Hey your brother's companion is my friend Scott!!

Hey,

I am glad General Conference was good.  We didn't get to see conference this last week but this next Saturday and Sunday we will be able to watch it with all the people in the Stake.  It takes about that long for them to translate it all into Kiribati.  We will watch the Priesthood session at 6 in the morning though so that will be interesting. 

Thanks for sharing President Monson’s talk.   I am pretty stoked to hear it.  I completely agree that the small and simple things are the most important things to be doing.  Reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and going to church are the things that we are always trying to get our people to do.  And if they are doing those 3 things they are blessed a bunch.

My week has gone by really good. We have definitely had a lot of investigators struggling, but little by little things will work out.

So, first cool story. Tematang (our recent convert) just had her baby.  My companion’s full name is Benjamin Bonney and I am Dinsdale.

Tematang name her baby boy  Tentau Benjisdale.  I am not even kidding.   I have a picture of the birth certificate to show you.  So part of the name Dinsdale will always be in Kiribati, even if it is just the scale part of it.  Pretty much that is the only super happy story.

The other stories are really sad.  Our investigators and people we are helping have been falling into random stuff.   We helped a couple that has been struggling in life, but we will see if they will change.   One of our investigators father told him that if he is not Catholic then he should find himself somewhere else to live. (Our guy is like 40 with a wife and kids).   So that is an issue, but we are working on it.  He is thinking if he gets a job then he should haven't to worry since he lives off his dad’s money at the moment.  

We got some new investigators though so that is fun.   Also I took one of our recent converts Raotibeta out on a split one day and he said that he wants to do it more often.  So next Sunday hopefully we will be taking him out to work with us for the whole day.  I am pretty stoked.

We started working on 2 different divorces that are keeping 2 of our couples from getting married and getting baptized, so hopefully those will work out and we can see them get married and baptized within the next few months.

We got some new investigators so that is good.  A lot of people are truly being prepared by the Lord to listen, sometimes we just need to push them until they are willing to listen and then they realize that they truly desire the gospel.

One of differences in Kiribati people and American people is that if you are in your 50’s in Kiribati you are pretty old.  I think when you turn 50 in Kiribati you can retire from most government jobs.  When you are in your 60's a lot of people have a hard time doing too much, and by the time you are 70 you normally are not here anymore.  I have only met a couple people older than 80 and most die before they are 70-75.  So we are definitely blessed to be in America. I feel like a lot of the issues here are from drinking, smoking, kava and diet. 

Well, time is going by super fast out here. It is already April and soon it will be May and so on.  I feel like being out here as a missionary time just flies by super fast every day.  I do love being a missionary.

Have a great week!!

Love you!

Elder Dinsdale

Photo of Elder Dinsdale and Elder Bonney.  

Thanks to Makayla Thornley and her BFF at BYU which happens to be Elder Dinsdale's companions brother from back east.  It's a small world