Devon’s Mission in Kiribati

Kam na bane ni mauri n te bong aio! How's it going, everyone! It literally feels as if I was sending out an email just yesterday. This week has been crazy busy. Elder Fifita did service for this elderly man that lives behind us and we cut open coconuts for 4 hours. Talk about a work out... He had a pile of a couple hundred coconuts and we would just grab one of the pile, lay it down, and cut it in half. We had been there for a couple hours and I was tired so I didn't even look at what I was grabbing. I would just reach out, grab a coconut and through it on the ground. I grabbed one and I felt something crawling on my arm. Once you have lived in Kiribati, you don't think too much of that because there are constantly ants, mosquitos, and other bugs on you, but I decided to look and I saw a spider the size of a baseball crawling up my arms. When you look into the eyes of the spider... that's when you know it is too big. In my mind I was thinking, "Not today spide...

MAURI MAURI!!! I'm alive... don't worry. Email was not working last week. Things have been so crazy here. The longer I'm here, the more everything seems to get blended together. I have to sit back and think, "wait... what happened this week?". For church this Sunday, we had 2 investigators come to church. There really aren't any words that describe what it is like to see someone's eyes finally be opened to how much their heavenly father loves them. We have one investigator named Timwaieta. He was one of the first people I ever taught when I got to Christmas Island. At that time, I was just learning how to teach in Kiribati and I was TERRIFIED going into every lesson. I spent hours and hours at home studying the scriptures to find out exactly what Timwaieta needed in his life. After that, I would spend hours and hours then trying to translate what I wanted to say into his language. It was frustrating and at times.... I honestly didn't think it was ...

Hey everyone! What a crazy week... first off... I'm 20!!! That doesn't seem real at all. On my birthday, my companion and I and the district leader, who lives on Christmas Island, flew out to this tiny island called Washington Island. We took this tiny sketchy propeller plane and I'll be honest, I was terrified the whole time. We land in this tiny grass field in the middle of all these palm trees and join up with the 2 missionaries who had been working there for the past couple months. We stayed with them in their little buia (which is a little stick hut that is built a couple feet off the ground) that was right on the beach. We had the chance to establish a church branch on the island which was such an awesome experience! I've never seen a group of people so grateful to simply have the gospel in their lives... They made us a huge dinner that night and they cooked us some... DOG! For anyone who is wondering, it was really good. Unfortunately, it made me really sick!...

Hello my friends and family! First off... Happy New Year! It was pretty crazy being on Christmas Island during this time because Christmas Island is the first place in the whole world that experiences the New year. We are literally a whole day ahead of Hawaii. We all woke up and watched the first sunrise of 2018... in the world. Things are crazy here as usual. Every time I introduce myself to someone new and I say I'm from America and then I say I'm from Chicago. Almost everyone responds with "Oh Michael Jordan!". They literally have no idea what the city of Chicago is but someone everyone knows Michael Jordan. I've even had a couple people ask if he was my brother or dad and one time I went along with it and it was hilarious.... but I started laughing so it gave it away. I made a new friend this week. We have these things called mosquito coils which are a black stick that you catch on fire and it keeps the mosquitos away... well they were sitting on the grou...

MERRRRRYYYY CHRISTMAS!!!!! I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas! We had our Christmas a whole day before you guys (since we are a whole day ahead of the US based on time). For the couple days leading up to Christmas, all of the church members here gathered in the main church building to celebrate. The rest of the Elders and I tried thinking of all the things we could do to bring the Christmas spirit to the locals. We tried thinking of music and decorations and all different things but then we realized.... their Christmas celebration blows ours out of the water. All the little boys and girls throw on skirts made of palm leaves and headbands made of flower, they blast the Kiribati music, and they do exactly what the lyrics say.... "Shake your bumbum!". Everyone just shakes their hips around and dance and laugh. They had the elders get up and I didn't know I could move like that... but I did! My dancing was honestly so bad but they didn't care. Everyone was laughing ...

HELLO EVERYONE! Let me just start by saying how much I miss you all!  Hope each and every one of you are doing great. Thank you all so much for your emails. Literally, they make my week! This week was just as intense as the last one! I'm still trying to adjust to the culture and I know it is going to take some time. People here run on "Kiribati time" which means everyone just shows up an hour or two late. It can be kinda frustrating when you have a really busy/full day but It is something I'll have to get used to. My companion and I got invited to several bootaki this week. Bootaki are parties that the locals here have. They always have the missionaries eat first so we stand up and walk over to these buckets full of food that we have no idea what it is. We reach in, grab some mystery meat, some mystery mush, and some mystery drink and go sit cross-legged on the ground. I look over at my companion and ask "do you ever think the next bite is going to kill you?...