Spencer Marks Kiribati Mission
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Letter from March 29, 2015

Sorry, it's going to be another short one, we're late today because
the sun just came out for a little time. [Their computer is solar-powered, apparently.]
But we have a picture! FANTASTIC week! Elder Tarati has gone, Elder Hungai is here! 
He flew in this morning. He's from Vanuatu, and is a bit shy, but also very
happy and friendly. He's going to be great, I'm excited to work with
him. I was worried about his English, but it's definitely good enough
for us to get by no problems. It's weird, though, I'm realizing as I
speak to him in English that I've been thinking in Kiribati. So it's
fun speaking English again!

So, we just heard that a tsunami is coming! Yay! :)
It's been a good week. I feel like a shout out to Brother Ormesher is
needed. All of those times coming to home teach and talking about deep
doctrine payed off! Koito, the guy who we bore great testimony to
about the Book of Mormon, has started asking question after question
after question. The kind of question where he's trying to prove that
the Bahai, his strange religion, is Christ's true religion. They
essentially believe that the Holy Ghost has possessed many prophets to
preach God's word to the earth, from Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to
Buddha, and Hindu gets in there somehow along with another one I've
never heard of. It's definitely an interesting idea, and they get a
lot of biblical stuff to make it work out. So we've talked about Adam
and Eve not having blood before the Fall, Zion coming down from
heaven, and where God lives if he really does have a body. So it's
exciting! Having a good time with it.

Anyway, that'll be it for this week, my comp's already done and
waiting for me. But I love you all! Best of luck back there! Thanks
for the prayers!

Love,

Elder Marks

PS - Radio just said that the tsunami isn't coming! Yay Kiribati. :)






Letter from March 22, 2015

So, last week first!

It was a crazy eventful week on Beru! Taiwan has a foreign aid thing
where they want to give a solar-powered light to every house in
Kiribati, and it got to Beru last week. It was crazy! We were biking
home at night, and it was LIGHT! Every house was lit up! It felt like
we were in some huge city! And then people are using them now to go
fishing at night, so you look out and night, and it looks like there's
a village on the water. We got one too! Electric lighting is an
incredible thing. :)

Got hit by a storm this week too. The great thing about Kiribati is
that it's a bunch of atolls, and waves get killed in the lagoon. You
actually see the breakers way out on the horizon, and then when it
actually gets to shore there are almost no waves. Taboiaki, the
village on the south, got hit pretty hard though, because they're
right on the edge, and thus don't have that huge shield. So there was
flooding there, all the old sea walls got broken, and some people had
to move out. No danger to life, though. I've even had emails from
friends in Fiji who say they heard we got hit pretty hard, so maybe it
was worse elsewhere, but it wasn't bad here. We're in a cement bunker
of a house, so we've got no worries.

Had a great conversation that week too! One of the moments where you
get prompted by the Spirit, but don't realize it until afterward.
(Elder Bednar has a talk on that, but I forget when.) We had taught
all of our lessons for the day, and were planning on just going to
visit random people and see if they were willing to lesson with us.
But I said, "Hey, what if we go visit Eterom?" Eterom is a former
member who went back to the KPC when he returned to Beru from Tarawa,
and is now part of the committee. He was meeting with us, but got
really busy (which usually means, "I don't actually want to meet with
you guys but my culture doesn't let me tell missionaries that. " ) But
we went to visit him anyway, and where before we always just met with
him, he sat down with us and called his wife, two kids, and aging
mother to meet with us. 

His mom is also a former member,, and she told
us that she was a member before, but hadn't ever really had a
testimony. He told her that was wrong, because he felt a miracle when
he was baptized. He said he felt light as he came out of the water. So
she asked what the difference was, and we agreed to come back and talk
about it. As we left, she said, "Who knows, maybe I'll see you at
church someday!" So that was exciting! Thank goodness for the Holy
Ghost.

So that was last week.

Then this week was also good! Found out that Elder Tarati will be
leaving next Monday, and my new companion, Elder Hangai from Vanuatu,
will be coming the same day. So that's exciting! Got a haircut, and
pretty much nobody recognized me. Everybody kept telling Elder Tarati,
"Oh, you got another new companion?" Holy crud! You'd think they knew
me better than that by now! Ah well. :P

Probably the most exciting event this week was that I got T-Boned! We
were biking home Friday night, it was dark, and all of a sudden I saw
a flash out of the corner of my eye, and BOOM! Great big pig slams
into my front tire. So, some people (Here's looking at you, Brothers
Kramer and Justus) might say I didn't get T-Boned, I got ham-boned. :)

So that was embarrassing, because one of our recent converts passed
by just as it happened, laughed their face off at me. But ah well,
such is life! :) I'm totally fine, no worries there.

This week, we got something to play music on, and my companion has a
flash drive with loads of good music. Just saying, truly good music
praising the Savior has a power to speak to the soul in a way that
normal speech has a hard time doing. Music speaks to the soul, and
it's glorious! So I've been on a tad bit of a spiritual high. Josh
Groban's Amazing Grace is AMAZING! At least it sounds like Josh
Groban.

So I'm figuring out the classes I'm going to sign up for next week.
RIDICULOUSLY exciting. :) BYU is crazy!

Anyway, I'm going to go do that now. I was going to send pictures, but
it looks like this cord isn't going to do the trick, so that'll have
to wait for next week. I love you all, hope that things are going well
back there, and I'll see y'all in three months! :)

Love,

Elder Marks




Letter from March 1, 2015

My little bros are BEASTS. No questions asked. :)  [He's responding to my letter telling 
him how awesome Justin and Greg were at Jazz Fest.  Both one first place in the district.]

It's SO GOOD to hear what's going on back home, within a week of it
actually happening! :) 

So, last week I was ridiculously rushed because I spent so much time
responding to old emails. Realized afterward that I didn't really give
you guys much more background on Beru. So here we go!
First of all, Beru is to Kiribati what Alabama is to America. Pretty
much the center of Southern culture, and when you just show up and
you're not a native speaker, you have NO IDEA what ANYBODY is saying.
It's almost like they're speaking with that Irish lilt, where they're
jumping between super high and super low and it is SO hard to follow!
The kids especially. It makes all the kids sound SUPER sassy, and I
thought, "man, if I talked to MY parents like that, it would not end
well." But now I know it's just the accent. :)

Beru is also very hot. :) It's small, and they're known for eating mud.
So guess what we did last Monday?! Yes, we drank mud. :) See pictures.
The other picture is of our state-of-the-art, no-water-waste,
zero-emissions toilet! Okay, zero-emissions might be a lie, that thing
stinks, but there it is anyway. :)

I just got an email from President! I'm going to be training again! :)
And also found out that Marakei, the island I almost went to, does NOT
have internet, so what a blessing that that got changed at the last
second! The Lord definitely looks out for us, even if we feel like
we're falling through the cracks. :)

I've been reading from Answers to Gospel Questions by Jospeh Fielding
Smith lately. So many cool things! And references to other books! I
have a reading list a mile long when I get home.

I had a GREAT experience teaching this week! We met with Koito, an
older man whose children are all members, his son actually served a
mission. Koito, however, is Bahai, a religion that believes in a
skewed version of dispensations, and actually has a prophet, who they
believe is a reincarnation of Christ. So we've been talking to him,
and talked about the Book of Mormon, praying about it in the name of
Christ, and receiving a testimony through the Holy Ghost. He disputed
the praying in the name of Christ was the correct way to pray. They do
believe in the Bible, so we went to the point in the Gospel of John
where Christ teaches his disciples to pray in His name. Ended up
getting it closed off, because my comp was worried we were getting
into Bible bashing (though it was NOT contentious at all, just a good
discussion.) 

But I got to bear my testimony. I testified that whatever
he believed about prayer (they believe in set prayers), I knew that I
had prayed to Heavenly Father in the name of Christ, and I had
received my answer. And I felt the Spirit SO strongly. It was done
with humility, and love, and MAN I love it when you can feel the
Spirit working through you! I know it testified to Koito of the truth,
whether or not he chooses to accept it. So ya. I absolutely love
testifying of the Book of Mormon. :)

Anyway, I think that was pretty much it for the week! I love you all
so much, best of luck in everything, thanks for the fasting and
prayers for me, I really felt the support from them this week!

Love,

Elder Marks


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