The new island is a lot different from Tarawa. Most of our
efforts seem to be reactivation instead of teaching. We work a lot with the
branch president to try and get people to go to church. Plus we have 20 miles
to cover on half broken bikes.... So much biking! We have a couple of families and a lot of
older people we teach which is a cool change, just the progress is a little
slow. We have about 62 people going to church, but probably could have 300 if
all the people went to church. Another thing is about 3000 people live on the
island and missionaries were first on the island 40 years ago... So tracting
usually leads to less actives or people who have already been taught but are
very Catholic. Some pretty great people here, very funny. One guy is just
always laughing, he was really cool to talk to. Also we had 4 church services
on Sunday.... I led one of them, pretty interesting, also I talked in 3 of
them...
In won't be able to write too much again, but next week I
will. The person whose laptop we use is on the main island right now but she
gets back next week.
Have a good week,
-Elder Farner
Hey Elder!
ReplyDeleteI was one of those first missionaries "40 years ago". I served between 1983 to 1983 (so more like 34 years ago). Marakei (Kiribati) was part of the Micronesia Guam Mission. I served on Guam initially then was transferred out to Kiribati to open up Marakei Island with Elder Barron for the last 6 months of my mission.
I was quite excited about the announcement of the temple on Guam and started googling to find anything current about Marakei. We built our own traditional hut just north of the "airport and runway". An investigator let us use her home for church. There was only one inactive man on the island with no formal meetings. We probably had over 35 people attending church by the time I left the island. I'd love to go to the Guam Temple dedication and try and make it to Tarawa and Marakei.
It was fun to read your blog and recall my own experiences in Kiribati.
Thanks for sharing.
Peter Koegler
Lethbridge Alberta Canada
...make that 1983 to 1984...
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