The End of the Beginning

This last week has been a little crazy. Last Thursday we started this new missionary schedule and got out really early in the day! It turned out super well! We contacted tons of people at bus stops and door to door and lots seemed interested in our message! 

Friday was alright but we only really got to teach 1 lesson. Later the Sister Training Leaders and Zone Leaders invited just Elder Conger and I to one of their meetings. The whole time we felt like it was some sort of trap haha. Turns out they assigned us to give a zone training on Tuesday which was a little terrifying! 

Saturday we had our first exchange! I stayed in the Ducos area with an Elder from Vanuatu, Elder Nulak, and Elder Conger went else where. Elder Nulak does not really speak English nor French very well. He has been in New Cal for a transfer less than I have! I had to do most of the talking because it was difficult just to communicate with my companion and he was brand new to the area! Probably the most terrifying thing I've done on my mission so far....up until the zone training on Tuesday haha. We scraped by. I think I surprised myself a little with my ability to speak French though!

Sunday we got to go to a fireside about all the New Cal Saints that recently got to go to the temple in New Zealand! Once a year a huge group goes down to New Zealand to do temple work! I think there is a video on LDS.org about that here...

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-03-41-new-caledonia-saints-visit-temple?lang=eng

Monday we unfortunately lost one of our investigators. They are a super catholic family that says they love reading the Book of Mormon with us and they even said they like it because it's exactly like the Bible just more clear and powerful but they still don't think its true haha. They said one day maybe they'll look more into it. A little sad but the work goes on.

Tuesday was zone training day. The whole time I was just thinking I couldn't speak French and how cruel the zone leaders were for making some white kid who hasn't even finished his training give a training in French for the whole zone haha. With all that said though it turned out ok! There is always room to improve but it was good!

So this week is probably my last week with Elder Conger :( We find out transfer details on Saturday which officially makes an end to my training! I'll let you know what happens next week!

Avec amour,

-Elder Burbank

Pics: Christmas Skype, our "Kung Fu" themed zone training and this weird Dragon Fruit we ate.

Zone Conference

This week has been really good! Last P-day, the district got together to practice for the zone talent show for zone conference on Monday and Tuesday. I wrote this parody on "Skyfall" based on the VPVM (Vanuatu Port Vila Mission) which was pretty funny. I think President got a good laugh out of it. 

Last Thursday the weather was a little insane. We left the apartment early to go teach an investigator and the wind was blowing at 40 mph with rain pelting down. Elder Conger and I got sufficiently soaked. To add to the bad weather, all our lessons fell through so it was a little rough. 

Friday we decided to go to a really far part of our area that's up on top of a mountain. Took a bus or two and some walking but I worked out well! We got to contact a lot of people. Everyone up on the mountain seem so much nicer haha.

Saturday was a little rough to start out but it turned out ok. Right as we were heading back in to our apartment a member of the bishopric Frere Ulivaka called us up and had us come over for dinner! They even had a non member that we could share a message with there too! The non member is actually his daughters boyfriend haha. The daughter Cindy served in Tennessee with Avery oddly enough and was curious about the wedding haha. 

Sunday we had an investigator come to church again which is awesome! Really looking forward to seeing if they really start progressing! 

Monday was the first day of zone conference!! We got to watch the new missionary broadcast that they had a few weeks ago. There are some new changes for missionaries with the daily schedules and such! Really cool to see! It was also really great to see president and his wife again! They are always awesome with their trainings and such! 

Tuesday we finished up zone conference and it was great! I think we all learned tons of stuff and the work should really pick up! For lunch we also went up to the top of this mountain which has an awesome view of different parts of Noumea pics below! Till next week!

Avec amour,

-Elder Burbank

Famille Hanna Farewell

Another great week here in New Cal. Last P-day we went downtown as a district to the WW2 museum which was fun! The lady at the front desk of the museum (who runs it apparently) loves missionaries. As a district, we had a prayer and a mini lesson with her right then and there haha. We left her with a Book of Mormon that we all wrote our testimonies in which was awesome! 

Thursday we had a lesson with the a recent convert family. It was pretty hilarious though because there were workers just outside their house with weed wackers blaring away. We literally had to shout the hymns we sang and practically scream across the tiny table we were sitting at just to hear each other. 

Friday we had a lesson with one of our best investigators! She's working towards getting baptized on March 4th which is right after transfers so we'll see if I'll be here for that. Friday night we had a ward party for the Hanna Family! They left just yesterday back to the States. They have been a huuuge help for missionary work here in the Ducos ward! Huge thank you to them!!

Saturday we went contacting with a ward missionary into areas that we normally don't get to go to. The Ducos area is pretty big and without a car is can be hard to get everywhere so the members are a huge help!

For Church on Sundays now we have two new elders coming: Elder Walton from my MTC district :) and Elder Darche who is from Montreal! That's 8 missionaries total just in the ward of Ducos haha. They don't actually live in our ward boundaries but there is some complications for them to get to there own ward. There is this area of New Cal that has a big problem with tribal violence and such and sometimes the highways get shutdown and they steal peoples cars and burn them...so yeah. President said they can't travel across that area now so they're stuck with us haha.

Monday we had our final farewell.... just Elder Conger and I with the Hanna Family at this suuuper good restaurant owned by members. We all got these massive cheeseburgers that were just about the size of a plate haha. Super good stuff. 

Yesterday it was pouring rain all day. We tried to defend ourselves with umbrellas but to no avail! In the evening we showed up to my first ward counsel soaking wet haha. Good times. Hope everything is going great at home! And that snow at home looks insane! Till next week!

Avec amour,

-Elder Burbank

Miracle Baguette

Another great week here in New Cal! Last Pday Elder Conger and I basically just stayed in for most of the day. I took a much needed nap and such. We also got to visit and nice less active family in the evening which went great. They like having the missionaries over but we were not sure why they don't come to church!

Thursday- we had lots of great lessons with some investigators. One of our investigators, Heirani,  recently got back from a long trip to Tahiti so we are starting to teach her again! She even came to church this last Sunday which is great to see! 

Friday- a super nice lady who was visiting from Mont Dore was just casually studying the bible in a park and she called us over as we were walking by. She wanted us to help her understand the Bible and such. She kept saying how thankful she was for missionaries even though she was recently baptized Evangelical! She said she was really interested in the Book of Mormon and really liked some of the scripture in it! 

Saturday- we went out with one of our ward missionaries which was a huge blessing. Our area is one of the biggest in Noumea and having a member with a car makes it super productive! We got to visit a ton of investigators and less actives. We even found a new investigator who was a referral! 

Sunday- was good as always! We had 2 investigators come to church which was great! First time since I've been in Ducos!  

Monday- we had a lesson with one of our new investigators named Michel and his wife. They have a big family and they're super nice! He recently got back from a catholic mission in North New Cal which was cool to hear about! Even though he's a practicing Catholic he's still super open to our discussions. We shared 3 Nephi 11 with him and his wife and they loved it! Also, when we were heading home for some reason we felt like we needed to stop by the market and buy a baguette! We needed to give out one more Book of Mormon to meet our goal for the day so we thought we came up short but when we were leaving the bakery there was a guy who we normally see at the market every time but this time he came up and talked to us! He was really curious what we believed and such and we gave him a Book of Mormon! Cool stuff! Till next week!

Avec amour,

-Elder Burbank

Pic: Huge cliff into the ocean

First Transfer

Its been a while! The mediatheque didnt give us a heads up like normal so we couldnt make other plans to email last pday :( Anyways these last two weeks have been pretty good! Two P-days ago Elder Conger and I got to head into downtown Noumea with Elder Tauotaha and Mariteragi who were on exchanges and we got to go shopping. I got a cool Kanaky sulu in the pics below. 

We have also been finding lots of new investigators recently! Just in the last 2 weeks we have 3 new investigators who seem pretty promising! The work has been a little slow here in Ducos but its definitely looking up!

Back on the Thirteenth was Elder Congers birthday! For lunch we went out to this really nice sushi place which was crazy expensive but it tasted sooo good! I only got like 3 tiny roles because it was so expensive but it was worth it non the less. For dinner we made another whole chicken in the oven which was also super good.  

Last Sunday was Elder Tauotaha's last day on his mission :(((( He flew back to Tahiti the next morning which was super sad. For transfers we got 2 new Elders in the district! Elder Claveau (from Tahiti) whose training a brand new Elder from Vanuatu, Elder Nulak. Elder Nulak doesnt speak a whole lot of French or English so he doesnt even have a way to communicate with his trainer which is crazy but hes a cool guy. 

Last Friday we had a cool experience too. The whole day was just super slow and nobody answered all day long but right as we were going to head in we felt the need to just stop by some apartments to place a poster for an English class. We weren't really planning on it and it turns out the poster got ripped down super quick anyways but when we headed over to the apartments there was a guy who was just waiting in his car and as we walked by he got out and started asking a bunch of questions about the church and such and we gave him Book of Mormon and he seems interested! Cool experiences! 

Avec amour,

-Elder Burbank

Pack of Dogs Following Us?

Another solid week with tons of crazy weather. Last P-day we had our first district activity which was a sports day at the chapel which was really fun. Lots of basketball football and ping pong etc and we all managed to get sun burned pretty bad. 

Thursday I went downtown to get my "Carte de Sejour" which is just temporary residence papers similar to a visa. It was also insanely hot as well. The hottest day of the year I'm sure and it even rained a little so the humidity was also insane. We somehow managed to sweat more by not moving!

Friday we managed collect a pack of like 5 dogs who would not stop following us. They even followed us into a corner store and we had to explain to the owner the situation haha. To get rid of them we had to climb to the top floor of an apartment building, walk to the opposite side and take a different stairwell down out of sight of the dogs. It was ridiculous. Another crazy hot day as well.

Saturday we had a lesson with our only investigator on date for baptism named Laurant. He asked us tons and tons of questions and the lesson took like 90 minutes. 

Sunday we got to go to this farewell dinner that some members in our ward put on for Elder Tauotaha who is in our district who is going home back to Tahiti this transfer! Its gonna be sad to see him go but the mission life goes on. It was probably the best food I've had since being here. Crazy good. 

Monday it was pouring rain all day. When it rains here in New Cal the whole country seems to shut down. No one ever goes out side and no one wants to do anything which kinda makes it hard for us. Also two soaking wet white guys isn't the most appealing thing to let into your home I suppose haha. We even ran into one guy in this apartment building who stopped and talked to us for 45 minutes straight about how we were not following the holy ghost because we were proselyting in the rain. He liked what we were doing as missionaries but he told us to wait till the sun comes out again haha. 

Tuesday we had a great district meeting. The last one with Elder Tauotaha ); Also two Elders from our district, Elder Gray and Ursenbach are leaving to Ouvea to teach for 4 days! Ouvea is one of the outer islands that only has an annex of church members. Whenever someone out there wants to get baptized president will fly a companionship out there to teach and baptize them. Crazy stuff. Till next week!

Avec amour,

-Elder Burbank

Pics: Views from the chapel right across the street from the regional airport; The casual burnt minivan that wasn't burnt like that 4 days ago and a van chopped in half.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

These last two weeks have been pretty great! Over Christmas both zones on New Cal met up and we had an awesome Christmas party with lots of sports and singing and such. For some reason they made every Canadian missionary get up and sing and I was dragged into it. Just 4 of us had to sing "As Sisters in Zion" in French haha. Missionary work over the holidays has been a little tough since a lot of people are drunk or not at home.... but we do our best! New Years Day Elder Conger and I had to stay in the apartment the whole time. For some reason this lady gave us 2 frozen chickens so we made one for our New Years dinner :). We also have many stories with drunk people on the streets. For example, this one guy told us that his shadow was satan and he kept trying to fight his shadow haha. Just this last Monday it turns out one of our "potential investigators" was actually a Jehovahs Witness so she went on and on trying to disprove things we believed in with scriptures that made no sense haha. Still trying to work on the French! I feel like I can understand people better now after being here for almost a month but the speaking side of things is still tough. Talk to you next week!

Avec amour,

-Elder Burbank

Found this locust the size of my hand! I'll hopefully get more pictures next week.

 Chicken Dinner