21 Savage!!!

Alohaaaaa!!!

We had a pretty great week filled with work, lessons, service and sickness. Most importantly we enjoyed every minute of it 🤙🏽. We even had some pretty funny moments during our dinner appointments. Oh and Heitearii from my old sector on Moorea got baptized!!!! 

Highlights: 

- Started off the week doing a fire role-play in our district council. I was happily the friend and had a little fun by telling the other missionary they could come to my church instead of going to theirs and also that I already had a Bible so I didn't need another one. A very common occurence here iin French Polynesia.

- Woke up at 4:30am because I thought we were getting wet. It turns out we were actually getting wet. It sounded like there was a hurricane outside and our windows were open to let the cool breeze in but it ended up soaking our entire bathroom from the ceiling to floors as well as part of the floor in our living space. We ended up mopping up and closing our windows and then happily went back to sleep knowing we weren't going to get wet anymore.

- We had our interviews with our mission president and I lowkey thought I was on the wrong link because he didn't start it. Turns out the missionaries before us loved to talk and took an extra 30 minutes. I then had a quick two minute interview pretty much seeing if I was still good and a little catcup on my families life. 

- Turned 21 last wednesday and all I could think about was how exciting it'll be to turn 22 and post a picture with the Taylor Swift song. Some of da braddahs even called to sing me happy birthday, shout out to Elder Hagen, Elder Dennis, and Elder Kaopua. \m/

- We had a funny moment during one of our dinners where we were sharing a message and then the papie gets up and is just like "Ohhhh no". He quickly goes to the bathroom that's right behind us and it sounded like a warzone because they don't have doors in the house just pareo's (piece of cloth) covering entrances so we could hear everything going on and his wife was just like "oh no, not the diarhea again". It made us all laugh and then papie told us to keep sharing our message and he kept talking as well. You gotta love the life here in the South Pacific. No shame brah

- The boat to restock the stores came. THe stores are restocked with all the necessities like Coca-Cola and cases and cases of Hinano Beer. It seemed like for every sack of Copra they were loading on the boat they were offloading 4 cases of Hinano it was crazy. I'll definetely be sure to include a selfie I took with one of the trucks taking some Hinano cases to the store.

- One of our members lost his key to one of the rooms in his house and asked us to help pick the lock. Elder Masaniai tried his best with a fork and knife but couldn't get it open and then went at it with a pick-axe and got that buggah open and we loaded our members broken electric bike onto the boat. 

- Did my laundry and the same thing happened like last time. Some bird or another animal thought it would be funny to poop on some of the stuff so I rewashed some shirts and hung them back up. Another animal decided to bomb it. I don't know which bird hates me but I think I made some ennemies out here in Hao. 

- We hosted a Karaoke evening for our branch and we had a good turnout. Elder Masaniai absolutely killed the Karaoke and was out here sounding nice and soothing like Josh Tatofi / Kalani Pe'a

- Heitearii got baptized this past week over on Moorea!

Lowlights:

- Started feeling sick at the beginning of the week and thought nothing really of it. We made it halfway through our thursday and then the headache/stomache problems just got so bad I ended up knocking out until 6pm. Got a blessing from our Elder Masaniai, our Branch President and the First Counselor then thought we were gonna have a nice chill night until we got a call from a semi member family asking if we could give their son a blessing. We went and it was a miracle because I felt like throwing up the entire time but somehow didn't throw up. The next day we had a lesson with that same family and I was doing better along with the boy we blessed. Wow, the power of the priesthood really works. The best "Tahitian Medicine"  Coca-Cola, also works wonders...

- Cut my hair based off of feel (instead of looking in the mirror) and let's just say I thought I took of a half inch in front and then after I went with the buzzer I saw roughly 2 inches fall on the floor. Now I'm out here looking like a 5 year old that was left unattended with scissors 

Spiritual Thought:

I got a couple weeks left here in French Polynesia and I would just like to thank everyone that's come along with me for this journey. I never missed a single week and don't plan on missing this nexxt two emails. Anyways, I was just reflecting on how much the mission has taught me and allowed me to grow. It truly is one of the best schools for all aspects of your life and the valuable lessons learned while serving are garunteed to be grown up after getting back home. 

I learned about faith, hope, charity, and letting Heavenly Father prevail in my life. After much prayer, fasting, pleading with the lord to know his will and letting my own will and desires to be swallowed up for a greater purpose while a missionary I decided to continue my pursuit of knowledge not only by study but now also by faith. I've taking the opportunity to transfer universities from Cal Maritime to BYU Provo starting Fall 2024. 

Mosiah 15:7 "Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father." 

"Vents favorables et mer suivants"

"Mata'i haumaru e moana mania"

"Fair winds and following seas"

Vamos, Envoyons!!!

Elder Ellis

Link to my Google Photo's album. Go check um, go check um, go!:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qErFS2eWV3pJGVEV7