Spencer Marks Kiribati Mission
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Letter of August 28, 2014

[we were teasing Spencer about a war in North Korea, so that's why the reference there.  Rhett is his cousin, who just started a mission in South Korea.]

FOLKS!

I was wondering what was going down with Rhett and war over there!
We've started to hear quite a bit about war in Korea, so I've actually
started to believe that it was actually happening. I guess that'll be
fun for him!

So... Ya! I'm going! This week hasn't been fun, we've been dashing
back and forth like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure
out what on earth our people in Tarawa our thinking for getting us
back, finally we just booked our own tickets and we'll talk with them
on the phone today. 

It's hard for them because they're in the process
of welcoming ten new Elders in Tarawa (That's huge, the last intake
was 5 and the intake before it was 4, the record ever is 9) so their
heads are spinning, and it's already near-impossible to communicate
ibuuki. Ah well, the glories of being a missionary in Kiribati. :)

As far as biking over the rawa, ya, low tide is the time for that. For
the rawas in the area, that'll be the plan, but the last one to Tarawa
is the edge of our area, and is thus out of bounds. So we'll be super
close to everything, but we might as well be in Arorae for all the
good it'll do us.

So, this week has been crazy cause we've been trying to figure out our
transport and saying goodbye to everybody. And I HATE goodbyes. I
really just want to be gone! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE ALL of these
people here, and it kills that I have to go, but I feel like my
effectiveness as a missionary right now is very low, because everybody
just wants to say goodbye and have bootakis. I WANT TO WORK! [note from Doug--
this reminds me about when Spencer got to Nonouti and all the people talked
about the great bootakis that Elder Grover used to throw.]

I want to get to Tarawa Ieta and blow the place out of the water with spiritual
power! I'm starting to realize how many friends I have in the mission
going home (well, not that many, cause I don't know people, but it's
a high percentage!) and I'm realizing that I don't have any time to
mess around! And so I want to be on Tarawa Ieta doing the work I came
here to do!

So, odds are, this is going to be it until Christmas (I'm figuring
they'll pull us in for Christmas, because it's only an hour boat ride
and boats go back and forth every day) ! So I just want to say a wee
bit about this whole mission thing before I go. 

First of all, to anybody who reads these emails and is considering serving a 
mission, GO! YOLO, for crying out loud! :) There is no better way to spend time
than in the service of the Lord! And it doesn't matter if you get
called to Kiribati, France, Brazil, New York, or Boise! It's the same
work, no matter where you are in the world, and the Lord knows EXACTLY
where you need to be to receive the most blessings for yourself and
for the people you will grow to know and love! 

We're like the Avengers, except for real, because the real world isn't saved by just
a few people with crazy powers. The real world is saved one person at
a time, as the Children of God choose to turn their hearts to Him and
receive His blessings in their lives! And the people who help them to
make that turn? The Elder and Sisters of Israel.

It's a great work. As a missionary, you can't have a conversation with
a true convert and not see what a huge blessing the gospel is in their
lives. Just the other night, we were chatting with Meme, an awesome
lady who was baptized forever go, then fell away because she moved to
Nonouti where there was no church. She was just so happy and so
grateful that the Elders (Tait and Grover, before my time) came back
and found her and worked so hard to get her back, because she has SO
much more happiness in her home now than when she was in the KPC. 
God has made a big difference for her and for her family, and those are
blessings that she'll feel forever.

And that's ONE PERSON. Shoot, one person like that is enough to get
you to do the work. And I could just sit here all day typing the great
stories of people whose lives have been blessed by the Lord through
the work of faithful missionaries in Kiribati. But maybe that'll be
for after the mission. For now, it sufficeth me to say that it's a
glorious work! The Gospel is true! The Lord has Restored His Gospel in
our day! The Spirit of God is working a marvelous work among the
children of men, and we are part of it! One person at a time, the
world is a better place because of what we're doing, and the work will
continue until the whole world is blessed! 

The Devil can oppose it, he can send every weapon in the book to try to slow it 
down, but no unhallowed hand can stop this work from progressing, and the 
nations of the earth will be blessed because of it! I love the work, I love
the Lord, and I feel blessed to be a missionary.

And here I come, Tarawa Ieta.

I love you all, have a great rest of the year, say your prayers and
read your scriptures, and remember what an incredible gift we've been
given in the form of the temples of God! You'll all be in my prayers,
see you for Christmas!

Love,

Elder Marks

Letter of August 24, 2014

[I told Spencer about having ice cream sandwiches with Richard and Nancy
and their family for Grant's birthday, so that's the reason for the beginning]

Ice cream and chocolate chip cookies... I am going to get SO FAT when
I come back home! I'm going to need a running partner.

All right, that's a lot of questions about Tarawa Ieta, but FIRST,
before I tell you what you want to know, I'm going to tell you what I
want to tell you! Haha, ultimate power. :)

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!!! So, you remember the man with the beard that
you met on Skype, who is freaking awesome, and who we want to prepare
to be the branch president? Well, when President Weir came, he said
that it wasn't going to work because to be a branch president, he has
to have a wife and they're preparing to go to the temple together. And
Rosary, Tokarerei's wife (Rosary is a pretty common name among
catholics here) was not baptized, or even taking lessons. 

Well, temple class books arrived, and since their house is right next to the
airfield, the people just dropped them off their. So we show up, and
Rosary has LOADS of questions about it, and end of the story, SHE CAME
TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY AND IS GETTING BAPTIZED NEXT MONTH!!! Right after
I leave... Sad day there, but still PUMPED for both of them! :)

And then we had an AWESOME day at church! We were worried, because we
had loads of people from here leave for Tarawa, some moving
permanently and others just on vacation, but then we had enough less
actives and investigators come to church to more than fill up the gap!
Including Robwati and his wife Moaniti. He's the planner for the KPC
in Mwakauro, which is the highest non-ministerial position in a local
congregation. So that was cool! And loads of other people came too!
Basically, it didn't show up much in our numbers, but church on Sunday
was MIND-BLOWINGLY awesome, and it'll probably show up in the numbers
when our vacationers come back.

So, back to what you asked about. :)

Tarawa Ieta, if the sea level was down about 10 feet, would be the
same island as Tarawa. If you look at it from Google Earth, it'll
probably look the same until you zoom in. If you look at Tarawa, it
kind of looks like a drunk backwards L. The bottom part of the L is
Tarawa, and the side is Tarawa Ieta. But when MISSIONARIES talk about
Tarawa Ieta, they mean the Tarawa Ieta area, which is north of the
rawa north of Boata. 

Boata is a good size village north of the airport, and a rawa is an area where 
it's water when the tide is up and beach when the tide is down, so you can't make 
a road to drive cars on it. Everything north of the rawa will be my area, and it's
sketchy because, well, no cars can get up there. There are several
rawas in my area, so we'll have to be watching the tide pretty closely
to make sure we can get where we need to be. 

Right now there are no missionaries on the island, so I don't know where we'll be 
staying, or what the bathroom situation will be like. There isn't internet... So,
we'll be radioing in our stats every Tuesday, and I guess you folks
can hear from me when I get back! :) Usually opening an outie is a 6
month gig, but I'm guessing they'll pull us in for Christmas, so we
can talk then! :) I still have a week or two until that happens, so no
worries there.

Just us two Elders, me and my kid, and everybody says it's just like
an outer island, so food will be same as Nonouti. Except it's wetter,
so there are BANANAS!!!!!!!!!!!!! And apparently there are basic
shipments from Tarawa, so ice cream is a possibility. Either way, I'm
buying ice cream when I hit ground in Tarawa, pretty pumped for that.:) 

And way pumped to be training again! Seriously, I love training.
(That may be why I'm doing it, most missionaries seem to hate it.) My
kid just arrived in Tarawa, and he'll work there until I get pulled
in. Then I'll grab him, and we'll baja it out there with Outie Zone
Leaders! It should be glorious!

Anyway, hope everything keeps going well back there! Love you loads!

Love,

Elder Marks

Letter of August 17, 2014

First of all, I have gained respect for Job this week. The man's body
was covered in boils? HOLY FRIKKIN CRUD boils are JUNK! Got one on
each hip, and I sleep on my side. Got blood marks on my pjs from it.
And the belt rubs! Job, man, job...

Also this week, got a crash course in amateur pig wrestling. One thing
about local government here, they never actually bother to enforce
certain laws until the council is running low on money and they need
the money from the fines to keep running. One such law is that you
have to have your pig tied up or in a pen. So they load a bunch of
guys up in a truck, give them a net, and drive the length of the
island, picking up pigs that aren't tied up. Since they never enforce
the law, pretty much everybody's pigs are just roaming around, and so
they get the pigs, and then you have to pay 13 bucks to get your pig
back, or they auction it off. 

We were at the house of one of our people that has 12 pigs, and his son came back 
on the motorcycle and said that the pig-catchers were out. So, we had to catch all of our
pigs before the pig catchers did, and we didn't have a net. We started
off by opening some coconuts with a hatchet, because as soon as the
pigs here, they all come running because they know it's meal time. We
got two there, the rest ran away. And one by one, we tricked them with
food, or just straight up trapped them. But pigs, man! Tricky little
runners, but we got them all before the pig catchers came! Tied some
up, threw some in a pit we dug and threw coconuts in to keep them
happy. Just saying, pretty sure that pigs screaming is the closest
thing on this planet to the sound that demons make.

Other news, baptism this week! Forgot to bring my camera today, I'll
try next week. Old lady named Beeti (Pronounced Bessy, named by an
imatang.) She lives down South, in Tenanoraoi (the south side of
Taboiaki, on that map) so we've been devoting our Thursdays to going
and visiting her along with her friend Raate, who's blind and a
long-time member. Love the CRUD out of both of them. 

They've been having a lot of problems, because Beeti used to be really strong KPC,
and they're the only Mormons down there, so they're having some
problems selling their coconut (which is the only way they can get
money, and they're 60 something and 70 something years old) but she
basically just says, "they can laugh, they can pick on us, I don't
care." I love the woman! Has that old-lady, take-no-junk-from-nobody,
I've-been-around-the-block-50-times-and-still-getting-stronger kind of
attitude. :) 

So we got to her house on Thursday (usually we baptize on
Saturday, but we only go down South on Thursdays) and forgot to check
the tide first, so we ended up waiting until 7 at night for the tide
to be high enough. Sunset baptism! Seriously, one of those ones where
the sun is behind the clouds, but the sunbeams are streaming out from
behind so it looks like the second coming. Beautiful, and since we did
it lagoon side the ocean was almost perfectly still. Never get over
how much I love baptisms. :)

Big news on the island this week, Nei Maria came to town! It's a great
big picture of Saint Mary that the catholics have been hauling around
the island. She's on a canvas hanging from a nicely decorated wooden
frame/stand that's all decorated with flowers. Every catholic house
prepared a nice little place for her, and the priests and catholic
people walked the [see below]

One more thing, just been noticing this week how sketchy my food is.
We eat the cheap Indonesian version of ramen noodles, the cheap
Chinese version of spam, and cold corned beef. And those are
considered the super nice expensive foods. :)

AND I JUST RECEIVED TRANSFER INFORMATION! I'm going to Tarawa Ieta!
Opening it up! And training again! Apparently you can only get to
Tarawa ieta by boat, I don't really know much about it besides that,
but crud, I'm going outie again! But apparently this one is going to
be way easier, there are two branches that are actually part of the
stake, and ice cream too! Can't believe I'll be training again! A guy
named Smith, ZL thinks he's from Canada. So it should be great! And
I'm also getting a grandkid! Poor Elder David is going to be training
another kid out here. :) Only 3 months and getting his own kid. It'll
be good, though, he's a prodigy at the language. 

Boy oh boy, great things afoot today. :) Don't know the exact day yet, 
but it's probably going to be next week.

Anyway, that's it for this week! Love y'alls, keep rocking worlds back there!
Love,
Elder Marks


Sorry, just realized that my explanation of Nei Maria got cut off by
my excitement about finding out about my transfer. :) so I'll start
from where I dropped off. :)

Every catholic house prepared a nice little place for her, and the
priests with some of the catholic people would walk a couple miles
every day, between the villages, stopping at every single house. We
got to see them stop at a house next to where we were teaching once.
They walked up chanting (the whole walk, the priest chants something,
and then the whole crowd repeats) and then when they get there, they
set Nei Maria down and the person whose house it is says, "Hello,
Mary, thanks for coming to our house today" and then goes on with a
prayer to this picture. 

They did this over the course of the week, from the South to the North 
end of the island, (apparently they're doing
this on every island in Kiribati) and then when they got to the last
one, they walked all the way back. It's a really long island, so it
was night time as they were coming back through our place, and they
lit coconut/kerosene torches next to the road and walked along
chanting. Motorcycles, a car, chanting, the whole nine yards, passed
our house at about 3 in the morning. Everybody who wasn't a catholic
was pretty irritated with them. :) 


[Note for Pictures]

Spencer said, "All right, and here we have our high-tech, all-natural,
state-of-the-art, all-renewable-fuel-burning, completely biodegradable
stove. :)"

This is the Kiribati girl Spencer mentions in his letter.

And the third is the view from their toilet (Spencer's words).




Letter of August 10, 2014

First of all, let me express my DEEPEST sympathy and MOST SINCERE
condolences that your air conditioning has been out. That must be SO
hot and miserable, I CAN'T IMAGINE how hard that must be! :)
I'm just jealous that you get to play in the lake. :)

As far as the week goes, well, I guess I'd better explain the picture
first. We were at the birthday party of one of the young girls in our
ward, and her mom asked me if I could get a fiancé for her in America.
I thought about it a second, and then realized that I had the picture
book of our family with me. And it had the picture we took with the
Day family right before Blake and I left on missions! All of our Day
cousins, except for the Wrights. So I whipped that out, and she looked
at it, and decided that Gavin is the lucky man! So, Gavin... She's a
great girl, family is strong in the Church, she's the smartest girl in
her class, fun, great sense of humor, good at English for a Kiribati
girl her age, and WAY good at cooking fish and rice, so... Just
saying! :) I'd be TOTALLY ok having her as a cousin in law. :) The
crown she's wearing is a Kiribati party hat, and the background is the
buia that we have church on. [her picture is above.]

As far as this week goes... Not gonna lie, I was REALLY hoping I'd be
able to email today and tell you folks where I'm going next! It's
killing me to know that I'm about to be transferred, but not knowing
exactly when or to where! I really just want to either stay here and
build the church on Nonouti for the rest of my mission, or leave and
move on. :P I'm loving the work here, but man... having this hanging
over my head for a month and a half is killing me. :P Ah well.

But yup, lots of biking, my comp was down for a day with heat
exhaustion, and we've been eating more rice than Taiwan.

Our Relief Society has voluntarily started weekly visiting teaching AND visiting
houses to help clean, weed, etc, I'll be learning a Kiribati dance
today, and... 

OH ME GOODNESS!
All right, just remembered a fantastic story! So, we showed up at an
investigator's house a few weeks ago, and his brother in law was
there. He sat in on the lesson, and afterward said, "If you guys have
some time, maybe you can visit me in my house up in Tebuange." When we
tried to set up a specific time, he just said, "oh you know, whenever
you have time." Well dadgum it. Tebuange is the farthest village we
visit. So we came once, he wasn't there. But we came again this week,
and man! Got through the whole first lesson with the guy (usually we
have to break it up into 3 or 4 chunks, because in a country with so
little schooling, that's a lot of new abstract information to process)
and at the end, he told us a story about how he gained his truth in
the Church, back when there were sisters teaching seminary at his
school and he skipped his own to go to theirs. And we're like, what?
We just started teaching and you're telling us you already believe the
church is true? He reads the Bible every day, and said that he'd start
reading the Book of Mormon too, said that his goal is to be able to
teach from it someday. The MAN! So, long bike ride, throws about 45
minutes to an hour more onto our biking time, but for that guy, worth
it. (For y'alls information, Tebuange is North of the village labeled
Benuaroa on the map (which... no such thing as benuaroa... I think
they mean Matabou) and we live a bit south of the little port symbol.)
Anyway, glorious times, looking forward to seeing him again tomorrow!

You should be getting some more pics from me in a bit. Enjoy summer
back there, try to survive not having air conditioning, I love you
all and you're always in my prayers!
Love,
Elder Marks



Letter of August 4, 2014

Sorry, this week is going to have to be fast and short. First of all,
I love you! Second of all, ranch dressing is delicious on breadfruit!
Third of all, I wish President Weir had never told me that I was
transferring in August, it's killing me, and I still don't know
when/where I'm going! Fourth of all, Preach My Gospel is the bomb! Do
the Christlike Attributes activity at the end of chapter 6! 

Fifth of all, despite the KPC legitimately targeting the Mormon church,
attempting its destruction on Nonouti... We have a KPC deacon with a
baptismal date. :) The truth will not be stopped! No unhallowed hand
can keep this work from progressing!

Anyway, love you loads, here's hoping everything keeps going well this week!
Love,
Elder Marks

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