A Day in the Life

Hello all!! This week has been pretty typical (well, for Kiribati). So I thought I'd do something a little different and just outline what a typical day is for me.

6:30 - wake up. The sun rises really early, so we usually wake up before the alarm. From 6:30 to 7:30, I exercise. I go running every morning. Nobody - seriously, nobody - else goes running here. I get tons of funny looks, but I don't care. Gotta work off all that fish and rice somehow, right?

Then we shower and eat breakfast. The other day my companion was showering and a centipede crawled over his foot. The centipedes here are different. The Kiribati people are super scared of them because if they bite you it is really really painful. My companion said he has heard of people going to the hospital after being bitten by one. If that's true, I don't know. He might have just been trying to explain why he freaked out so much when he saw it.

Starting at 8, we study. We have personal study for an hour. I usually read from the Book of Mormon for a while, then read other church books like Preach My Gospel or Jesus the Christ. It's so nice just to get spiritually recharged each day, you know? Before my mission, I wasn't very good about studying the scriptures. Now, I can't believe the difference it makes!

Then we have an hour of companion study. We study PMG for a while and work on the training booklet (every new missionary has training they do with their trainer for the first 12 weeks). We talk about our lessons for the day and get ready for those.

Then the hard part - language study. For two hours. I have a bunch of textbooks and workbooks that I do every day. I memorize vocab, practice phrases, and work on grammar. Language study is very important; if I can't speak the language, I can't teach. That's the whole reason I'm out here!

After studies, we leave the house at noon. From 12 to 9 we are out proselyting in Betio. We walk about 15 minutes until we get to our assigned area. Each day we have around 8 lessons scheduled. The most we've ever gotten to actually teach in a day is seven. The least is two. Usually our investigators forget that we scheduled a lesson and we have to go and hunt them down. I've awoken more people in the past three weeks than in the rest of my life. It's actually not rude here to wake people up during the day if they are younger than 40. At first it was kinda awkward, but I'm getting the hang of it now.

Our investigators are awesome! There's this one guy that loves reading the Book of Mormon. He's super smart and has traveled all around the world. He's pretty good at English, so he helps me with my Kiribati a lot. He really wants to be baptized (he tells us every time we see him), but he hasn't been to church yet because he can't find church clothes that fit him! If anyone knows where to buy 6XL dress shirts on Tarawa, please let me know.

We have another investigator that is way awesome. She lives at a member's house. We were having dinner with them one night and we found out that she wasn't a member. She said she had been searching for the true church for the last eighteen years but never found it. She decided that it simply didn't exist. Her heart has been heavy ever since. We asked here if she had ever looked into the LDS church, and lo and behold...no! We gave her a pamphlet and scheduled a lesson for the next day. When we came back, the first thing she said to us was, "I read this pamphlet and it was really interesting. It talked about a 'Book of Mormon.' Where can I get one?" We were way surprised! We gave her the book and came back the next day. She had already finished first Nephi (50 pages)!! She loves it. The best part is that she came to church on Sunday. We were super excited because she never leaves here house. S he has a really hard time walking, so it took a huge effort to come. It's so exciting when people make changes in their lives and come closer to God!

The hardest part about having so many investigators is remembering their names. You laugh, but I'm serious. One of our investigators name's is "Teueamwananganibetif." That poor, poor kindergartener...

We were chatting with an investigator this week after a lesson. She asked us if we could see th sun in America. Yup. My companion told her that there were dinosaurs in America. Only the little ones love near the cities and the big ones live out in the woods. At first, I thought it was just my por language skills. Once I realized that that was actually what he said, I almost lost it. She totally believed us.

When we don't have a lesson scheduled, we try to find new people to teach. That involves walking into their house and asking if we can sit down. They are so polite here they always say yes. We just chat (well, my companion chats and I struggle to keep up). They always give us something to drink. It's pretty fun.

This week we had our first rain. The dry season is coming to a close. On Thursday it poured on us while we were out working. It felt really good until it stopped. Then we had to swim around because it was so so so so humid. That's not the worst part though...After it rains, the mosquitoes go insane. For some reason they think I am way tastier than anybody else. I probably got 50 bites after it rained. There was a lesson where I just grabbed the air with my fist and killed four of them. And they only bite me!! Why?!?!

At seven pm we go to dinner. We almost always have dinner at a member's house. We go in and chat for a while (once again, I say "we," but...), then give introductions, a prayer, and a spiritual thought. They always wait for us to eat first. I t's just a little strange to have an entire family sit there and watch you while you eat. But hey, I'm not complaining.

Anyways, that's a day in the life of a Kiribati missionary. It takes some getting used to, but it's way good. There is a special satisfaction that comes with helping others know the truth, improve their lives, and come closer to God. It makes me wonder why I didn't do more missionary work before my mission. Understand, though, that it is definitely not easy. These past weeks have been the hardest of my life. But when I see the results of our hard work, it makes me happy. And I know it makes my Heavenly Father happy too.

Sorry for the novel. Until next week,

Elder Barker