Kekeaki II

Hey everyone!

This past week had its ups and downs for sure. But it all works out in the end. We had an investigator come and watch a baptism and we had 2 investigators, 1 recent convert, and 1 less-active member show up to church.
I got to go on a split with a member and I didn't absolutely fail, so it was all good. In fact, in one of the lessons, the investigator straight up said he believed the Book of Mormon is true. I wasn't sure I understood him correctly, but the member explained it to my comp later and it was confirmed. The truth is, when my comp and I had finished teaching the lesson on the Book Of Mormon (which was
the lesson before) we both felt it didn't go very well. Luckily this isn't the work of men, but of God, so our weaknesses and shortcomings don't really matter in the long run. Read the Book of Mormon!

Time is short right now, but the word of the week is one that I have heard/used quite a bit again this week- "kekeaki" which means "endure". Just remember that the Lord promises that He will consecrate our afflictions for our gain (2 Nephi  2:1-2)

Miss you all!

Have a good week!
Elder Farner

kekeaki

So one of our investigators got baptized and another 4 have baptismal dates. The people here are really humble and already believe in Christ, it is just a matter of teaching the Restoration and Book of Mormon, from what I can tell so far. The work is good here, there are a couple of members who do great missionary work, so much so that my comp accidentally calls one of them Elder half the time. Another thing about the baptism, they hadn't assigned anyone to speak about baptism so they asked me like 5 minutes before it started to speak... so I did for maybe 2 minutes but the people are nice and said I did a good job, which is probably an overstatement.

I have been reading a lot in Gordon B Hinckley's Teachings of the Presidents book and it is very good. A lot of just pure simple doctrine explained in the pages. GBH talks about cultivating a spirit of happiness and optimism in one of the chapters and it really boils down to a choice. We can either choose to be hopeless, depressed, worried, anxious, etc. Or we can choose to be happy, hopeful, excited and confident. The power of agency is real- lets not "choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil" but rather "liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men" as it says in 2 Nephi 2:27.

For all those who have served missions, they know it is very easy to give in to those first set of attitudes and feelings (especially in the first couple of months) but the sun always breaks through the clouds, so why not choose to enjoy the rain while it lasts. I am not saying I have done a great job at this, but it is something that a Prophet of the Lord thought was important to share so it is important to try to get better at it.

Thank you all for your support, it is tough to serve but easier knowing there are people praying for you and thinking about you.

Have a good week,

-Elder Farner

(Word: kekeaki, meaning endure.... heard it a lot)

Imwaain I waaki, Kam na Mauri Moa

That phrase is said literally every time you are introducing yourself, giving a talk in church, or about to talk in a semi-formal setting...
Culture shock is a real thing, I am still trying to settle in. Everyone here is very nice. Oh and it is SO HOT!!!  The people are very nice and helpful and happy, which is a miracle considering how little they have. It is weird though, because I am on Tarawa and it is the nicest of all the islands. The houses are terrible- straw-thatched roof or corrugated metal sometimes with concrete walls, but there are also nice computers or TVs and they have movies- I saw some kids watching Power Rangers (the new movie) the other day. So it is split between poverty and material things, very weird.  But it is good, there are some places with air conditioning and fans in most places, which is nice.

Just want to encourage all of us to look at the modern conveniences we enjoy, especially in America, and just have a spirit of gratitude. I know I took so much for granted, and that I never was thankful enough for what I had. But I hope that throughout my mission and after I get home I can be thankful for the life I have had so far and the little blessings every day.
Comp is good- his name is Elder Tuikolovatu, Tui for short (keep getting stuck with theses comps with impossible last names). He is from Cali (San Diego) and is half-tongan, 1/4 japanese and 1/4 white. He is pretty good at teaching lessons and the language.  There are two others in my flat- Tomlinson (from Ogden, leaves in a few weeks), Ntiua (from the Marshall islands).

My bike is trash, every time I try to bike fast to catch up the chain skips so it makes a popping noise. And the chain has fallen off like 5 times. One of the members is going to try to fix it- he has already pumped the tire for me (all day Sunday my front tire was completely flat, I worked up a good sweat).
They have these giant vans that citizens drive back and forth and people hop on- pretty interesting experience, ridden it like 4 times so far.
Out of time, but there is much I have yet to learn, and therefore I don't feel qualified to speak much about Kiribati until I have experienced more.

Photos flying in:

From the President of the Marshall Islands/Kiribati Mission

Brother and Sister Farner,

Your wonderful son, Elder Farner, arrived safely in Kiribati today with three other new missionaries - and we have just had a welcome dinner and orientation for them. Elder Farner is serving in Bikenibeu 2nd ward on Tarawa with Elder Tuikolovatu as his Trainer.   

We are very grateful to have Elder Farner serving in our mission and we are confident he will have a great experience serving as one of the Lord's missionaries here in Kiribati.      

Kind regards, 

President and Sister Larkin

Marshall Islands / Kiribati Mission  

N te wiiki ae nako, iai akea te bwai ae riki nakoiu

Mauri! N te wiiki ae nako, iai akea te bwai ae riki nakoiu. Translation: not much happened this past week. Just a lot of excitement about leaving the MTC to go to the field. 

There were two cool things that happened: first we got to help out with some trial MTC tours and we got to get out of the MTC on the bus to go pick up the visitors at Lavell Edwards stadium. I ran into Becca (Folsom) Hadfield who was helping out with the loading of the buses. 

The tour was pretty nice, we took them throughout most of the buildings- the new buildings are very nice and have some awesome art hanging on each floor. My favorite so far is this one of Saul on the road to Damascus- it is really awesome.

Second cool thing; we were trying to skype-teach a volunteer from Kiribati but the call wouldn't work. We had planned on teaching her the Book Of Mormon to remind her about the importance of reading it for enduring to the end. I had also lost the page where I had written down scripture references and we showed up late in the first place- so all in all we were not in a great place. But then our teacher managed to find someone from Kiribati who lives in Utah and we got to teach her instead (she kept speaking English because she said "I have been here too long") but we asked her if she had been reading the Book of Mormon every day and she said she had kind of been slacking. So we got to share a message with her and then she said at the end that we helped to encourage her to read the Book of Mormon every day. So all in all, one of our best lessons we have taught in a while.

Next week we are scheduled to leave the MTC at 1:50 PM on Tuesday. The total travel time will be about 23 total hours not including the 15 hour time zone change....

Read Alma 36 and 38 with the topic of "finding peace" in mind.  Verse 5 in chapter 38 reads:

"that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day. "

I kokoaua bwa e tangiria te Atua

Hey everyone,

This week went by pretty quick, but not fast enough. Almost out of the MTC- should be getting the flight plans today. We taught a member from Kiribati in a Skype call! The connection was awful, but still pretty cool to see an actual person from Kiribati!

I loved the devotional on Tuesday by Bruce C. Hafen about how we should approach questions we have about the Church. very similar to what President Uchtdorf advises: Doubt you doubts before you doubt your faith! Facing questions is something we all will have to do- our attitude when searching for answers, or even choosing to search in the first place, is entirely on us. We need to strengthen out testimonies in these latter days. Faith is a principle of action, and sometimes requires us to take a couple of steps onto the water first before we receive assurance that we will be able to stand.

Ether 12:6 - I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

I would really quickly like to thank all of the Sunday School and Priesthood teachers - I have been blessed to have great teachers, and have been able to share the knowledge I have gained with my district. It has been a blessing.

If you can find Day by Day (a Swedish hymn translated to English) then I would recommend listening to it - great message.

I kokoaua bwa e tangiria te Atua. Rinanon Ana mwakuri ni Kamaiu Iesu Kristo ti kona ni maeka me te Atua manga. Ngkana ti ongeaba ti kona ni karekea kaeka nakon ara tataro ao ta rau inanon maium.

N aran Iesu Kristo, Amen

Te Mwakuri Korakora

(That means "diligence".)

This past week was again not as eventful as my first week, but I don't think I will ever be able to top two visits outside the MTC walls in the first 5 days. 

Something cool. Yesterday we taught two members who speaks Kiribati at TRC (which stands for Teaching Resource Center- just where missionaries teach actual members rather than investigators). So Sister Paletua and I finished teaching the first lesson, and the member we taught was a translator who worked at the MTC so he spoke English. And then I found out that the other member was Porter Openshaw! It was cool to try to speak some Kiribati with someone I knew before getting into the MTC (Porter is the son of my Dad's good friends).

Also cool- we got to watch the fireworks at the stadium of fire from the new buildings at the MTC.

We also hosted new missionaries on Wednesday- there were 700 new ones so that meant most hosts had to help 6 missionaries over a two-hour period. It was also about 103 degrees. Good prep for Kiribati.

Message for the week: the First Presidency Message by President Eyring about Enduring Well. Read it! It talks about how God doesn't want us to endure trials, he wants us to endure them well so that we can improve. 

Apologies for the short letter, I will have more next week as I will probably have my flight plans for Kiribati!

Tia bo!

Elder Farner