Hey Mom!
Sorry I wasn't able to email you yesterday. Technical difficulties. I have just a little bit of time. Thanks for sending the pictures! They are fun to look at and make me happy that you and the rest of the family are doing well. I've been getting to share the stuff you gave me in the package with the kids. We use the 48 crayon pack for primary and the other ones for whenever kids here just want to draw and stuff. A lot of the kids here are really artistic. I enjoy being back in Nikunau very much. So I mentioned I don't have much time. I am just going to copy and paste the email I sent to Dad for you to see what's been going on this week. I love you so much mom! Make sure to tell the family I love them too! I'm back in Nikunau. The spirits of the people here were surprisingly low, however. Close to half of the members here had pink eye, it hasn't rained in forever, the island has ran out of oil and cargo hasn't came in forever either. We've been working really hard this week to apply what we learned in Tarawa to bring people closer to Christ and have been having lots of success. The problem though is that the greater amount of success we have the greater amount of opposition we have as well. Yesterday after church Elder Baker and I were teaching a lesson to one of our strongest investigators named Meere when a KUC minister had been summoned to come contend with us. She asked what we were teaching and we said the gospel of Jesus Christ. She called us liars and said that we weren't Christians and that we didn't believe in Christ. Elder Baker and I proceeded by sharing a couple of scriptures each in the Bible proclaiming Christ to be the son of God. She then started to attack the Book of Mormon. I showed here the picture of Jesus Christ I had taped on the cover of my BOM and my name tag which said "Ana Ekaretia IESU KRISTO." Elder Baker showed her the cover of his untapped BOM saying "Kakoauan Taekan IESU KRISTO." She told us that she had read all of it and prayed about it and she knew that it didn't teach about Krist and was all lies. We asked her to name one character in the BOM and when she couldn't she got so mad that she accidentally said that she was God but then also said that we were stealing "her" people from her and that Meere (Who is 17) is too young and stupid to make decisions for herself about religion. Realizing the spirit was gone we started to leave when she issued a bubuti(a demand which culturally cannot be ignored) that we meet her and the rest of the KUC ministers at her house and basically Bible bash. We told her that we would come, but only on condition that we could come listen to their beliefs, share ours and then leave without arguing. She agreed and told us to remember that we were enemies. We quoted Matthew 5:44 and left with her screaming that we would go to hell if we prayed for her. Sigh... We still aren't sure how we are going to handle the whole situation. Elder Baker just emailed president about it and we are going to pray about it some more as well. We feel like the Bruce Banner (Hulk) who said that "we need to have the courage to back down from a fight (we) know (we) can win," but we also see this as a great opportunity to represent our Savior Jesus Christ and potentially put an end to some of the persecution the KUC have been inflicting upon the members here. Dallin H. Oaks says something along the lines of "We don't argue to change people's minds, we stand up to show we have an opinion worth fighting for."
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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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