The Busiest Week of My Mission!

THE ZONE
Top Left:  Elder Toriki, Elder Ivie, Elder Perrut, Sister Perrut, Sister Bize, President Bize, Elder Bize, Elder Opuu, Elder Taoutaha, Josh - aka Elder Garff, Elder Piazza
Bottom Left:  Sister Maa, Sister Ladd, Sister Jeaneau, Sister Turina, Sister Mendenhall, Sister James,
Sister Sanchez, Sister Teahu
Not Pictured, but still in the Zone:  Elder Cooley, Elder Fawson, Sister Kelsey, Sister Noble

Well, I am happy that I am still walking and thinking after the past 8 days!

We started last Sunday with a fireside, the speaker was President Bize. It was a great experience, and all of Sunday we got to spend with President and Sister Bize! Awesome!

Monday, we also spent with President, and with President and Sister Bize, we practiced our songs for the missionary concert, played a little football, and looked for a gaseous water spring, which we gave up trying to find after a few hours!

Tuesday, we had a huge zone conference with Tahaa and Raiatea! We tried to Skype in with Huahine, but the wifi and the church gave out :( Elder Piazza and I gave a fun formation too, about how to succeed our challenges, see the spiritual thought.

Wednesday, we did a split with the assistants, including my old zone leader Elder Teamoutuitaou! It was great and we got to see a lot of new investigators, as we were with Elder Fareata, who was the Elder here before he got assigned as assistant and I replaced him!

Thursday we had a breakfast with real American pancakes!!!! :D with the Sisters in our district. Throughout the day, we were planning for tomorrow and had tons of meetings... Fun!

Missionary Concert - I am in the back:)

Friday we had our district meeting, a split with the Elders of Fareatai and at night had a missionary concert! I played the piano for the majority of it, and it was great! Sister Ladd was the leader, and she put the whole concert together this week!

Saturday, we had tons of lessons and meetings, and after running all over the place, we came home to find out that our zone won the mission challenge! It was to have 300 lessons with a member over the course of 3 weeks, and we had 337! Definitely proud of the whole zone! Pictures to come :)

Sunday, we ran all over the place again. It is always fun when you have to do a split to go to two churches, do the report for the zone, have a surprise ward counsel at the same time as your lessons, and plan an emergency split. And during the split, run all over and do multiple zone reports in 1 hour.

(Sorry for that exhaustive list. It won't be like this in other weeks!)

In all, I am glad to survive :) Next week should be a lot less complicated :)

Translation:  "Auto School...Keep Your Distance."
Another Translation:  "Rachel Garff is Driving...Keep Your Distance";)

Funny Moment: Always great to stop outside and eat at a restaurant. But, it is important to look at what type of restaurant it is before eating there...

So, after the missionary concert, we paused at a little restaurant and ate outside, but after we started eating, we realized that we were at a brewery "Brasserie".   Just imagine all of those members and investigators who saw us - Ha ha ha!
(Note that we are drinking pineapple juice and apple juice - don't worry!)

Culture Shock: There is a major American influence in Tahiti, but that doesn't mean that the French don't put their own stamp on things! This is seen with the car below:

Riddle for my Dad:  In French, the J and G sounds are switched, which makes this brand....

Spiritual Thought: Something that Elder Piazza and I shared during our formation at the zone conference was how to realize our goals/objectives. My favorite point was to not look for excuses and just to accomplish your goal. In Jesus the Christ, Elder Talmage explains the parable of the Good Samaratin. The Priest and the Levite had all of the excuses in the world, and passed by the wounded man. The Samaritan however, didn't. "Excuses are as plentiful as weeds by the side of the road. They are there for us if we want them... The Samaritan didn't have an excuse, for he wanted none." For us, we have all the excuses in the world to not succeed in school, excuses in the mission, and in life in general. If we want excuses, they are there. But, if we want to accomplish our goals, we can't search for, want, or make excuses. Don't search for excuses and you won't have any.

Love you all, hope school is treating you all well ;)

Elder Garff

P.S. GO UTES THIS WEEK!!!!!!! 

Another Tahitian Sunset - You gotta love Tahiti!

How Not to Impress the Sister Missionaries Part 2

How Not to Impress the Sister Missionaries Part 3

The Sister Missionaries left a ton of pink sticky notes on our car, so we took them and drew hearts and our names on them - thus, pretending that we got heart attacked by them.  This went over really well:)

Snap Chat Photo with Elder Paulsen