The Attack of the Mosquitoes

Brahhhhhhhh, 

I think it's only right to start off this email with mosquitoes. I started off the week by looking down at my feet and seeing that they were just covered in bites. I counted 57 bites on my left foot and 42 on my right side all from my ankle area down. I don't know if it's a blessing that the mosquitoes decided to make things equal or if I would have rather had choke bites on one foot and none on the other side. 

On Tuesday some a few of our lessons fell through so we started biking like crazy trying to find inactive members in our ward and other people to talk to. After countless rejections someone finally wanted to hear what we had to share, or so we thought. He ended up inviting us in because his wife was an inactive member and then he proceeds to bash us for a solid hour in Tahitian. We thanked him for his thoughts and shared a quick message and was on our way to our next lesson who was just down the road. After that lesson we where on our way to visit another person when a group of people on ATVs started yelling Elders!!!! As they passed, they ended up pulling off on the side of the road and told us they were from St. George, Utah and were taking a company trip to Bora for their construction company and invited us to eat dinner with them. Dinner was a huge blessing since we didn't have any dinner plans that night. I was excited for a nice steak and my companion didn't know if he wanted to go to dinner with them because he's English isn't the best, but he absolutely killed it and I'm pretty sure he understood everything for the most part. They even blessed him with a waterproof jacket they had after they heard that we've been looking for one for him and haven't had any luck. 

Other things that happened this week... We were doing some language study and talking and we saw this fat Tupa just casually walking through our house. It threw us off because it's not everyday that you see a fat huge crab just walking through the house. One of the other Elders, Elder Nelson started screaming like a little girl while my companion casually caught it and then threw it at the concrete wall right outside of the house. I guess that's what we get for trying to keep the house cool and having all the doors open. Another day we say a small weinner dog strolling through our yard, and we started yelling at it to get out. That same day a bee got into the house and started following Elder Nelson. On Sunday I woke up and there was a slug like a foot away from my face on the ground. Also on Sunday we met a guy and his dogs names were Boy, Philippines, and Manila. The names kind of threw me off but never the less it was also pretty funny. Oh, I tried cow heart this week at surprisingly it takes just like chicken just a lot more tough. 

On Saturday we headed off to our first appointment that was a 30 minute bike ride away. It was a straight downpour from the middle of the day into the night time and when we got to the house we were completely soaked, and to our luck the person we were going to teach wasn't there. His dad is a member but doesn't come to church anymore since he started working on Sundays. He shared with us how he started a new job where he's working at a hotel and renting boats to tourists. He mentioned how he wasn't too comfortable with English and I offered to help and role play with him so he could practice and feel more comfortable. We went through from the beginning and it was fun learning boating terms in French and then finding easy ways to explain things in English. An example we came up with in regard to trimming the engine was "Push up, engine goes up. Push down, engine goes down". Another easy saying was "Don't go here, you gonna get stuck". It might not be perfect English but it gets the point across and kind of sounds like pidgin. We left and closed with a prayer and he was thankful that we took the time to help him and we left feeling grateful we were able to help. 

French!!!! My French is improving slowly but surely. Last Sunday I started pulling a "The Other Side of Heaven". I started reading the Book of Mormon in English and French, side by side. First reading a verse in English then reading the same verse in French. Along with that I. Am doing language study like crazy starting from the time I wake up and looking through a word bank throughout the day and finally doing more hardcore language study the last two hours before I go to bed studying sentence structures and irregular verbs. It was nice when we we finished one of our lessons and the person we were teaching was just like, "Wow, Elder Ellis it's crazy how much your French has improved in the past two weeks. Praise the Lord". "Praise the Lord indeed", I said in response back to him for we all know that it's only with his help that I'm able to come up with sentences or understand what people are saying. 

Thought for the week:

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. This was really prevalent when a lady told me to "Stop reading scriptures in our lesson and talk to me, share stories". Scriptures help to put ideas and thoughts into our minds but having and hearing stories is what connects us as people. I started applying this same thinking to my language study and really memorizing words with a purpose in mind. How am I going to use this word when I'm teaching or in a possible story. For so long I was trying to memorize words without a purpose and just trying to get words into my mind. If there's one lesson to be learned it's that nothing matters if it doesn't matter to you. If something matters to you and you actually want to learn it and apply it, it will stick. 

"Vents favorables et mer suivante"

"Mata'i haumaru e moana mania"

"Fair winds and following seas"

Standing by,

Elder Ellis