Devon’s Mission in Kiribati

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?...

MAURI NGKAMI!!! Sorry this email is so late... we were actually told we weren't going to get email at all this week. There is one place on the whole island that has internet access. At the time there is only one computer that works and the internet is very slow. This won't be able to be a huge email, but I'll try to include a bit. Well... where do I even begin? I met my trainer, Elder Fifita, and he is the man! He is so awesome. We are assigned to work in the village of Banana. Our house is a small stick house, and it is currently being worked on right now. This means we are living with the 2 other elders in their area. We sleep on the floor on these little pads with the spiders, rats and everything else that runs around our house at night.  AC doesn't really exist out here so it is pretty hot all the time.  We all have our own little fans so that makes it a lot better! We take showers using a bucket we fill with rain water. The people here really have nothing... they l...

Well, everyone... I don't even know where to start with this week. I don't have much time at all. I'm in this tiny little internet cafe in Fiji that is in the middle of some jungle. Hopefully, you all receive this. We landed in Kiribati  on Thursday  and we gathered all of our things in a close by building to be assigned our area and trainer. Everyone gets assigned their spot and I still haven't been assigned.... They have me stand up and the mission present goes, "Elder Wardell, You will be flying out to Kiritimati island  on monday  where you will be introduced to your trainer and the 4 other missionaries that will be on your island" Feel free to look up Kiritimati island on a map. It's thousands of miles away from all the other islands in my mission. I really hope I get along with these 5 other elders because it will just be us on this island for probably the next 6 months... The islands are beautiful, but the mission is hard. Not a single house has...