The People You Meet Hitchhiking

Before any weekly updates or anything, just a quick formality...

I HIT NINE MONTHS IN KIRIBATI THIS PAST WEEK!!!!!

The time flies, huh? It doesn't seem super long ago that I jumped on that plane.

Speaking of planes, I just got back from the airport. We dropped off six missionaries who are going home. One of them was my trainer, Elder Hoskins. I can't believe he's dead (slang for finishing your time)!! That means I'm officially an old missionary. It was pretty sad to see him leave. I can't even imagine what was going through his head as he walked onto that plane. It seems so far away it's almost not even a reality to me. Crazy.

Other than that, this week was a fairly normal week. WE dropped off a member's broken wheel chair at the hospital to get it fixed and walked out two minutes later with a brand new wheel chair. Only in Kiribati can that happen. This week we also sang our first Christmas hymn in sacrament meeting! I was pretty excited, but also concerned. There are only two Christmas hymns that have been translated into Kiribati. Looks like we're going to get really really good at those two (Silent Night and Far Far Away on Judea's Plains). Whoo-hoo! We only had a few investigators at church (mainly because we had some of them get threatened with a machete if they came). But you gotta start somewhere!!

I also had an interesting day this week. We borrowed the APs' car to run down to Betio and pick up some baptismal clothes because our car had a flat tire (or, "its air ran away," as they say in Kiribati). WE got there fine, but it broke down on our way out. We went and found some random mechanic shop and they came and tried to jump it. E aki nako. Then we tried to push start it. This might surprise some of you, but I could not push a 15-passenger van by myself fast enough to push start it. WE did try that for about 45 minutes though. Eventually a few people stopped and helped, but it still wouldn't start! SO we just left it on the side of the road. We caught a ride with some random construction truck that was passing. It turns out that the driver was a return missionary from Austrailia!! He was super nice and gave us a ride up to our house. The people you meet hitchhiking...

Yep, that's pretty much the life here in Tarawa! It's great!!

Oh, and...MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Elder Barker