Iorana les miracles! - The Weekly Email

Iorana tout le monde! I've decided to toss in a little Tahitian today for a couple of reasons, first there's a TON of Tahitian members in the church here, Tahitians are actually the ones who first brought the church to New Caledonia, and second, we had a big Heiva activity this weekend. A Heiva is a tradtional Tahitian festival that is a week long in Tahiti and includes traditional food, games, va'a (traditional canoeing), and most of all, traditional dances. Our activity wasn't quite on that scale, but it was still a huge success, the dances especially were all amazing, if I could send videos I would, but it still wouldn't do it any justice. We also had a ton of non-members and inactive members who danced or helped play instruments and who attended and watched as they were invited by members. One companionship even walked away with a couple new investigators. Just shows how much more effective missionary work can be when coupled with the efforts of the members in a cool way. 

The other thing I want to mention is that July is set to be another huge month of miracles, and boy has it already begun. Firstly, Louis is on track to be baptized, we're hoping by the end of July. He's already begun working on his marriage papers, and he wants us to start coming over to teach him twice a week now. We also had a miraculous experience on Sunday. Sunday morning we were calling all of our investigators to see if they needed a ride to come to church or anything, and then we got a call from a new investigator, asking if we could teach her later that day at the chapel. Of course we said yes, and she came! That like never happens here! It was a great lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel, and we really hope she felt something. She said she'd contact us again, and this time I actually believed her. 

Love you all, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. See you soon.

Elder Miner

Pizza with the Mont Dore Elders. They had a car inspection so they spent the morning with us contacting like crazy, and then we got a pizza for Elder Scroggin's one year mark.

One of the Heiva games, a rock lift. This one weighed something like 200 pounds.

                                         The Heiva dance floor.

Gud Morning! Olsem Wanem? - The Weekly Email

Hello everyone! Just got back from MLC these past couple days! I'm running on about 3 hours of sleep, but I feel oddly fine. Perhaps it's just the spiritual boost I just got fired up on... Anyway, MLC was a great experience. First off, July is going to be an absolutely huge month for our mission, we have a goal of 200 baptisms mission wide and to have EVERY SINGLE COMPANIONSHIP baptize. I normally don't get majorly fired up about anything really, but I'm pretty stoked for July. I haven't seen an investigator that I've been teaching be baptized in a long time now, and I'm tired of the drought. Some really great things came out of MLC though, it was awesome to watch how councils in the church bring up issues and lead to revelation that wouldn't have come forward before if there hadn't been any discussion. One of my main take-aways was to focus on what we call our foundation in the VPVM: The scriptures, the white handbook, Preach My Gospel, letters from the Mission President, and the words of the living prophets. 

In terms of the work this past week, Kena made a huge step forward on Thursday. We had a lesson with just him (often our lessons are with a big group) and he talked about what he's been feeling recently. We had visited them the day before in the evening and ended up giving their newborn a blessing before they took her to the hospital (nothing serious, just a little concerned). Once at the hospital, nothing was wrong, so they came home. He told us that seeing that blessing had touched them, and he admitted that he had kind of been lying to us and avoiding us recently, but that he wanted to change and get back on track. Really excited about that. Other than that, right now Elder Scroggin and I are really looking for some new investigators and evaluating where to put our focus in order to help the people who could get baptized do so, while putting those who are still working on marriage more on the back-burner. 

That's about all for this week, love you all!

Elder Miner

In the Port Vila Market

Vanuatu MLC! Us and the STL's for all of New Cal

A view of MLC

Sister Granger bringing some miracles!

Recording session in the mission home, we got asked to record a song we performed at the MLC musical devotional. Hope it ends up on the mission Facebook page so you can all check it out. 

Beyonce the Pig - The Weekly Letter

Hello everyone, today I would like to talk a little bit more about perhaps one of the most intersting people I've ever met. His name is Louis, I mentioned him in my last letter. Louis is from Futuna (if not Futuna, Wallis, pretty sure it's Futuna). Louis smokes a lot, has a few tattoos, 3 pit bulls (8 pit bull puppies), and a pig named Beyonce. Yes, Beyonce. Beyonce doesn't like me, I don't know why, but that's ok. Louis also went to prison for a brief time, but found the Bible there and has been Christian and awesome ever since. He reads the Bible and/or Book of Mormon every day and listens to Christian rock. He also likes RC cars. Like I said before, he was taught by the missionaries a few years ago, and has us over now about once a week for breakfast (note on a French tradtition, breakfast here is usually coffee, Milo for us which is a sort of chocolate drink, along with French bread or pastries, and most people here dip their bread or pasty in their drink) and then after we eat we have a lesson. Our last lesson was really good, we were talking, and I felt prompted to ask "what's stopping you from getting baptized?" To which he responded "marriage." I then asked "what's stopping you from getting married?" To which he didn't really have an answer. We then shared 1 Nephi 3:7 and talked about how through God all things are possible. He seemed really touched by the lesson, and I hope he'll be making some progress soon.

In other news we set a baptismal date with an investigator named Virginie for the 15 of July. I really hope it goes through, since she has a lot of problems, but she wants to be baptized, so that's what matters. There's a French proverb "vouloir c'est pouvoir" pretty much the equivalent of "where there's a will there's a way" but more directly translated would be "to want is to be able to."

Finally, this Sunday I'll be flying out to Vanuatu again for another MLC. It's pretty much the same crew from New Caledonia heading out, only my companion and one of the STL's has changed out of the six of us. I'll let you know how it is next week. 

Love you all!
Elder Miner

Ducos District with our new mission office sign. 

(Sorry, this is honestly the only picture I took this week)

Sadly, Stake Conference does not involve a large buffet of meat, but I did meet a General Authority! - The Weekly Letter

Really the biggest news of this week would be our stake conference with a visiting 70. Elder S. Gifford Nielsen (you can find his picture in the conference Ensign) payed us a visit and presided over a stake conference Saturday and Sunday, and then had a zone conference with us missionaries Monday. It was a wonderful experience, and I truly felt his love and the spirit as he visited with us. We talked a lot about the principle of repentance as well as how to connect with members and investigators. "Connect hearts" is one of the principles I'll be taking away from this experience. As a zone leader I also got the chance to attend an MLC with Elder Robbins and we discussed additional principles of leadership and how to help others, such as "catching those [we] lead doing good." It was truly a wonderful experience, and I'm so grateful for the inspired leaders the Lord has called in these latter days. I'd share more, but my notes are at home, this is just kind of coming off the top of my head. I have resolved to become a better zone leader and to get more involved in the lives of my missionaries, to love them and show them that love, and not worry so much about myself or my sector.

In terms of the work here, it's going well. Marie-Rose and Kena still haven't decided on a marriage date. Honestly there are so many people here across all of New Caledonia that are all so close to baptism, but there's just one or two little things blocking them from this saving ordinance. 

Saturday was a really crazy day for us, we taught five lessons total, which is a lot for here, including one with a new investigator named Louis. Well, not a totally new investigator, he took the lessons already about 4 years ago, but, like usual, he needs to get married and stop smoking before he can get baptized, but he has the desire to do so. Part of the problem is that he hasn't had the lessons in so long, so there's a lot to remind him of and get him doing again like coming to church. 

That really about sums it up for this past week, a lot of lessons cancelled, but then Saturday exploded and then we had this stake conference. I'm pretty exhausted after all the meetings and things we've learned. I'm excited to put it all into practice this week.

Love you all!

Elder Miner

Sculpture by a member at an exhibit about whales at the Tjibaou Cultural Center (P-day activity last week)

Me and my companion with Elder and Sister Nielsen and President and Sister Granger