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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