My foot is almost completely healed! I remember my foot surgery you
gave me, it brings back good memories. It's so great to me to hear that your hip is healing. I will continue to pray for you and the rest of the family with all of my heart. This week has been a pretty crazy week. Our baptismal date with Tiaven and Tooki was disrupted by news from my Mission President President Larkin. There is a zone conference happening in Tarawa next week, and President Larkin is bringing in all the outer island missionaries to be a part of it. Outer island missionaries have never been part of a zone conference in the entire history of the mission. This news is especially huge for people like Elder Zamora, who has been serving on outer islands and not seen more than one missionary at a time for over a year. President has also decided to go ahead and transfer Elder Zamora off of Nikunau and keep me here with a new companion. We've been starting to have record breaking amounts of success on the island, and our trip to Tarawa will probably slow down the momentum of Nikunau's progress, unfortunately. I've been struggling some at the thought of Elder Zamora leaving so soon. In reality I am just an ignorant 18 year old kid who likes to play Mario Kart and eat the ramen and fruit shakes my little siblings make for me, but am now expected to act and serve as Branch President and on top of that chief of the Muribenuia village tribe at the end of the month when I return to Nikunau from Tarawa. I think the next couple of months are going to be extremely humbling. I've been praying and studying extra hard this week. My first main goal is to be able to help the members become less reliant upon Elders and teach them to become good missionaries themselves. I love these people so much, and hope with all of my heart that I can help them in whatever way God intends. We've been having lots of success this week. We have lots of people now who are not members coming to our house each night to participate in games and activities we having , before which we always try to share some spiritual thought or gospel principal. The partriarch named Uee of one such family of nonmembers came this past Thursday morning told Elder Zamora and I that he and his wife wanted to start coming to our church. We have them the missionary lessons and they came to Church this Sunday. Uneke is still progressing super well. We taught her almost every day this past week and were going to set a baptismal date with her until we received the news of our flight to Tarawa. During a lesson with Tameri and Tien's mom we found out her youngest daughter named Tauai was actually eight and not six years old like she had previously thought. No one celebrates birthdays out here, so a lot of times kids have no idea how old they are. I've been having lots of fun this week teaching Tauai for about 15-30 minutes each day how to read, during which we practice out of the Book of Mormon. We've started lessoning with Tooki's sister, Teaua. Both Tooki and his sister were really shy at first, but have become much more comfortable around us. As our influence grows, so does our opposition. I have some crazy KUC minister stories since arriving here that I'll have to share later because I'm running out of time. I don't know how emails will work next week, because Monday is the day that Elder Zamora and I fly to Tarawa. If I don't get a chance to email next week, tell Sarah happy Birthday and that I miss her so much!!! I want to repent and become a better, more Christ-like person. I feel like I'm in some fantasy storybook. I find more and more that the secret to real happiness and joy is loving and trying to strengthen and edify others. I'm so grateful for all of the support and prayers I receive from all of the family! Elder Morphonios
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About MeI'm Elder Joseph Morphonios, and I've chosen to serve a 2 year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Join me as I share my adventures about serving the good people of the Marshall Islands, and sharing the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ with them. Archives
December 2016
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