The Endless Summer

One Down!!! One month in the field, one giant centipede and one huuuuuge Tupa. All in the same day, and for the later two, within minutes of each other. It was a Bachi moment. Elder Yates was joking about opening up the doors to let centipedes in and then 5 minutes later we hear screams from Elder Nelson and see Elder Yates dancing out of the house because of this giant centipede. After we kill it we go out into our patio are only to find a footlong faaaaat Tupa outside that wasn't there 10 minutes before. Elder Nelson grabs a broom and starts going at it, but it was doing nothing because he was just using the bristles. I proceeded to grab another broom turned the handle over and smashed that thing in the center of the body. One Down, Lights Out. If only we had a Hinano Can to do a size comparison like they do in Hawaii. 

It's been a crazy filled week. We extended an invitation for one of our friends to be baptized and she said yes. Another one of our friends decided that he would finally propose to his girlfriend after 14 years and get married so he could get baptized. He also started talking about how he wanted to go to the temple with his family and get the priesthood so he could be the one to baptize his little girl. We also had two baptism this week. Sadly one of them was on Raiatea and we weren't able to attend. We taught him all the lessons on Bora Bora but he went back to Raiatea to get baptized because most of his family is there. The other baptism was on Bora Bora though which was nice. We've been teaching him since I got in and he's our Ward Mission Leaders son's friend. 

Splits! 

Me and Elder Yates went on a split together on Friday. He covers two wards so it was a ton of biking within their 7 mile stretch that heads up into the mountains as well. Sadly our lessons rescheduled so we went contacting and someone even invited us into their house. They asked if we wanted water and we gladly accepted and then proceeded to hand us these cups with tin foil covering them. Elder Yates asked what it was and proceeded to smile and gladly accept it. Seeing his example I too gladly accepted it with a smile. We were both a little confused when we uncovered the cups but devoured them anyways. We shared an impromptu lesson and were guided by the spirit as too what we should say. After we left the house was when it got funny. I asked Elder Yates if he understood the people when he asked what we were eating and he responded with "Nahhh Chief, I just took it and made like I understood them". 

Cleaning! We got a call that we needed to clean out the old house we were living in and we showed up to find a couple Papayas decaying on the counter a fridge with some old food and an overall dirty place that was left in a rush. We deep cleaned the entire place and then headed back to our new place only to find that our new place also looked pretty bad now because we had to move so much things over and the housing director had also dropped off everything from another house in our garage. We came back and me and Elder Parau were quick to say we needed to clean our new place as well. We cleaned our place for a couple hours and it even looked better than when we moved in when we finished. I pulled what my dad does at home and grabbed the big black contractor bags and started dumping things. You could hear me saying, "Elder, Do you want this?" or "Elder, it needs to go. If you keep everything we're gonna look like hoarders" and "If you want it, it's going in your area". At the end there was 5 bags full of trash like old bedding, old food, and random things. 

The Endless Summer: 

The weather is getting hotter since we're on the opposite side of the equator and we are heading into summer. The warm summer winds are blowing just as it does in Hawaii and the swells are here, well kind of. I found that if you use your back brakes while going on a sand or dirt patch you can drift your back tire. If you do it correctly it even feels like you're hitting a clean frontside cutback on a nice open face like rockpiles. Hold your brakes too long and your gonna end up sliding out as if you were pushing too hard on a twin fin fish. Hopefully my tires don't wear out too fast or my shirts get too dirty. 

Spiritual thought:

It doesn't feel like Thanksgiving or the week of Thanksgiving at least. Just another normal week/day. But I am thankful for my family, friends, and the experiences that have made me who I am today. Every story and moment in my life thus far holds a special place. From surfing with friends to sailing with family and all the early days at Sandy's in-between. It's nice to have these stories that have provided me with experiences to grow. Ua ite au e na roto teie evanelia e nenehenehe tatou e faahou a te aro ma te atua. Je suis reconnaissant d'avoir l'opportunité de servir le peuple de Polynésie française. J'espère et je prie pour chacun de vous chaque jour et j'espère que vous vous tournerez vers Dieu dans la prière lorsque des questions se poseront. 

"Vents favorables et mer suivante"

"Mata'i haumaru e moana mania"

"Fair winds and following seas"

Standing by,

Elder Ellis