"good golly goats, that is a lot of drugs" read on for more info...

  Well, here is some of Collin's email from this last week... it looks like he had an eventful week. He sure seems to run into a lot of drunk /stoned people lately... I guess it keeps life interesting!

Conference was amazing-- I loved it. I was really sad when it was over. Our amie Marie-Jean was there and she really enjoyed it. I also did my very first baptismal interview as a district leader- a candidate from Mont Dore. His name is Rodolph. - I didn't spell it right. it's like rudolph the red nosed rain deer, except for ro as in road. Anyway, he was great and I was really excited to tell him that he cleared!
Also, this last week Marie Jean was talking and she was like so I was telling my mom how I wanted to be baptized, and that I was going to be baptized soon - as if it was a matter of fact that we all knew already... Rad! We talked to her a little bit about baptism and we're going to hopefully give her a baptism date on Thursday for maybe this May. Cool, eh!?
I'll take some pictures in front of both of my apartments.. I don't take a lot of pictures anymore-- I've made a personal goal to take pictures every single week. Hopefully I can keep up with it. I'm getting bored with all the stuff that isn't mission work lately.. I don't write letters or take pictures or have fun or anything. It's getting rather stressful. But it's cool.
so this week we were walking through Montravel - the ghetto-est part of Vallee Du Tir and there were crazy people all over the place and this dude came up to me and he was like do you have any books or something to give me? And I was like um, sure. And I gave him a Le Plan du Salut (plan of salvation) brochure and he's like yeah.. Can I have like 3 more? And I'm like uh, why? And he's like yeah actually this is good.. but do you have any that are like more scary? like MORMONS - THE LAST DAYS or something? You know, something that would scare my friends into being good. I'm like uh... and he's like yeah, I am like selling drugs and stuff and so I'm trying to stop so I wanted some stuff to get me to stop. (while he's talking he has this HUGE bag in his hands) and he's like oh so this is all marijuana.. and cocaine! And I'm like oh my good golly goats that is a lot of drugs. So we pretty much just said um, peace out and ran to the car and got out of there.. It was a scary place. And so then we went to Pierre Lenquette - these tall apartment buildings in Montravel - where our branch mission leader lives; he had invited us for dinner - and this dude was passed out drunk right in front of his door!! I litterally had to step over him to knock on the door. LOL, drunk people. His wife answered the door and was like what the!?
Um, other than that one of our amis dropped us.. We went to his house for our rendez-vous and he said oh, so here. And hands us our Livre de Mormon and says i didn't read it. Thanks. Bye. And I'm like frantically uh, crap, uh.. can we do service for you or... Something???? and he's like no it's okay. And we're like uh, does that mean you don't want us to come back anymore? and he's like thanks bye. Dang. he's a nice guy. Oh well, maybe some day.


Anyway, I hope you guys noticed some of the topics ( at General Conference) that came up over and over-- go to the temple. even just touching the temple. Pay tithing. Have faith- even when it's hard. Think of your Net Faith - (I loved this one) and do all that you can to improve your faith. Study the scriptures!! Don't think about WHAT CAN CHURCH DO FOR ME? but what can I do for them!? (That's a huge one with people around here..) lots of other ones. I'm downloading a few talks to listen over agian.. i'm excited for it. I loved conference so much!!!! Now the important thing--- apply! Don't just enjoy, but apply. I'm going to work on that one as much as possible.

Well I'm going to teach a lesson tonight about the Atonement .. It will be great. I love the doctrine of the Atonement. I loved Elder Holland's talk too. Choc.

Love,
ELder wianget
- Show quoted text -

  Here's some of Collin's email from last week - sorry I've been a little slow with the blog, but I've been working on Collin's DVD and having lots of fun :) After reading this email, I looked up the island of Ouvea on Google Earth and it looks so beautiful! Wow... it would be a wonderful experience if Collin could go there to do missionary work. We'll see how that all works out.  The missionaries in New Caledonia will be watching conference a week after we do here, so we emailed Collin a list of questions from the Saturday and Sunday sessions, so he can answer them as he watches. If he gets our questions right, we will send him a prize! ( probably a box of pop tarts or ranch dressing packets) Oh, BTW - the above picture is the elders doing some service - "gratuit de lavage voitures" means "free car wash"

So, here's Collin:

Well I'll give you a rundown of this week- I can't really remember too much actually. 2 cool things though- the only member from the island of Ouvea called me the other day and said that they're trying to do missionary work and they have lots of friends that are really interested, but they need books of mormons! Also he wants missionaries- there haven't been any for like 20 years. I talked to the zone leaders and they'll talk to president i think- maybe they'll be missionaries. that would be my dream to open it up. Also there is a similar situation in Futuna - another tiny island.. they have about a dozen members over there and they're working really hard on mission work but they aren't authorized to take the sacrament or anything and there's no missionaries.. they want some really bad. i really wanna go open up over there. that would be rad. The only problem would be that I wouldn't get to see any other missionaries besides every 6 weeks for conference - that would be hard. anyway, that would be cool if i'd get to go. that probably wouldn't be for a long long time though.
Also I taught some little kids that are going to be baptized, i think. they're 7 though, so it's their parents decision really. but it would be cool anyways. also we had 2 investigators and a bunch of inactives at church yesterday. that was rad. our branch is really falling apart though.. people are going inactive right and left- i am feeling more and more like the apostles trying to keep the apostate churches together. difficult.
Oh so our Amie - Marie Jean - she prayed last week to quit smoking so she could get baptized... we haven't even really talked about baptism much with her- but I think she really wants to be baptized! We'll be talking about that this week!
Also I didn't get to do my first baptismal interview on Saturday - Robinson's guy wasn't ready. but he should be in a few weeks. also mont dore has someone who's getting baptized soon - so i'll get my first baptismal interview soon enough. :)
Oh so also we did service for this sort of less active member who lives in a squatt - she wanted us to build a little cabin thing for her vines to grow on. it was cool. i should have taken a picture of our work, but my camera was up in the car. sorry. oh well. next time i'm over there i'll take a picture of our work. anyway, we got to cut this like 20 foot square vine to pieces with machetes and cut trees down and stuff.. machetes are awesome. i want some when I get home. everyone has like 5 around here. even though we're in the middle of the city. it's rad.

Also on the LDS website there's a meetinghouse locater and all it has is Borail branch on it-- way up north. but if you look at noumea (it's just google earth) there's this big factory looking thing- that's Vallee du Tir right next to that. Then just north of that is ducos. cool, eh? I couldn't find my house though. oh well.

Oh so this crazy less active member gave me O Livro de Mormon (portuguese) and insisted it was english. So i took it and read some yesterday in honor of dad's birthday. :D

Well I gotta jet.. I'll catch you later. Love much and always.

love,
edler wianget