GONE WITH THE WIND

April 27, 2011 Wednesday

Actually it was rain that started last night, continued all day, and is still falling tonight. It’s great for Perth, but there seems to be a drain problem at the intersection of our street where it meets the bigger street. The puddle covers the entire intersection and is at least 6 inches deep. But it’s okay. Rain is good.
What went with the wind were our lessons. We had 4 marked for today. The first one was with a fellow we found tracting yesterday. He wasn’t home. Our 1:30 cancelled because the wife, who is the new member, was called in to work. When we called to confirm our evening appointment, Sushant said he couldn’t meet with us and would call us later, (Yeah, right).
But we did finally get to teach Tai his first new member discussion. He’s very quiet and doesn’t say much while we are teaching, but ya gotta love his questions: How early should I start working on my mission papers? And, What’s a patriarchal blessing? We loved it. The spirit was really strong as we talked with him. He’s a good guy.
Today was supposed to be p-day. After everything fell through, we did get our shopping done. Then we went to the library hoping to do e-mail, but there wasn’t even one open computer. But we did run into a family that just moved here from Tahiti. Talk about neat. Only the mom speaks English well. The husband and son could understand better than they could speak. (French is spoken in Tahiti.) They came over here so their son can get a better education. He’s about 15 or so. We found out they were converts 7 years ago, so we asked for their conversion story. They had a daughter younger than their son who died. It was very hard for them. The mom went to New Zealand to stay a while just to get over it. She kept wondering where her daughter was and would they ever see her again. A voice told her to go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When she returned to Tahiti, she told her husband. He told her that while she was gone, a co-worker had given him a Book of Mormon and invited him to church. They decided to go that weekend. They went out to dinner on Saturday night. Their son saw a kid from school in the restaurant and said he thought he was a Mormon. They rushed over to talk to him and were given the address and meeting times. They went to church. After sacrament meeting, they told some people in the foyer that they wanted to get baptized. After stuttering for a few minutes because they’d never had anyone just walk in and want to be baptized, the ward members explained about the missionary lessons. They started them immediately and were soon baptized. The husband has been the ward mission leader ever since and the wife is a ward missionary. When they were baptized, they were the only members in their area. Now there are 20 member families there. (We should have gone to Tahiti, but our French is non-existent.) It was a real treat to visit with them.