"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

  Here's some excerpts from the latest email we received from Collin:

So this week was fairly uneventful I guess. Everything fell through as usual, but we did have a super awesome District conference- district as in the New Caledonia district, not the elder winget district-- it's same name but different. confusing. anyway, Elder Callister (not spelled right ) came- a seventy - and it was super great. I took some good notes too. I wanted to share some stuff to you guys, but I don't have my notes with me. Next time. He also came to our Zone conference yesterday- which is why I'm writing emails on Tuesday instead of Monday. Anyway. It was super amazing and he talked about a lot of stuff that seemed like EXACTLY what I needed and I think a lot of people felt the same way. Things are going pretty well but still hard. the district is going alright. I have noticed that stuff are not going perfectly, and the work is slowing down even from where it was before-- and so everyone in the mission is slightly discouraged. I've been trying really hard to motivate everyone and stuff, and I think things are getting better. We'll be having a few baptisms in the district soon. Also we did an exchange with Borail elders while they were there - Elder Morril and Flanagan. Meh, I can't remember what happened this week. I'm sorry this week's emails are lame - I'm supposted to see president for my interview soon so I have to go back. Anyway, the week was good, the investigators are still pretty lame but Marie Jean is progressing.


I'm super scared for the economy these days... Nothing has hit here I guess. It's oblivious to live on an island. I think prices have been going up though so people have been going on strike more often.

I'm not as dedicated as I wish I was.. I'm trying a lot and we're trying really hard to improve. It's hard sometimes, but it's worth it.. I think. Actually I am seeing less success now that I'm more obedient and consecrated than when I wasn't. Ironic. Oh well.
Sorry this is lame.. I'm out of time. I love you though and keep going-- persevere to the end! (we say that in french, not endure)
Love,
Elder Winget

Grim Grinning Ghosts

Elder Winget's on Youtube!

I have been working on a DVD for Collin to see when he gets home, using all the pictures and video clips he sends us. I have been having WAY too much fun with this! I decided to post one of the videos I made to Youtube, and I posted it on the blog as well before I remembered I didn't write any kind of explanation to go with it! So... this clip is made from the pictures we got from Collin around last Halloween. I paired it with our family's favorite Halloween song "Grim Grinning Ghosts" by Barenaked Ladies. He also had some footage of some huge and nasty bugs, so I thought that fit in with the "creepy creeps with eerie eyes" parts of the song. Also, I noticed Collin had way too many pictures of him with his big mouth gaping open, so those are thrown in there as well :D So, yeah. If you like it, leave me a nice comment or something. I'm really new at this stuff, so some feedback would be appreciated.

 So, I'm sorry many of you have been having trouble viewing this blog... I can't figure out what the problem is! Blogger doesn't seem to have a place where you can ask them direct questions and get help, but I will keep trying :) Here are some excerpts from his email this past week. I hope you all can read this!

So I have something interesting to tell you - So you know how my companion is from Colorado? Well his middle name is Kimball--- Wanna know why???? Well that's because his Grandpa, PRESIDENT KIMBALL was the first president of the DENVER TEMPLE! He married you guys didn't he!?? Awesome eh!? (Yes! Rusty and I were married by President Kimball!  Not the prophet though)

This week we worked really well with the members, but not a ton of progress. On the bright side, Atiu got the Aaronic Priesthood! It's awesome to see him progress in the church.. He's like my son- who's 10 years older than me. :)

This week, not a whole lot of exciting happened.. But this Saturday we'll be having a film night- we'll be watching The Testaments. I think it will be fun. I hope all our amis come. :)

People keep asking me over and over to direct the music in everything... Word got out that I know how to sing. Dang it! They better not ask me to sing any solos at any time.

And here's a funny story from the week before:Anyway, so this week it RAINED AND RAINED AND RAINED. Like pppooourrrring rain. Buckets and buckets of rain. I saw these people's yard and it was flooded like 5 feet deep. It hurt our porte a porte, but it turned out okay. Also here's a dumb story.. So we went to this weird area and there was this weird guy who said he knew this missionary before that married his sister- and I know that missionary and I'm pretty sure that's not true. Anyway, he was telling us all these weird stories about being in a gang in Leon france or something, and then the next yard over, there was this kid who starts singing that one Raspberries song - In your heaaaad in your heaaaad zombie zombie zombie ie ie ie in your head.... etc and I'm like ha ha. and then he starts singing louder and louder and LOUDER until he is litterally SCREAAAAAAAMING this song at the TOP of his lungs! the same thing OVER AND OVER IN YOUR HHHEAEEAADD IN YOUR HEADADDD ZOMBIE ZOMBIE ZOMBIE IE IE IE IN YOUR HEAAAAD.... I was like trying soooo hard not to laugh... then this guy was like yeah, that kid is a little weird. sometimes I throw a bottle rocket over there to scare him. So that was weird.

  I am having a few problems posting more of Collin's stories today... I don't know what's up with Blogger! Maybe I will try putting it in a new post.

a Baptism!

Collin took a picture of himself sending his email this week - I think he looks good! Here's the latest news from his email:

Well there were transfers again, and so me and my compy will be doing Ducos AND VDT again! Crazy. My district was the biggest in NC, but now it's just normal size. It got up to 10 people but now it's just 7. Cool. Anyway, I started out in Paita, went to Ducos/VDT, then Just VDT, then Ducos/VDT, then just Ducos, then Ducos VDT again! Crazy!!

So I'm going to buy a Fijian Sulu - the dress-skirt things that people wear there. They don't wear them here, but I'm going to wear it when I get home for sure.

So someone this week made fun of my French-- she asked us where we're going and i was like Kaméré. then I said something about the voiture (car). She was like Oh you're going to KamERRRRRe? where's your VoituRRRRRRR?? Ha ha! Jerk! I just said have a nice day and left.

Atiu is going to be baptized this Saturday.. No, I don't get to baptize him.. It's going to be his friend Brother Turi. So it's really better that way.. I'd rather him be attached to members than to me. Lots of people here get converted to missionaries and then when they leave they go inactive. But that won't happen with him.. He's just amazing. So i'm sad i don't get to baptize him, but it's better that way anyway.

Anyway, thanks for everything.. I love you!

love,
elder winget

I hope all of you can see this blog! Some people have reported that they can't access it for some reason. I wish I was a computer expert like Collin so I could get to the bottom of this :(