Bula vinaka!
so second week on the wonderful island of rabi. the island is 11 miles long and the people only live on one side of it so we just walk up and down the beach so visit everyone on the island. my legs doing good. just gets pretty sore some days. not much rain so far. kinda had a dry spell since ive been here. its light from about 5am-6pm ish . we have electricity from 6pm-8pm depending on whos running the generator. people stay up all night drinking grog and playing guitar. getting pretty good at playing chess with my companion lol we get along great. his name is elder hillyard from utah, rides dirt bikes. got lucky with a really great companion. the language is really hard to learn. we dont have many materials for it at all. he's been here six months and we still need a translator for people that dont know english. We have 3 baptisms for this weekend. and a few more commited to later. its really great to see what the gospel can do in peoples lives. they become so much more happier and full of hope.
last week our water pressure went out so we bathed out of a 5 gallon bucket. our water filters go out really quick because the water is so nasty. when i rinse my clothes they get dirtier then before i even washed them.
Ive learned to cook a mean custard and potatoes and rice and chow noodles and canned corn beef . ive learned to make a variety of dishes from those cause thats about all we have. we started a dinner calender for the members to sign up. some people eat bat and raw fish here. the fruit bats are huge. papayas are almost ripe so looking forward to that. this next week hoping.
there's chickens running around everywhere and me and my comp like scaring them when they are asleep in the trees haha the things you do for fun when there is no technology.
there is a transport truck that runs up and down the island 3 times a day. so we have to work our schedual around so many factors. kinda makes this a unique mission. and that there is a chinese soap drama going on the tv behind me while i use the computer haha
sorry if I repeat stuff.
my legs getting stronger. just a painful process haha no its good just gets sore on the times we miss the transport so we have to walk the whole way. . we had a lot of fall through apointments last week so we had to wait for the next one and kinda just go wait on the beach to kill time when theres no one around to contact and all of our apointments fell through. they either are up at the farm or in the other village. best time to catch people is at 6 but theres no power or lights so we are really limited on the time to see poeple then.
did laundry by hand again . did a lot better this time I think. less dirt still on the clothes.
we really wanted coconuts so we tried to tie two stick together with a machete on the end of it... didnt work too well . lol peta (great member in the branch) amazing guy just comes and climbes it for us haha
the geckos on our roof eating bugs at night chirp really loud.
people in the house next door just drink grog and sing all night.
If anyone sends me a package I want music. mp3 format will work with my cd player so you could fit a bunch of songs on there. just like all the good disney songs. tarzan lion king alladin lord of the rings pirates of the caribean sound tracks. stuff like that. would be really awesome. le'mes and that stuff too :)
hope this picture loads today.
the giblertese language is really hard. and its really hard for me cause i like to communicate and we have to use translators with half of our investigators. we have about 30 of them over all haha. we have 55 member come to church every week. there was 100 on the rolls but 40 of them moved to other islands. just how life goes out here. we tried to do a door to door apraoch but it doesnt work so well out here. but we did find a girl thats had all of the lessons already from other elders on other island and just moved back here and wants to be baptised so it wasnt a waste of a day at all!
we got chased off this one guys front porch that day too. before we walked on to it i told my comp. "watch this is the catholic preachers house" and first thing he said is im catholic get off my porch .. so revelation haha
the preacher here talks bad about us and the methodists.
theres a few big creepy churches here. like old vampire places haha . one has a giant cross in the bell tower that glows red at night haha
life is great having a good time and working hard. helping people as much as i can. I know i can do better though.
hope everything is going well at home. I miss you all.
need to go buy a new machete. gonna kill me some mongoose and bats this week! haha
first baptisms this weekend! excited. had some really good lessons even with language barriers.
till next time
Elder Estill
