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

Clean it good or you will die!!!

Hello,

 So how is life? Things are going really good here.

While we were in Tab South things were going awesome!  A ton of new people in Tab South and now I am back  in Tab North we have been working to get new people but with not a ton of success but it works just fine.  We still have a bunch of people to teach so that is sweet!

The weather here has been hot and dry but that is ok with me.  People here are way blessed weather wise.  There are not hurricanes.  If a hurricane were to hit here everyone would die. The land is too small to survive anything.  People here don’t have any food storage either.   Some people have boats for fishing and little canoe type boats  but  they don’t have life rafts or life jackets.   The only thing that ever happens in Kiribati is that it just rains a bunch. But here in Tab it doesn't rain very often at all... It is just hot all the time. I would rather have it be hot though than for it to be raining and me to be soaking wet biking around.

Here is an interesting experience we had.  On Monday morning at about 12:30 am we got up and went and collected a half a bucket of hermit crabs for a couple hours in the middle of the forest. Then, once we had them we went back to bed.  When we woke up the next morning on P-day, we went fishing with them. I caught a couple fish.  The one that was the coolest was a blow fish!!   It was pretty sweet!!  Everyone said that if you don't clean it out right and you eat it then you will die. Well… I am not dead so I guess the lady that cooked it for us cleaned it good.  Just to let you know blow fish just tastes like regular fish it was delicious.

I had a great experience that I will tell you about. We have a way sick investigator named Karakiteua.  He is the greatest, but has a way hard time praying.  It was like he couldn’t pray at all. We have had him try tons of times and his mind just blanks and he says nothing the entire prayer and then closes the prayer. I felt like we should have him try one more time though and as he was trying to pray I was praying way hard that he could say a prayer. He finally said his first prayer all by himself!!  He pretty much just said  “Our Heavenly Father, we ask thee that thou wilt love us, in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.”     It was way sweet and the spirit was so strong. I definitely felt like God had answered my prayer to help him pray.

We have heard that we may be getting some more missionaries in October so that will be good.  It is hard to teach for only 2 weeks and then leave for 2 weeks.  We will be going to Tab South in 2 weeks, but after that new Elders should be heading down there. Nothing is confirmed but it should be happening in October and I think Elder Pratt and I should be staying in Tab North after we get back from Tab South.  You asked if we bring all our belongs when we go back and forth and the answer is yes.  We bring all our belongings with us each time we go.  We took a boat again.  A plane is 10 dollars cheaper but we choose what day we leave on the boat.  A plane you go when they go. 

 I will definitely miss Tab South if I end up in Tab North but I miss whatever area I am not in and that is just a part of the mission. 

I will await the package,  I am looking forward to a camera again.  Just send whatever your heart desires.  I should have internet next week so I will email again.

Well, thanks for all the support and such.

Love you,

Elder Dinsdale

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Kiribati is the best!!

Home Sweet Home in Tab South

Hello,

I am loving life here right now in Tab North.  Elder Pratt is way sweet.

He is improving a bunch in the language and we get along really well.  He knows a lot about the gospel so that is really good. I will probably be with him the next 2 or 3 months but we will see. We have been in Tab North for 2 weeks and things have been quite good. 

We took a canoe sail boat ride to Tab North this time.  It took 12 hours to get here.  Soooo.... You know how good of pictures I have been taking?? Well you see... I would love to keep taking them, if I might not have possibly dropped my camera in salt water.. So... It doesn't work anymore and my SD card is unreadable...So... Is there a warranty? If there is not you should just get into my bank account and get me a camera just like the one I had. I was actually getting some way amazing pictures of the last couple weeks and now they are all gone. But if you could send that as fast as you could that would be awesome. Sorry about that I really did take good care of it, it was just on the canoe sail boat ride to Tab North that it happened. I had it in a basket and our guide man stepped on the basket and it fell to the bottom of the boat that had water in it. I tried to dry it out and stuff but it didn't work.

We have been eating in Tab North, food is always good and my favorite is definitely Sea Turtle.  Last week the internet was down so that is why we couldn’t email.

So here is a little information about Tab South.  I love Tab South it is quite fun. We head back down there tomorrow so things should hopefully still be good.   We will take another 12 hour canoe sail boat ride to get there.

We definitely teach some sketchy people here. People come to church with smokes and almost every single person you meet has tattoos and just a bunch of stuff. But God loves them all.

So some stories for you, we went to a KUC (Kiribati United Church) ministers wedding. We got invited and it is like culture to go. We left pretty early from it because we still wanted to get work done and such. There was tons of food and dances done by people and just a bunch of crazy stuff. It was nice because they respected us a ton though and it was cool to be there.

We have a great investigator. His name is Karakiteua. He is really old but a beast. We taught him about the word of wisdom and that he would need to quit smoking and drinking tea and he did. The only thing was he wouldn't come to church. But now Karakiteua has been two weeks in a row and this last week he was there 2 hours early for church and he walked there. He is a way legit guy, he has crazy strong faith. One thing that I like about Karakitura is that he doesn't ask why we should do all these things or argue, he just does them, once we explain to him that they are God's commandments. I love to see people change their lives and follow Christ.

We have another way smart investigator named Terikaua but he is just always way busy with stuff. We are working with him though. His wife is endowed and so I hope he will stop being shy with church and just come.

Things are going great. It is a challenge with the whole switching up every two weeks and we don’t have a ton of investigators.  But we are still getting stuff done. I am definitely trying to keep a good journal. This mission has been an amazing experience. I am way committed to be an amazing member when I get home.

I am way healthy so don't worry. I would like some more sunglasses please. And just like food if you send a package. Ask Elder Carrington what good food to send. My shoes and clothes are all way good. I will probably bring food down

to Tab South this time from Tab North. Last time we didn't have any food to bring. We will try this time.

Sea turtle meals in Tab North are the best, Kiribati is the best.

Yeah just thought I would say that.

Love you

Elder Dinsdale 

One of the sail boats

Our house in Tab North!!!  We have beds!!

Open water

Sea Worms!! Delicious

Loving my mission

Food is food!!

Teaching with Carrington

No need to explain

Looks like a fire!!

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I'm headed back to Tabiteuea!!

Hey,

So it turns out that we fly back out to Tab South tomorrow so that should be sweet. Hopefully the store has food when we go there. We will see how long it has been since they bought cargo.  

My kid is here!!  His name is Elder Pratt and he is from Eagle Mountain Utah.  He just graduated from high school and is a really nice and chill guy.  He is doing really well in the language already and is ready to work and improve so I am stoked.  Our transfer changes are now going down differently.  This next transfer isn't for 9 more weeks, so I am pretty much guaranteed to be with my kid for that long. I am not sure if I will stay longer since I have already worked in Tabiteuea before but we will see.  We will be working Tab South and Tab North so that should be good. 

While is Tarawa I have been working with the zone leaders as usual and it is still going good.  We have a lot of good investigators right now which I am sad to be leaving, but I know there will be some more awesome people to teach in Tabiteuea!  Things are just pretty sweet here.  I have been working with Elder Berends again and I haven’t seen him since Kiritimati so it is really nice talking to him and working with him.  I have to admit that Tarawa has been nice.  We have power, showers, air conditioning and such, but I am ready to go back to the outer island life and live without anything!  It is all in good fun! 

Our Japanese investigator Emi has been praying a lot and she just barely said this last week that she believes that there is God. It was awesome! She said she would pray to have her day go good and she felt like it really did!

God really does answer prayers! Just always remember that the Lord has a plan. Especially when we are struggling there are many things that we can learn from Heavenly Father.  He is always there for you!

Things are awesome here. I hope things are going good for you.

Love you and tell the family I love them as well!

Elder Dinsdale

I hope you all enjoy the pictures and vidoes that Elder Carrington brought back!