Voyage on the Liahona

Mauri te koraki!

I'm not really sure where to start for this week...

This week Elder Murri and I started a language fast. Basically, instead of not eating for a day, we don't speak English for a week. We've both kinda been feeling that our language progress has slowed down, so we decided we would try something new. The first few day we had quite a few slip-ups (especially when we first woke up), but we really got into it in the last bit of it. I had a great time, and I feel like my tongue is more Kiribati-ey than it used to be. It was pretty funny trying to work on things with the senior couples in the office too. I'm not sure how happy they are with us at the moment though...

Anyways, this week started just like any other week. Lessons, studies, lessons, errands, lessons...it was a good Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Friday, things got interesting. Remember when we went to Nikunau a few weeks ago? Well, we took another trip to an island just North of Tarawa called Abaiang. It's so close that it was only a ten minute flight! We bought our tickets the day before, then flew out on Friday.

Each island in the Gilbert Chain has something that it is known for. Onotoa is wrestling and handicrafts. Nikunau is flies. Abaiang is...eating soap! The story goes that when Europeans first came to Abaiang they brought bars of soap with them as bartering material. The only problem? They locals thought it was food and started eating it! Since that time everybody has made fun of them. When people asked us where we were flying to, we just told them that our teeth were getting dirty and we wanted to clean them up a bit. They thought it was hilarious...

Our purpose in going to Abaiang was a little different from previous outer island visits. There are no missionaries out there. The area was closed down about 4 months ago because we didn't have enough missionaries. This week, however, a new intake of 12 is coming in and we are reopening the island...with 4 missionaries! There are two "chapels" out there for the two existing branches and one chapel apartment for missionaries. It's quite nice, actually. It uses solar power for a fan and some lights and there are two beds inside. It's located on the chapel grounds in a village called Tuarabu. There's a beach with a volleyball net. So beautiful. It makes me really miss working on an outer island.

We spent our first night deep cleaning the apartment (which was pretty bad). The next morning we woke up, finished cleaning, fixed up the bikes, and took off. It's great that we are sending four elders out there, but they need another house! So we went to find one. We biked for about an hour or so to the village with a small church unit (not big enough for a branch yet). We found the unit leader and discussed housing options. In the end we agreed that Elders could stay in their house. It's a really cool Kiribati stick house. Double story. Might be one of the coolest missionary houses on the planet. We settled on a price, then went on our way. Bam! Missionary house found!

We then biked down to the other end of the island to a village called Tabontebike, where the other branch is. Basically we just found the church meeting house and met with a few of the members to try to find out more about how the branch is doing without missionaries. Then we began the long bike back home...

In all, we bikes 37 miles on Saturday. Whew! It was a solid day though. We were able to have church with the branches on Sunday and we had a very spiritual time. We slept on the beach in our hammocks. It was so peaceful...

On Sunday afternoon we jumped on the church's speedboat, the Liahona, and boated back to Tarawa. We had to wait a few hours because of the tides, but we eventually were able to pull out of the lagoon. the boat ride started out really well. When we got out to open ocean, the waves were pretty rough and there were some huge swells. I sat in the back and got absolutely soaked to the bone. Good times. It was about a two and a half hour boat ride, and we got back at about 8. It was dark and I was the coldest I have been for the past 14 months. All I can say is that I am glad the stake president was driving the boat because he definitely was calling on some of those spiritual powers to navigate that I'm not sure I have yet...

We got home safely, changed, and went to bed. And that...was the end of our trip to Abaiang! And we didn't even get to try any of the famous soap!

This week is going to be a crazy one. We have Zone conference coming up and the new intake...it's going to be a good one!!!

I hope everyone has a great week! I'll get to some more spiritual stuff next week; we just got called on another errand....Ti a manga boo in the wiiki ae na roko!

Elder Barker