Io ora ona everyone!!!!
This week has been eventful but not as hectic as last
week!
Starting this week we are teaching two
investigators in Tahitian, completely off script, with only a few notes to help
us teach. We taught our first off script lesson yesterday, and it went really
rough but it was still a lot of fun. We taught an "investigator"
named Ginette. We started to teach her about the importance of families and how
Heavenly Father loves all of us and wants us all to return to Him. BUT during
the lesson (which was outside because we couldnt use any of the other rooms
anymore because new mission presidents came in yesterday and took them all) two
fire alarms started to go off and it really distracted us from the
lesson...even Ginette was frustrated, and the spirit got taken away from the
lesson. Even though it was frustrating my companion and I both realized that
that was just practice for street contacting in Tahiti. There are gonna be all
types of distractions to keep us from concentrating on giving a lesson, but we
just have to go with it and pray that the spirit is there to help us.
Earlier this week we discovered that
the first investigator we taught, Vetea, is actually one of our teachers. He
walked into our classroom before we were supposed to teach him and and said
"How's it gong everyone?" ......EVERYONE flipped out. We had no
idea. His actual name is Orometua (brother) Hapairai and he is the only one in
his family of 7 kids (the youngest) i think who is still active in the church,
and he plays the role of his brother in law Vetea who has been learning about
the church for a while.
We also got to "attend" Elder
L. Tom Perry's funeral by watching it in the gym. They cancelled some afternoon
classes so all of the missionaries could attend. As usual you'd expect a
funeral to be solemn (I think that's the right word), but what I love about my
faith is that we focus more on our life after death and the great work we will
do in the Varua Ao (Spirit world) and the fact that families can be together
for eternity!
Later on this week one evening after
dinner one of our sisters in our district Sister Stone got really sick all of a
sudden and needed to go to the clinic. Before, though, all of the elders had a
strong impression that she should be given a blessing. So all of us sisters and
elders went into our little classroom and one of district leaders (Elder
Garff....the one who has a cousin serving in Bama right now and one of the two
Ute fans in our district.....) gave her one of the most beautiful blessings of
healing and comfort I have ever heard. The spirit was so strong and having all
of us in there during the blessing to support Sister Stone made the feeling of
unity within our district even stronger.
On another side of the MTC:
DAD you will be happy to know that I
have been starting to work out now WITHOUT my brace and all is well....and I've
been shining up my layups, free-throws, and 3 pointers #backatit I didn't
forget those 10 years of training dad! :)
And another cool fact...so one of the
elders who was playing basketball around the same time I was is gonna play for
Gonzaga when he comes back...he just left monday for his mission in Lyon,
France...Elder Wade.
Oh and last night my companion Sister
Olson and one of the other sisters in our district Sister Thornock were both
drying their hair after showering in our room and they blew the circuit
hahahaha. We all had to go to the big grey electrical box to figure out how to
reset it for our room....turns out we reset it for a couple more rooms too...we
heard girls screaming down the hall because the lights in their room went
out...oops hahaha!
Temple Time:
So every Tuesday (my Pday) we get the awesome
opportunity to go to the Temple! Our district is originally assigned to
go to the 8:20 am session i think, but for some reason this morning we decided
to go to the 7:00 am session. And as we were walking up the long walk way of to
the temple this older woman came walking across and saw us. she said "you
missionaries are so awesome and diligent to get up this early to attend such an
amazing place. Will you please help me and do some temple work for some of my
family?" THAT WAS SERIOUSLY one of the coolest experiences I have had so
far while out here at the MTC. Of all the P-day mornings we decided to go to an
earlier session at the temple, and we got to help out a woman do work for her
family. I could feel the spirit so strong when she came up to us..it's as if He
was saying to me "This woman has been waiting and praying for so long to
have missionaries help her do work." and as if i was being yelled at in my
mind that voice in my head said "Don't let her down." Going
through the temple now is such a cool experience, but it seemed even cooler
today, because we were able to help out someone who has been waiting for her
prayers to be answered. I can't describe the overwhelming feeling of peace and
love I had for that woman. She was so determined to help out those from her
family on the other side, that couldn't do those ordinances for themselves
while they were here on earth, that she was willing to stop anyone on their way
inside the temple and ask them to help.
i have so much love for the plan of
salvation and the knowledge i have of it, that i seriously can't wait to start
my tuesday mornings off with the temple. So our entire district decided instead
of going to our normal temple time...we would make the sacrifice and go to the
7:00 am session every tuesday until we leave!! Oh and if you all want I urge
you to read Alma 34...It gives such a cool explanation about the plan of
salvation, and it's making me excited and eager to learn more.
One last story (which is super amazing and cool and
fantastic)
This past Tuesday we had Elder D. Todd
Christofferson (who is a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles) come to our
evening devotional. He answered so many questions about missionary work that
made me feel more at peace while I am here. I wish I had written down more that
I could share with all of you :( But it was also a different side of
Christofferson...he was not his usual talkative and high energy self when he
talks at General Conference, no..he was different. He was struggling, because
he was still pretty sad from hearing about Elder L. Tom Perry's passing. He did
tell us that L. Tom Perry was more technologically advanced than all of the 12
which was funny to hear and that Perry called Bednar, Anderson, Cook,
Christofferson, and Holland "The Five Little Boys" because he was so
much older than him. And i never realized how tall Perry was....6 foot 4!! Wow
that's tall for a man I didn't think was that tall haha.
This past sunday too we had our
devotional with President & Sister Tanner, who are going to be presidents
of BYU Hawaii. They urged the importance of going to the temple as much as you
can and President Tanner said "The Temple is the Lord's first MTC. You
must have been given the same ordinances to enter the MTC as you must have to
enter the Temple. Remember the importance of your temple covenants and strive
to live by them everyday for the rest of your life."
One more AWESOME STORY:
Sister James (one of the other
sisters in my district) and I met Elder Andrus...Ryan Andrus. We basically
exclaimed we were big fans of him and BYU basketball hahaha! He left for
Philadelphia yesterday afternoon, but we got to get to know him for a good
amount of time Sunday evening after the devotional. He's super humble and was
really excited to hear about where we were going. His companion told us that
they can never get to anything on time, because everyone wants to stop and talk
to Elder Andrus hahaha. So that was really cool #fangirlmoment GO COUGS!
Anyway...I think that's all for now! I hope you all are
having a great start to the summer. I miss you all, but I couldn't be more
happy with what I am doing right now. The MTC is hard, and there are some days
I just want to cry and sleep, but then I remember the investigators in Tahiti
and realize that I was called to serve there for a reason...."wake up
McKenzie! This isn't just all of about you." I love the language, and
singing in Tahitian is so much more beautiful than anything I have ever heard.
Sunday after one of our classes our Tahitian district, the Samoan, Tongan, and
Fiji districts all gathered in one of the big open halls in our building of 4M
and sang Tongan and Samoan hymns that were written in those languages that
can't be translated to English (because it would lose its meaning) It was so
beautiful. I wish I had filmed all of us singing to send to you all of you to
see what a great experience it was. Next time I'll try and film us
singing!
Just about 3-4 more weeks of Tahitian and then it's on to
French!
I love you all and wish every one the best!
Much love,
Tuahine/Soeur/Sister Morrill :)
p.s i hope everyone can get the pictures i send!
p.p.s Oh and my companion and I were studying the Plan of
Salvation in Tahitian one day during language study in an open room and this
older man walks in and told us that he served in Tahiti a loooooooong time ago
and tried to help us out. He was also the mission president for the Switzerland
mission annnnnnnnnddddd is going to be the NEW AREA 70 for the MOSCOW, RUSSIA
area.....I'm kicking myself because i can't remember his name but HOW
COOL!!
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