Missionary Work is the Best!

Hey...it's me again. Surprise!

This week has been remarkably unremarkable. Much of it was spent planning for the upcoming mission tour. On Thursday, Elder Ardern of the Seventy will be visiting, so we are planning a huge conference. All the Elders from the outer islands and from Kiritimati (Christmas) Island came in as well. So...we have a lot of missionaries on Tarawa right now. Like, 12 in our house right now. And guess what happened this morning? The power went out. No water. No shower. No clean Elders...who all just came in from 5 month camping trips. Get the picture? It's okay because it rained really hard this morning. We all just went outside and showered Kiribati style...out in the front yard wearing shorts. When in Rome, right?

On the bright side, we had an investigator pass his baptismal interview this week! This man has been taking lessons with his family since January. His wife was baptized a little while ago, but he has been struggling with smoking and drinking. A few weeks ago, he got discouraged and cut up the dress pants we gave him for church. He was really ashamed and kept running away from us because he thought that we would be mad. We discussed it a little bit then decided to give him two new pairs of pants with a nice note. We just wrapped it up and put it in his house when he wasn't home (because you can do that in Kiribati without getting arrested). He came back and thanked us later. He hasn't missed church since! He really has changed now. He quit smoking cold-turkey and hasn't touched alcohol for months. At our last lesson, he shared with us how much the gospel has blessed him and his family and how grateful he is that we didn't give up on him. What motivated him to do that? I can tell you one thing - it wasn't us. It wasn't the lessons. It wasn't the pants. I believe 100% that the Spirit can change people. It can soften their hearts. It can work miracle in people. Seeing this man change was one more testimony of that. It's never been more clear than now. Which leads me to my next point...

MISSIONARY WORK IS THE BEST!!!!!!

That is all I have to say.

Cordially,

Elder Barker