Who knew there were tons of Missionaries in Kiribati?

Hello and Happy New Years!! 

Things are going good out here in Tarawa.  The President of Kiribati threw a party for the LDS church on New Year’s Eve and we all got fancy invitations, and went to the Presidents house. It was good because President Haleck (the President of the area presidency) and a member of the first quorum of the seventy were here.  I am pretty sure that is why we were able to have to party.  But we were blessed that President Larkin (Mission President) wanted us to come as well. They had a crazy good Kiribati dancing group that came. It was pretty awesome.  The missionaries all danced too!!

 Christmas went well.  It was busy but really good.  We went to church for Christmas and then we had a lunch with everyone and afterwards we watched the first presidency devotional and the Light the World movie with all the members and our investigators that came. 

Elder Kitchens, Elder Harris and Elder Dinsdale!!

 Having all the missionaries here was really fun. Tons of stuff going on but it was fun. I was surprised at the number of missionaries serving here.  I had no idea who they all were!   I did get to see Elder Pratt and it was awesome seeing him. In fact I got to see everyone in my intake as well as a bunch of missionaries I know so it was a really fun time. People started going back today. Today, tomorrow and Wednesday there are flights for pretty much everyone that is heading back so things should calm down soon. It was fun having everyone here though.

Elder Dinsdale on back row!!

 

So remember I told you that I was going to sing in a quartet?  Well, I felt like our song went very well!  I have no idea if anyone took a video but if they did I want a copy of it.   I was just very happy with it. I had a nice bass line if anyone is wondering ;) 

Elder Christensen, Parry, Dinsdale and Johnson

 

My package is awesome thanks! :) The Christmas tree is still in the living room and it is sweet. I really enjoyed all the letters from people so thanks for having everyone do that.

We have had a lot of missionaries at our house so our investigators are getting taught, but a lot of the time we have been busy with other things so it hasn't been us doing all the teaching.  We have been spending time with one of our investigators though (Kianteiti) and he is doing really well. He just got interviewed for baptism so that was sweet. He should be baptized Saturday.  He took a long time to get his testimony and have the desire to join the church but now he has it!

We got to have a meeting with the Seventy and the Zone leaders and AP's and that was pretty awesome. We spent a lot of time driving people around, but we have still been getting some teaching done so it has been good.  

We had a Christmas lunch, and the Mission Conference on Friday.  We had dinner with the President of Kiribati and a fireside with the seventy speaking to all the members and non members here.  Tons of people came!  It was really awesome. He taught a lot of good things.  The main thing I like that he talked about was not discounting people.  Even if you ask someone if they want to hear about the gospel and they don't want to the first time, don't discredit them.  Just continue to try and help them.  That was good for me to hear.

Well, I have been planning on setting some goals for the New Year but I have been so busy that I haven't had any time to sit down and write them down yet.  I am trying to be on time everywhere I go and be clean and write in my journal.  I actually seem to be early to almost every meeting I have so that is good.     But those have been my goals for my whole mission. Good goals though overall I would say.   I am staying very focused on the mission at the moment so that is good.  I am so glad to be serving a mission and be in Kiribati.

Things are going really good here. Really awesome stuff!  It was nice to Skype with everyone at Christmas.   It seems like you have been having a way fun time going skiing so that is good.  I am ready to go next winter.  I have been missing the cold, but I have been getting quite cold just being in air conditioning sometimes so I am not sure how snow will feel again. 

I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday season!

Love,

Elder Dinsdale

Note from Sister Larkin (Mission President’s wife):

Our very full 3 day Mission Tour is now finished with the Haleck’s.  The Mission has baptized over 1200 new converts this last year.  The missionaries are truly a blessing to the peoples of these countries.  This mission will be such a wonderful building block to base their future lives upon.   (Pictures taken by Sister Larkin)

P-day with all the missionaries where volleyball, basketball and Frisbee were played.