Bon Paques! - the weekly email

Bonjour tout le monde!

It's been a pretty fantastic week here, lots of cool stuff happening. Biggest news of the day, I've been transferred! I'll be going to the Mont-Dore secteur. It's been super productive there recently, I found out that they have 8 people on date to be baptized right now, crazy stuff. And Saturday there will be a marriage/baptism, and I've actually met the investigator becuase his family lives in my ward and he was there for an FHE that we were invited to, so that's cool. I'll also have a car there, so that'll be interesting. I think I'll be the one driving, but I'm not sure. My new companion is Elder Estall, he's also Tahitian, so more French practice for me, which really is a good thing. My French is better, but there's still a lot of work to do. The change will actually happen on Thursday, so that gives me somet time to start packing.

Other cool event of the week, on Saturday we had a mini-mission activity with the Young Men and Young Women in the ward. They had a mini-MTC in the morning and then in the afternoon they came out on splits with us and the YSA. It was awesome, our group put Merveille back on date for baptism on the 9th, made an appointment with a new investigator, and went street contacting a little. It was fantastic, and made me remember how I felt before my mission and really helped to reignite my passion for missionary work by reminding me why I'm serving. 

That's really all the grand and impressive happenings here for this week. Next email will be from Mont-Dore!

See you on the flip side,

Elder Miner

Mini-mission activity group.
 

Easter Dinner

his is the Teura family from the Ducos Ward. We had family home evening and dinner with them almost every Monday, and they're fantastic.

Quick Update - Weekly Letter

I have no time left for anything else, but quickly, we have a new Elder staying with us from the Phillipines until the transfer named Elder Eronico (rhymes with Geroimo). We also had a baptismal date set for Merveille, but she didn't have permission from her Dad yet, so it didn't work out. Soon though! We also have a new investigator named Eduard, and he is hungry for the Gospel, and has family in the church already, so we think he'll get baptized quickly. The work moves on! The secret to missionary work is really just listen to the Spirit, and then do everything you can to talk to everyone, and you will have success and miracles. That's all for this week, see you soon!

Love,
Elder Miner

Me and Elder Eronico today during our P-day activity, barbecue on the beach with both sets of Zone Leaders and our WML

Weekly email!

Hey everyone!

This week has been probably one of the toughest but most rewarding of my mission, and a lot has happened. We taught a lot of lessons this week and talked to a lot of people. We were super disappointed to have both the Pahoa/Buano family and Alice and Nicola tell us they didn't want to meet anymore, but we found a lot of new people to teach. We finally found an old investigator named Mati who we'd been looking for since I got here. We also taught a lesson to a couple that Ben found named Mano and Nathalie, and they are pretty much golden, Mano especially just loved everything we taught and he was super excited to read the Book of Mormon. We also got one of our inactives to come to church. His name is Mike Aliki, and he's been inactive since he was 16, probably 20 years or so, but on Wednesday we met with him and he told us that he's stopped smoking and drinking, started praying every day, and wants to come back to the church. Oh my goodness it was so cool! I love getting to help people, and the difference I could seem in him already was so apparent. 

I also am excited to say that the language is really starting to come now, I'm beginning to understand most of what people say, so I'm really starting to be able to communicate. To anyone trying to learn a language, talk to the children, that helps a lot. And read the Book of Mormon in that language. And finally, pray for the gift of toungues all the time. That's the only way to have real progress, and it's the one thing that's helped me. 

Also, Noumea is really a beautiful city. Today for P-day we went to look at some art that a family in our ward was asked to display in a really nice hotel. The whole family are woodcarvers, and their work was amazing! We then had lunch on top of a hill at an old fort, and the view and the ocean were just gorgeous. This is a truly naturally beautiful country. I officially have the best mission ever. 

See you all soon!

Elder Miner

Island storm approaching

yep, that's a cockroach the size of a doorhinge. Not fun.

Lunch Today

Me with Oné-Sina, one of the sculptors and a friend of mine here.

Weekly EMAIL!!!

So, it's been a crazy week here in New Caledonia, I'll try and start from the beginning.

I had my first exchange on Wednesday and Thursday with one of our zone leaders, Elder Similai, from American Samoa. He's been here for over a year, and I learned a LOT about how to work with members. He's also super friendly and people love talking to him, so I hope I can continue to learn from him about how to contact poeple. It was a great experience.
We also contacted two old investigators this week and started teaching them again. One is Alice, along now with her boyfriend Nicola, and they're both pretty strong Protestants, but I hope they will get baptized, we just need to help them see the importance. The other investigator is Londsday. She has a super strong testimony and knows everything about the Gospel, she just has to get married, and that can take a long time here because of the culture. She was challenged to get married last year, and will be getting married in June, and so hopefully after she can get baptized. I'm not sure why the old missionaries stopped teaching her, but she's great.
We also began teaching a part-member family. The sister has been inactive for a while, and her oldest daughter has been baptized, but not her other three kids, nor her boyfriend, but our lessons with them have gone great, we just need to get them to church. 

I want to take a second to talk about our assistant DMP, Ben. He's an older gentleman who was a convert to the church, and he is absolutely awesome. He's always willing to go out with us, and he has a super strong testimony that he's not afraid to share. He talks matter-of-factly about the Gospel, but he does it with the Spirit, so it works great. He also is super generous, he takes food to some of the squats (semi-legal, self-built houses scattered around our area) and pays for it himself, every weekend. Super amazing guy.

We also had an open house for the members to bring their friends to this weekend. We had three members each teach part of the Restoration to the investigators while the missionaries trained the members in how to invite their friends and share the Gospel naturally. We almost didn't have any investigators, but at the last minute some showed up, and it went really well. 

Final cool story, yesterday a man came to the church and none of the missionaries knew him. Turns out he had found an old (I'm talking dirty, water-logged, dirty, ripped and torn) pamphlet that said there was church at our building at 8 o'clock, so he came and said he wants to get baptized, and he's in our area! Crazy miracles happen to missionaries.
Well, that's all for this week, see you all real soon.
Elder Miner is out!

Good morning New Caledonia. :)

Haircut, courtesy of Elder Tuarau