Ups, Downs, and PB&J Sandwiches

Mauri riki tariu ma mwaneu aika a tangiraki irou!

Probably the highlight o' the week was seeing a drunk guy staggering down the middle of the road with a shirt on that said "Tourism Control." Whoever gave him that shirt is a genius...

Just kidding, the week was way better than that! It was actually super busy. On Tuesday we held our Tarawa Zone Conference at the stake center in Teaoraereke. It was really fun to see people I hadn't seen for a while and catch up with them. Usually, the AP's, zone leaders, sister training leaders, and the mission president give all the trainings. This transfer, however, we decided to have random missionaries give all the trainings. So I thought I was off the hook and I was really looking forward to a nice relaxing conference. Well...I was wrong. I was assigned to give one of the trainings about the importance of setting daily goals for finding new investigators and total lessons taught. Not exactly the most interesting topic in the world. I have had trickier ones though (cough cough...). I was pretty worried about how I was going to give a meaningful training on setting goals to 60 missionaries who mostly are more experienced than me. I think it turned out well though. I only babbled aimlessly to myself a few times. And my object lesson involved a blindfolded PB/J sandwich making competition, so I think they liked it (the winner was 17 seconds).

Apart from Zone Conference, the other main event this week was that a new intake (group of new missionaries) came in! We went and picked them up from the airport. It was pretty fun to see the walk of the plane wide-eyed and start sweating like crazy. It reminded me of when I first jumped off of that plane nine months ago. It's so weird to think that I'm not a "new" missionary anymore! Where has the time gone?!?! I still feel like I just got here. It was pretty fun to show the new missionaries around and answer all of their questions. We got a new Elder from Alabama, in our house with us. He's a really nice guy. He's way better than I was at speaking Kiribati than when I first got here!

This week also had its downsides. Let me tell you about one of our investigators a little bit. We have been teaching this couple for a while now. Their only problem keeping them from being baptized is that they are waiting for their marriage licence to be approved. Saturday night as we were walking home from dinner we walked past their house. The husband had gotten frustrated with something and started drinking. We were pretty sad, but there was nothing we could do. Later that night as we were getting ready for bed, someone knocked on our door. It was his wife. Her face was bruised and bleeding and she was crying. We were devastated to hear that her husband had gotten completely drunk and severely beat her. He also cut her hair off with a knife. She ran away but didn't know where to go, so she came to us. We gave her some ibuprofen and some ice and found a member family nearby that she could stay with. We were a little mad, but mostly we were just sad. It was so heartbreaking to see her like that. We went to the police to see if there was anything that could be done, but they just told us that that kind of thing happens all the time. The house was pretty quiet that night.

We woke up and went to church the next morning. We were sitting there waiting for people to show up, and guess who walked in the door? It was her! We were so surprised and thrilled! She was wearing a hat and sat at the back. I wanted to go give her a hug (I didn't, of course...mission rules). We went and talked to her and told her how happy we were that she came despite what had happened. She responded with, "Elders, I don't think there has ever been a better time to come to church than now." How humbling that one sentence was.

I cannot forget the faith shown by that one lady. I wish I could tell you her name. I want to emphasize that faith is not a passive word; it is a word of action. I don't know if I can think of a better example of this than this. This gospel can help individuals through anything. Just look at the example of this lady.

Guys, some amazing things are happening here. I can't really explain them all to you, but just know this: the Lord is at work in the hearts of the people of Kiribati! How lucky I am to be able to help Him!!!

Elder Barker