the mission which has a pedometer in it and we walked 50 kilometers this week which is the equivalent of 31 miles, 5 Scandinavian miles, or 248 furlongs. The converter said 50 kilometers is too short to convert into light years so maybe next time. We met so many people! We had about 30 references or contacts. There is a lot of potential here in Papeete. I'm very excited for these next couple of weeks. It's been pretty cool also being able to work closely with the assistants! 
  We went out on Wednesday to do some contacting and we were able to find a nice lady named Marianne. She had talked to sisters before and she wasn't very happy to see us. Luckily, we used our charms and she accepted to be taught. She was actually very grateful after we talked.
  We were able to talk to another lady named Kareen. Her son, in fact, is serving a mission in Calgary. He's the only member in his family. We went to visit his mom and she was very happy to see us. She told us that reading her sons emails from his mission has given her the desire to learn more about our church. It was a very spiritual experience. 
  We had about 7 people come to church just from our part of the area. The assistants had about 6 of their investigators come to church so that makes a total of 13 investigators at church! It was super cool!!
   By the way, I totally forgot it was Thanksgiving on Thursday so we didn't really do much. However I DID eat a bunch of fafaru on Wednesday! I actually love it now. Its really good when you put lemon juice and coconut milk on it. They also had these special bananas you eat with it, and boy was it good!!! It still smells like a sewer that died but it tastes like good food! 
  I really enjoyed watching our hard work pay off! This week we get to reap the benefits of all our hard efforts! I love you all!! Have a good week! 

Love,
Elder Cole Porter