Back in Tab North!

Hey,

I am back in Tab North and things are going great!  My companion is great we are working hard and going to a few parties so that is good! We went to a party down in Tab South for a person’s first birthday.  We had a great time but were sick for days after.  The child didn’t have a clue what was going on.  No presents at the party just food, music and dancing.  It was great!

Our newest convert Karakitewa just received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday and his wife came to church for the first time too!!  This week was way good but the lessons and stuff didn’t go the best.  But, all 3 of our favorite investigators came to church for the first time yesterday!  I could not have been happier.  A lot of awesome things have been going on.  It’s amazing.  Now I am the senior companion I conduct the baptismal interviews.  They are a cool experience.  We have been teaching and a few of our investigators should be ready in another month for baptism. 

In Tab South we pretty much run the church.  The only thing the unit leader does is run sacrament meeting.  We plan all the times for the different churches and let everyone know.  We normally give talks, we are in charge of getting men ready to receive the priesthood etc.  It works though and I am loving it.  We have a ton of new investigators in Tab South! 

My diet is pretty much the same.  Fish and rice and of course my favorite, sea turtle. 

By the way of good news…  All those pictures from my SD card that got wet forever ago when my camera got we didn’t get broken.  So, I have those 3 or 4 weeks still which I am way happy about.  Also you sent those SD cards and the one with the birthday wishes worked on Elder Pratt's camera so thank you very much for those. I was really happy to hear all of your guys' voices and I am very grateful to you for putting all that together.  I have not received the package with my new camera but hopefully it will come soon.

I feel like some of the most memorable things Heavenly Father has helped me with have been meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but they help me remember that we can always rely on Him for small AND for big things.  He is there for us always.

I am doing just great out here. I am healthy as can be.  

Elder Dinsdale

Eel anyone?

Hello,

   It seems like at home there are a lot of my friends getting called on missions.  Good for them, they will love it!! When I get home I am definitely going out with the Elders if they are still in Perry.

  So you just had General Conference?  I will probably be able to see it in a couple of months.  Actually I will probably be able to read it before that though.  I will look forward to it. 

   

   I have been talking to a guy about dad’s strawberry and raspberry plants he would like to try and grow them if you can figure out how to get some plants to Tabiteuea. 

   So remember how I told you that we (Elder Pratt and I) would probably be staying in Tab North with the next transfer?  Well, no one is coming.  A bunch of new missionaries are coming to the mission but the Mission President has decided to keep us going back and forth from Tab South to Tab North every 2 weeks.  Not as much can get done as we would like, but we will continue working hard to do as much as we can. I know that President Larkin is called of God so whatever works.  I love it here and am glad I am going to stay. 

  

 You asked about home teaching.  Well, home teaching is definitely a way important thing.  When I was in Tarawa Elder Grant, Berends and I tried to start up the home teaching program in our ward.  Now in Tab North they already have it set up but only 1 companionship ever visits their people. It should be getting better though.

Here is some more information about Tab North.  It is definitely nicer than Tab South but not much nicer.  There are no cold food items or anything like that.  There are more primary schools and there is like a High School type thing here.  They do have stores here that have some decent ish food.  Nothing compared to America, but they don’t run out of rice and canned food like Tab South does.  There are 2 Branches and 2 units here in Tab North and there is only 1 unit total in Tab South.  There are a bunch of members over all in Tab North but there are lots of less active members but we are working on that.  We usually bike a distance here of like 45 minutes to our far part, but if we had the time to work our full area of Tab North it would take us 2 and a half hours probably to bike from one end other the island to the other. 

So we were able to fish last week.  Fishing is one of my favorite things to do out here. Here when we fish we just throw out line with a hook and normally a hermit crab on the hook or a cut up fish and we pull the line in by hand. It is way fun. I just caught a sea snake type thing! It was an eel, I don't know if that is a sea snake, but I ate part of one!   It is still hot and dry here.  Last year on my mission it rained a lot but for the past few months there hasn’t been much rain at all.  We need more rain.

Remember I told you about Karakitewa?  At least I think I told you about him.  We were teaching him about God’s commandments and about the word of wisdom.  Well he quit smoking and quit tea and started coming to church.  We taught him about repentance and prayer.  He had a hard time praying.  We asked him if he was able to do it and he said that he prayed in his heart and repented of his sins.  It was sweet!  He still has a hard time praying out loud but whatever works he knows the basics and can do it in his heart.  Anyway Karakitewa was baptized this week and it was awesome!  His wife came to the baptism which is sweet.  Hopefully she will start coming to church as well.

I have definitely developed a much bigger trust in the Lord through my work out here.  I know that true joy comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I remember an apostle said once that there is no reason on the earth to be sad all the time.  There are definitely things that are hard and times when we are crazy sad, but they can all be made better through the Atonement and gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well, things are going really good here. I will be heading down to Tab South tomorrow.  Keep doing great things and I will email again in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for all you do for me.

Love,

Elder Dinsdale