Week 20 in Banraeaba

Mauri O!

Another week is in the books working in BANRAEABA! This week marks 20 weeks here, the longest I have ever been in an area! Yeah!

This week also marks my one year mark in Kiribati! November 17th last year is when we flew in. Time goes so fast!

Things are going pretty well, per usual. We were able to get a good chunk of work done this week because the mission tour and zone conference are over now and we almost have NOTHING to do in the office. It's so refreshing...

My previous companion, Elder Veresoni, officially left our house this week...he left to go to one of the outer islands near Christmas Island called Teraina. It's pretty cool for him, but we really miss having him in the house. Then again, he was here for 8 months, which is a pretty long time. It was probably time for a change. Guess who replaced him...Elder Sheffield, whom I trained in Onotoa (like that proper grammar there, Dad?)! It's pretty fun to work with him some more. He's way better at speaking Kiribati now...

We had some pretty cool experiences this week too. We spent two hours scrubbing the baptismal font on Tuesday. It was broken, so the water just sat there stagnant for a week and it was full of algae and stuff. Our car broke down twice this week, which meant a lot of walking. That't okay though, because we got to talk to a lot more people than we would've if we had just driven everywhere.

We had one super good lesson on Friday. We were walking home on Thursday night and saw a bright orange car drive by. Now, the cars in Kiribati don't have much variety; they are pretty much all white, blue, or rust (blah). But there are two orange cars as well. One of them happens to belong to this family that we visited a couple times last month. They didn't seem that interested (as far as we could tell), but we kept visiting them. On Thursday, as that car passed us, the mother rolled down the window and shouted, "Elders! Kam uara? (Elders! How are you?)" at us. We were really surprised that she cared enough to say hi, so we decided to visit her again. It's been 6 or 7 weeks since our last visit.

We showed up at the house and she invited us in. Everyone else in the family left one by one (pretty typical for a Kiribati family that doesn't want to listen), but she stayed. We had a pretty good discussion with her and caught up with her. Things started getting really interesting when we invited her to say the closing prayer. She immediately refused. This is pretty typical as well for Kiribati; the people are just shy in front of people, especially guests. So we pressed her just a little more...same thing. Flat out refused. Usually at this point we would come to some agreement, but for some reason we both felt like we should try to keep pushing her. Of course, not so that she was angry or annoyed, but just so that she knew how important it was for her. Finally she told us why she "couldn't" pray.

When she was about to have her seventh child, she kept waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares of someone beating her soon-to-be newborn baby. She would wake up crying, and her husband would yell at her and tell her that she was possessed with demons. This happened multiple times until her child actually passed away in the womb. Understandably, she was devastated. Her husband did not help the situation; he constantly pushed the blame onto her to the point that she believed it. Every time she sees a mother with her baby, it is almost too much for her to bear. She now feels unworthy to pray to her Father in heaven because she feels too guilty and too unworthy.

It was a very heavy moment in our visit. She was in tears. I don't know that she had ever told anyone that, and I don't know if anyone has ever confided in me like that either. I was so grateful for all the time I have spent studying the gospel of Jesus Christ and preparing myself to teach it, because she needed our help in that very moment. There was no time to go home and study and prepare a new lesson. Elder Miller and I were able to share what we believe about God's plan for us, the Plan of Salvation. We were able to explain how important the family is in the sight of God, and how his plan allows us to be with our families forever, not just for a few short years in this life. We were able to answer her questions about where her beloved son is right now and what will happen to him. The question she kept asking was, "Why?" We shared a couple of verses from the Book of Mormon with her, including Mosiah 4:9:

"Kakoaua te Atua; kakoaua taekana, ma bwaai ni kabane ake e a tia ni kariki, i karawa ao i aonnaba; kakoaua bwa iai irouna te wanawana ae bwanin ma te mwaaka ni kabane, i karawa ao i aonnaba; kakoaua bwa e aki kona n ota te aomata no kabane ake e kona n oota iai te Uea."

I don't have an English version on me, but you can look it up and read it yourself. This verse really touched her.

She readily agreed to meet at a member's house for our next lesson so she could hear more. As we left the house, we were confident that she had felt the Spirit from our words. I hope that she felt peace and comfort. It was surely one of the most special visits I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. You never know when the opportunity will present itself!

Yep, there's no doubt about it. This message is true! There's no other explanation or it. How is it that I'm lucky enough to be the one to bring it to people? The bigger question is why didn't I do it more before my mission? Why doesn't everyone do it more????

Missionary work is the best. If you don't think so, you haven't done it enough. Have a great week!

Elder Barker

(Just a note: A friend of ours from Springfield, Matthew Breckenridge arrived in Kiribati recently. He and Kaleb happen to share a birthday, just a year apart. The two of them were surprised with a chocolate cake for their birthday!)