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