WOW

December 11, 2016

Holyyyy cow... One more week and I will be Skyping homeeee. I haven't even skyped for like a year and it will be way good to chat with you guys for a minute <3

Things are going well here in Buota. We have a lot of plans for things that are going on for the end of the year. We are trying to finish up everything that we possibly can and we are trying to get some baptisms completed because we are pretty sure that either Elder Peeti or I won't be here next year depending on how this next transfer goes. We think that we will be able to get seven baptisms by the end of this year. We should be having three baptisms this week if all goes well. There are some exciting things going on in this branch. 

One of my recent converts Taakoa just received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday and is going to be called as the YM President which is pretty exciting. He will be baptizing his 18 year-old sister this Saturday.

Another exciting thing is Taakaio who is the man... Such a big change and so cool to see him grow closer to the Savior and to really show faith and overcome his biggest fears and challenges.

I also mentioned a family last week that we found.... They keep getting better and better. Tony and Tiebo are legit the sickest family ever. They came to church yesterday with their kids and they are progressing so well. They have a baptismal date for Dec. 31st and I think that they will be able to make it.  They are SO willing to change. They are progressing faster than we can give them commitments. They aren't perfect but they are overcoming all of their challenges and it is helping them to gain a strong testimony of the gospel as they continue to make changes and to see the peace and the spirit come into their home. They will be getting married in a few weeks and will hopefully be baptized soon after.

So many little cool things that are happening every day with our investigators. I guess for a quick little spiritual thought:

Here in Kiribati, the main religion is Catholicism and the next largest is Protestant. Things are going crazy here because the Protestant church got in a huge fight over the name of their church and they ended up splitting into two different churches.  Both churches teach the exact same doctrine, but just have different names. There are police watching chapels and ministers with the exact same faith and belief getting in huge fights.  There are also kids getting kicked out of school because of the church they chose. I have been reading and studying the New Testament and it just been great. I am so grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ (3 Nep. 27) where things are the same worldwide (1 Cor. 1: 10). It's been interesting to see how this Protestant church is falling because it it is run by imperfect men (Acts 5). Anyway, hopefully dispute will lead to many converts for the Church of  Jesus Christ  of Latter Day Saints once these people can overcome the hardness of their ways.

 Love you guys.

Elder Parrish

Update from Elder Parrish

December 4, 2016

Hello guys!

This last week in Buota was probably one of my favorite weeks here in this area. Elder Peeti and I feel like the work is going well and that we are hitting our stride. We feel that there is a lot of potential for this area for the rest of this month and in January. We just didn't have enough hours in the day to visit everyone that we would have liked to visit this past week. We were able to get a new branch presidency called this past week.  We were also able to get 40 plus lessons and over 10 new investigators. We also had eight investigators come to church last week and we feel that several will be prepared for baptism by the end of this month.

Last week I mentioned Taakaio and he is staying strong. His wife is crippled and can't walk, but shared with us that she had a dream a year ago where Elders came and brought oil in a container and told her that it could heal her from her sickness that she has had for over six years.  That was pretty amazing since she is Catholic and had no clue what a priesthood blessing was.  We were able to give her a blessing last night, which was a very cool experience. 

The rest of our investigators are doing great and we were able to pick up another family this last week who seems pretty golden.  The wife and children came to church. 

I'm super grateful to be a missionary preaching the restored gospel. I love you guys!

Elder Parrish 

Yo

November 27, 2016

Dear Friends and Family:

I guess another quick update from Tarawa! This past week was another great week. It just seemed like another dayyy and then it was Monday again. Transfers are finished, but we had to do some other stuff when a couple of missionaries in our zone were taken off of an outer island due to a sick Elder. We were bouncing between the hospital radioing the outer island and the airport and stuff so that was interesting.

I was able to see my MTC companion Elder Zamora for the first time in a year and we were able to work together this week and go on splits while Elder Peeti went and worked with a member of the Elder's quorum. He's the man and we were able to get over 40 lessons as a companionship, which was pretty good. The work is a day-to-day grind. Marriages and the word of wisdom continue to be the biggest problems that we experience. Mikaere, whom I mentioned 2 weeks ago, is staying strong and is getting married in the next few weeks and then hopefully baptized after that. We think that we should have about 4 baptisms this next month if all works out, which will be a great way to end the year. The story that I would like to share today involves our investigator Taakaio.

Taakaio is a 40+ year old man who lives in the middle of the forest.  The reason he lives there is because he is SHY-- so shy that he hates being seen by people. He lives there with his wife and no one else. We found him a while ago and he wasn't progressing very much if it all because he was too shy to come to church. Anyway, this past week we were lessoning and he told us that there was something that he wanted to tell us about. We said okay and he proceeded to tell us about a crazy dream that he had. To make a long story short, he saw Jesus in his dream and Jesus brought him up to the clouds and told him that he wanted him to become a teacher and help people and teach them the gospel. He never thought that he could fulfill his calling because he was so shy and he would have to overcome his fear, but we talked with him about the importance of church attendance and he came yesterday. Crazyyyy. God works in mysterious ways.

Give me a what’s up next week. Love you guys!

Elder Parrish