Last Week of Training - "Let Them Eat Cake" -(Thanks Marie)

Shark Feeding - Something fun for a P-Day

Well, it is finally here! The last week of my training! It is a crazy week too because my trainer is finishing his mission! So, I am really hoping that everyone will bake us cakes ha ha ha! If I have not said this before, I have kind of thrown my diet out the door and have invited all of the cake! Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake", and I am starting to see the wisdom in that statement.

Things here are going well! We are continuing to work with all of the members in our ward and it is great because we have a lot of support! One of our main member integraters is named Tania (I'll send a picture later), but Tania had to go to Tahiti to be there for his wife (she is giving birth). It has been a struggle without him, but he is coming back this week! So we should still be doing well in the quartier!

I don't have a ton of time to write today, but I hope that everyone is doing well and that you all have a great Halloween!

Yes - living next to a car dealership!

Spiritual Thought:

This week I have really been pondering about a talk that my Gam gave me given by Elder Bednar about the Atonement of Christ. Not only the Atonement of Christ, but the enabling power that we can receive from the Atonement. Many times on the mission, I have thought to myself how lucky I am to have the Atonement. Not only to be cleansed from my sins, but to receive strength. Several times I have felt too tired to continue, to comprehend, and to speak French/Tahitian. But, every time I pray for strength, I receive it. And you all can receive the same power. It is not the power to change your circumstances, but the power to receive strength from God to overcome them.

That's my ponsé!

Elder Garff

Guitar and Ukulele - Sounding like a Tahitian :)

Hey all, this week was a crazy week! The craziness was due to the fact that we had a multi zone conference and we had to travel by boat to Raitea, another island in French Polynesia! It was really awesome to see all of the missionaries that I knew like Sister Morrill and Elder Toame, and it was especially cool to hear from President Bize, our mission president, his wife, and Elder and Sister Haleck (Elder Haleck is a seventy in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). During the conference, we learned about the importance of baptism, so, this week we engaged all of our investigators to baptism! It was a cool experience and there was a visable change during these lessons from the others that were not focused on baptism! So, stay tuned for the baptisms!

Bora is doing great and everything is crazy great here! Just a few awesome things! So, first, make sure to have a snowcone with condensed milk on the top!!!! It makes the snow cone taste like ice cream!!! I'll send a picture in a week or two! Soooo good! Another great thing, shout out to my Grandma Anderson! We have taken classes lately for the guitar, and the ukelele! And it has been awesome to play and actually be able to know all the chords! By the time I get back, at this rate I can sound like a Tahitian!

Spiritual Thought:

This week I have really been pondering about whether or not I am in the place that I need to be in my progression as a missionary. I finish my training in 2 weeks and I feel like I still have to learn a ton of things. But, my Grandpa Garff and my Dad have shared with me that the spot that we are all in right now is where the Lord needs us to be. That spot can be in Tahiti not understanding anything, or in school being fed up with midterms, or any other spot. The thing to know is that wherever we are, the Lord needs us to be there for a reason and it is our responsibility to do all in our power to make the most of it, learn, and continue to progress in the way that we think the Lord needs us to progress.

Hope you are all doing as well as the Utes' football team!

Elder Garff

Enjoy Every Moment - Raw Fish, Utah Football and Everything In-between

Raw Fish - 5 times a week or so.  Pretty Good!

 

Ia Ora Na!

 

Well, this week was another crazy week! This week, we taught 28+ lessons and the Spirit was extremely powerful in many of them! Right now, we have a lot of investigators who are really close to baptism and after marriages and other lessons, they will all be ready! We are hoping for a lot of baptisms on the 30th, the day that my trainer leaves, and hopefully those will all work out!

 

Speaking of my companion, he is really awesome! He finishes his mission in 3 weeks but still is continuing to work hard every day! And, he is crazy fluent in French! So every time that I mess up, he is always there to cover for me! Definitely blessed to have someone to fall back on when I need help (sort of rings a bell with the Savior for all of us huh?!) I definitely like working with him and hope that we can continue to work hard! We are both very similar in that we both like to be doing something all the time and want to be doing the right things too, which I am very grateful to have in my first companion in the field!

 

Other than that, everything is going well! We are going to visit another island for a mission conference this week, so we'll actually get to see the other missionaries here! There are only 6 missionaries on Bora, so it will be interesting to actually see everyone that has been called here!

The Primary Room in the Ward - We requested this from Josh so that we could show the kids in the 12th ward here.

 

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

So, definitely with the language there are a lot of ups and downs. Throughout my life, I have really been known for doing things until they are done and then moving on without really stopping to appreciate what I am doing. So, the spiritual thought of the week goes to my mom who told me to enjoy every moment, even the ones that you can't understand! So, my advice for myself and all of you is to enjoy everything that you do! Through joy, we are better motivated to do things and through this motivation, there comes a better sense of why we are doing what we are doing and a desire to do it perfectly.

I hope that everyone is doing well and of course enjoying Utah Football!

Elder Garff

"Hey!" from Bora

Hey everyone!

Another great week in Bora Bora! This week, it was a little weird because we had 2 new elders come to Bora Bora! So, I am still new, but not the newest ha ha ha! It's nice because I'm not the newest, but it's also kind of scary, because I still need a lot of work with everything before my training is done in 4 weeks ha ha ha! The new Elders are Elder Stewart and Elder Sovern. They are doing great and have great trainers, Elder Loamano and Elder Schwartz. Because of the new elders, Elder Borgholthaus and I gave one of our 2 sectors to the others. We lost Faanui, but we kept the sector of Vaitape which is doing really well! We have a lot of investigators right now that are working towards marraige dates and have a lot more that will be baptized once they know more about the church!

 

On another front, this week was a great week for General Conference! Here, they didn't have Conference in English, so we watched it in French. Because of that, I didn't understand a whole lot... But, the Spirit was definitely there and contributed to my Spiritual thought of the week!

Other than that, this week was a good week with a lot of lessons and with an increased purpose to the mission life for me.

Vahineura and Kohai - Two cool kids in Bora

Spiritual Thought:

This week I have thought a lot about the why to many things. As missionaries, our purpose, our "why" is to bring others unto Christ by helping them receive the restored Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. This is our why and the reason why we do everything. This week, I discovered the "why" for investigators. Every investigator we meet and everyone who is not a part of the church needs to receive baptism and needs to be a member of the church to know where they came from, why they are here, and where they will go after this life. This is the Plan of Salvation. Without the Plan of Salvation, our lives have no purpose and nothing else matters. Investigators and everyone in the world needs to hear this message and the reason why everyone needs to be baptized in the church is because that baptism washes away sins and thus allows us to obtain the greatest gift of all: Eternal life, a life forever living in the presence of God.

Hope you are all doing well!

Elder Garff