I'm an uncle!!!

Mauri,

It was great to Skype last week and it is way sweet that I am an uncle!!!

 We are going to be heading out on Thursday to go work in Tarawaieta with Elder Parry and his companion so I am pretty excited about that.  After that we are not sure where we are going next. 

To answer your question about how help someone to prepare to serve.  One idea is have them live a couple days like a missionary. I know some places have done it but it doesn't seem like what an actual missionary does.  Working all day everyday doing stuff that you are told to do and no communication with friends and family would be hard for most people but it’s what we do as missionaries.

I have just one cool experience.  In my first area when I served with Elder Whitehead in Banana we baptized a named by the name of Buiona.  Well, last week at a Stake conference there he was!!  It was way sweet seeing him and knowing that he is still active!!

Well, I don't have much time, but I am very grateful for all you do for me.

Have a great week!

Elder Dinsdale

I'm off to Tabiteuea!!

Mauri,

  

This week has been great and tomorrow I leave to Tabiteuea but we will only be there a couple days.  We are flying to Tab South but we are going to try and hop off the plane at Tab North and we will boat down to Tab South.  We are going to help the missionaries out there as well as help find out if 2 branches (one in Tekaman and one in Tab south)  will be able to be set up out there.  It will be sweet to go there again. 

This week we have been working with the second councilor in the mission presidency who is Kiribati to help us go out and set up branches on the different outer islands.  So in the next couple months we hope to have 10 or more branches set up that are new in Kiribati.  I am pretty excited to help out with this. 

We have been really busy with AP duties so sometimes we only have an hour or two each day to teach but occasionally we have full days of teaching time so that is really nice.  We still teach Tourakai and he is doing pretty good.  He fell back into smoking and has been having a really hard time quitting so we are helping him out with it.  His dad is getting better though little by little so we think he should be good.

Funny story: Elder Shumway came and woke me up this morning and the house was flooding. So that was exciting.  We turned off the water and then we spent about 30 or so minutes trying to get rid of all the water.  Not sure what happened but all it good now.

The best thing this week was that at church yesterday we had over 30 Melchizedek Priesthood holders at church!!  Hopefully this will help our wards and we will soon be ready to split.  We also had a lady come to church with her husband.  She has never come before to church but she came and loved it so that was way sweet.   

So for Mother's Day I actually decided since I am coming home so soon it would be better to just talk to you when I get home and so I won't be Skyping. Ha just kidding yeah we will be Skyping sometime Mother's day!!

Have a good week; keep doing great things with your life!

Elder Dinsdale 

PS  Elder and Sister Jenks just came home and should have pictures and letters that I sent with them!!

Serving at the Itibong Church land

Mauri,

Things have been going really good here!  Being an AP is pretty fun, lots of different things we are doing but it is still really fun.  We have to plan for the upcoming Zone Conference and we are supposed to train the Zone Leaders as well as help set up the branches on the different outer islands.  We also plan orientation for the new missionaries and other random things like that.  It is pretty busy but good!  We still teach a little bit each day.  Some days we have like 5 or so lessons we can get, other days we don't have time to teach any lessons.  But it depends on the day!  I am enjoying it though.

We also have tickets to Tabiteuea so we will be out there from May 9th till May 13th!  As you remember this was my last ‘OUTER ISLAND’ area, so I am super stoked to go back out there again.

I have a few experiences to tell you about this week.   

The other night we were walking to a house and we walked next to the Itibong (the 7th day) church and we saw this lady cutting grass so we asked if we could help.  She said yes so we started cutting grass and helping her.  We talked a little bit and asked if we could come back the next day to help.  So the next day we came back with 4 of us Elders and we cleaned the 7th Day Adventists land.  We cut grass and swept up the leaves and a bunch of random stuff.  Then we went into their pavilion and ate some food that they gave us.  I feel like it was a really good thing to help out and to improve relationships.  So that was fun.   

Another experience that happened last week, we were walking along and we saw some lady selling some Kiribati broom things and so I asked how much they were and they were only 3 dollars.  So I thought, hey, I should buy one of these.  So I did!  I bought a broom and then had nothing to do with it.  So we tracked to some random house and started talking to them.  One person invited us in so we went in and offered them the broom and they said sure!  After that we talked, asked them for lessons and they were up to have lessons.  So that was way sweet!  Their names are Iakobwa and Kekeia and they are a pretty sweet couple that have never had lessons before.   

Another way cool story, we had Stake Conference this last week!  We have been really trying to get everyone ready for the Melchizedek  Priesthood.   We ended up having 10 people from our ward get the Melchizedek Priesthood.  It was way sweet!  Utara, Raotibeta, Kianteiti and a couple other people that just recently joined the church as well as some other people just got the Melchizedek Priesthood.  So that was super exciting!

Honestly over all it was a really fun week.  I love just serving the Lord.  There is no greater work than Missionary work.  It surprises me how much happier people are by living the gospel.  Even people that are pretty happy in the first place find more happiness.  They just get so much happier by doing what the Lord wants them to do.  And I am happy to help them do so!!

Well, I hope you have an amazing week! Keep doing good stuff!

Elder Dinsdale

PS My companion (Elder Ellis) says hello as well.