Show THE ui ud i I Y ISLANDS the gospel of the latter days Is finding its way to the rude homes of the natives among these islands the sixteen young men who have been chosen to bear the glad word to these remnant tribes are zealous in their search for the honest of heart here as in other fields we meet to many who are not candidates for truth but axe are content with following blind leaders the fact that protestant missionaries come here first and converted them from paganism to christianity and translated the bible argues much to a in favor of the protestant faith we elders are trying to teach them truth unfettered as found in the bible and are endeavoring to show them the path that christ had laid out since out last letter to the news we have completed a neat little meeting house and presidents quarters just outside of papette Pa peete in tautaua Fau taua the work was wai done by the elders who were on tahiti during november noted and december the building has not been ken dedicated yet the estimated value of land building and work is put at 1200 chile chie money the actual cash expended was about which was donated by the saints of islands the land upon which the building is located together with a garden deeded over to the church by a good native ame by name who is investigating cur principles the natives are not disposed to sell their land which is in very ver valuable alu able here so his gift became at once a generous one and now for the first time in the history of our work here we have a home for the elders of tahiti and a church for the saints it is in a quiet spot beneath the palm and the breadfruit tree the elders here are now resting from their manual labor and are struggling ith the language which hitherto must I 1 have been quite difficult of mastery owing to the fact that few books had been written as helps in the language elder miller spent sometime some time in preparing a hook book to aid the elders in an in g nt and logical study of the language other elders have also gotten up helps and these together with th thi i french works and english diction dictionary arv lend valuable aid to the elders while these books diligently used may be of great eyet for a speedy and com coin rr acquisition of the we have felt that no assistance could aid us so much as humility and an chiding faith in that god who sustained peter and his listeners at pentecost ost many of the elders have bean tn tn sent into the field to do full work wark clr alf i they were less than six months old ta lit the mission we frequently i erupt M pt traders and ministers of other denominations who have had long years of experience and yet do not speak tahitian so fluently as some of our elders of a year and aalfs experience this is a matter of great consolation and should be of no little encourage men to us it is said that diligence to Is always rewarded even now in an adjoining room I 1 hear alternately the voiced of elders andrus Ye attea widtsoe and eye as they wrestle with their first lessons in Tabi tian the word or sentence to is sounded by elder miller and when they attempt to give the new sounds I 1 hear a roll at of laughter brother curtis and chipman snugly tucked in the corner of another room are reading the story of the humble nazarene from the hatlan Ta bible we are all waiting for a vessel and fair wind to carry us to our various fields of labor since our last correspondence to the news we have opened up a mission in n the leeward group and have dedicated those islands to the preaching of the go gospel pel there axe are five in the group which is west and north of tahiti about one hundred and fifty miles raia Rai tea atea the natural center of the group preserved its autonomy until less than a year ago when thi the french bombarded and subjected the natives after killing some and taking captive more than a hundred previous I 1 to their conquest by the french their native laws prohibited any re legious worship except protestantism As might be expected their seizure by the french tit once annulled all of the old native laws and granted bellel religious 0 1 tolerance this the first opportunity lunn 1 for opening the field it was seized all 1 and two elders J E willey and E U crappes were sent to Rai Ra atea latest the prospects were so favorable and the time so propitious that elders curtic and kennard were sent over to aid in ib arrived from tahiti we succeeded in tracking four of the islands have baptized a number and have a number or of listeners the time is fully ripe for fbi preaching the gospel among group the one great thing that Interferes inter fei 1 with expeditious work is the poor ta fd cili ties tor for traveling those elders who are laboring in fields netted with ra railroads or good foot roads must certainly appreciate their advantages advantage sA somo some times we elders lay in a port for weeks waiting for a boat and fair I 1 wind to carry us to our fields of labor apropos to this we might mention that these voyages on small boats I 1 among the islands are the most distasteful of all the experiences some I 1 idea of the wide extent of the mission can be formed when we learn that it to la a journey of twelve days from the marquises the most northerly group of the mission to the most southerly many of the islands are so IBO that the elders get mall mail only I 1 semiannually semi annually on other islands travel is so uncertain that some of the elders have been compelled toi to wait five months for mall mail yet with all these disadvantages we are contented and feel that we have a great many advantages that are not found in other I 1 fields in the old fields the purse and scrip plan is a feasible one and may in the near futua e be so in the new fields owing to the fact that the french government discountenances it because they think it borders on vagrancy necessitates some precaution in the new fields in gentile fields we generally rent a small house when in the main city but when we are arnout out we generally have poor roads and many of the native villages must be reach reached by traveling along the seashore or by r means of the dugout dug out canoes the natives nar are generally very kind to us u for they welcome strangers from ew land to t their h e ir a shores ho res two E elders id era OU en a native village with grip in IB x occasion for wonderment only by the arrival of a circus in A country village our april cort conference ference will be held at Vak 3 aroa one of the Islan islands 15 in the Tu this group has long been ta a stronghold tor for the latter day saints the people there have a weans of ob money very easily bounteous nature has filled these waters with the valuable pearl shells during th diving seasons some of the native saint earn as much as ah a hundred dollars in a single days diving the shelly shells find a teady ready market among the traders at present there are five elders I 1 laboring in this group they are A P F smith george F despain david neff E T hatch batch and W H williana Wil Willi llanA ant chipman will take tho the first opportunity ori opi I 1 port Dort unity for joining elder hamber lain president D T miller will lie be present at inference ference cn elders A R curtis I 1 L H R william mcgregor mcie bregor grant andrus and A F Ropp leye are appointed appoint eJ to continue in the opt owning gitig of the ipei leeward ard group president miller E T tj cropper and P F T yoatta are exper expected ted to leave tor the veatral ku group this month osborne will keep vigil alone on tahiti and morea until che arrival ac val of 0 new elders from AnIeL vm we elders at tahiti spent our christmas in partap canyon above papette Pa peete by dint of much persevere ance we SU succeeded in getting gering ger ing soaked in rt a trople tropic shower plastered with mud and soine of us ducked in the river in an attempt to cross on stones we arrived at home v sit at dusk worn and taint A glorious christmas every mormon elder who has labored on tahiti of late years knows full well the bamboo hut of elder tamalii at pirae dirae it was at this fan familiar dilar spot and at his familiar board a banana leaf and in his own rude way that tamalii entertained us on new years day 1 I E WILLEY |