Bonjour all!!!
I hope all is well with everyone!!
So I have just finished another week here in Huahine and
it's been pretty great! And I've been able to meet more of the ward members.
One cool thing that I am able to do here: so the ward Soeur
Spackman and I go to is the Fare ward, and they have a piano, but NO ONE in that
ward knows how to play the PIANO....so of course when they saw a fresh
very white face they asked me "tu joue au piano?" And later on Soeur
Spackman told me that they have gone a long time without actual piano music
during the sacrament service....soooooo I get the opportunity to bring music
back into that ward on sundays by playing the piano for all the songs. When I
was little I wanted to quit piano so bad but of course my mom never let me
quit....and now I'm thankful for that. I'm glad that I am able to share my
talent while on my mission and make their sacrament services more enjoyable now
on sundays.
We had a lesson this week with an amis named Hinerava. She
is so sweet and lives with all of her family. But the day we were teaching her
we were supposed to go over 3 Nephi 11 which talks about when Christ shows
himself to the people of the Americas. However, when we got to the lesson she
told us she was having a rough day, because her cat who was really old was
probably going to die that day. And for all who know me...I love cats, and it
hurt my heart to see her so sad. And in the middle of our lesson she goes to
check on her cat, but when she came back she said "Il est mort," (He
died). Hinerava wanted to continue with the lesson to keep her mind occupied,
and as she was trying to read her favorite verses from that reading she
couldn't see because she was crying so hard. SOOO naturally when I see someone
start crying I start to cry so that's what I did. And Soeur Spackman told me
that that was the time I could use to share a personal experience about one of
my pets, because she never experienced the death of a pet before. So, with
tears in my eyes I told her about one of my cats my family had when I was
younger, Clancy, and I was crushed when she died, but I knew she was old and
she was no longer in pain. I told Hinerava that our Heavenly Father has a plan
for all of us (in very broken up French), and we may not know why certain
things happen, but I know it's for a reason that will help that person or animal
later on in the after life. She was so cute, and she later told us that she
felt comforted by the simple testimony I gave. Our lesson did not go as planned
at all, but that's always expected in the field. Our lesson was supposed to be
30 minutes later than when we actually showed up, and both Soeur Spackman and I
believe it was the Spirit telling us "don't worry about being early.
Hinerava needs you right now."
We have another amis whose name is Elie, and she lives up in
the mountain and she's an older Tahitian Mami, so naturally Tahitian is her
preferred language. We started to read Moroni 6 with her which talks about some
of the purpose of church members and the importance of going to church is, but
2 verses in she stops us and says "Je suis fiu," (I am done). She
then explains to us that she loves the spirit we bring when we teach her the
lessons, but she is frustrated because she can't understand what we are
teaching in French, but she understands better in Tahitian. She is one of the
reasons we want to keep up with Tahitian, because there are older amis on the
island who would love to hear the message we have, but they are hesitant to
accept the missionaries, because most of them only speak French and have lost
what Tahitian they learned at the beginning of their mission. So the rest of
the lesson I taught her the best I could in Tahitian and Soeur Spackman taught
a little in French but also Tahitian. We invited her to church, but she said
she couldn't because she can't go to her church (Protestant) and then go to
our, because she's afraid of the judgment she will get from the people at her
church when they see her going to "that Mormon church." It's
frustrating that our amis don't want to come to church because they're afraid
of judgment, but it only means Soeur Spackman and I work harder to let her know
that there is nothing to be afraid of and the judgments from her friends are
worth nothing in the eyes of Heavenly Father.
So fun fact: since i'm a new missionary in Fare I have to
introduce myself a lot. So basically I simply tell them that I'm from Alabama
which is in the southern part of the United States and that fried chicken is
very popular there, because who would have guessed....they eat fried chicken
here too hahaha. So when I said that all the members thought that fried chicken
was my favorite meal, and every faatamaaraa (meal) we had with members since
I've been here they've made fried chicken haha. It's not my ultimate favorite
food when i'm in the states but it is my favorite food here, because it's the
most familiar food to me here.
And we also have 2 BAPTISMS coming up this Saturday.
Martine and Simeon are getting married on Friday and then Martine is getting
baptized on Saturday, and Stanley is hopefully getting baptized Saturday too!!
IT'S SO EXCITING!!! Both of our amis are so ready, and can't contain my
happiness.
So today is also my pday and Soeur Spackman and I, and Elder
Toame and Elder Tama went to a non-members land and they taught us HOW TO
MAKE......VANILLA!! Basically how you join the pollen of the plant with the
other part of the plant to make the vanilla stalk.
After the vanilla lesson we went with an amis family, the
Famille Teavae to collect shells on the beach. The dad, Tama, has an old old
beat up jeep that we were able to take to go farther down the beach when not
many people go to search for shells. and the beaches on Huahine is sand but
most of the beach is covered now with pieces of coral and rock that have been
dragged in from the ocean. It was beautiful, and thankfully it was a little
cloudy for a bit, but then the sun decided to show its face and who would have
guessed it....I got FRIED. Like I'm not even kidding. My knees, my arms, my
face, my neck are red red red....but not my shins which is weird haha.
A few days ago we also got the opportunity to have a mission
conference. We had Elder Pearson who is an area 70 for the South Pacific
Islands and Elder Rollins who is a member of the Quorum of the 70 come and
speak to all the missionaries. They had the mission conference in Papeete, so
we weren't able to be there in person and it would have been too expensive and
pointless to fly us back in for a day SO we watched it through live video
transmission. The entire mission conference was centered around being obedient
and our ability to receive blessings when we obey the white missionary
handbook. Elder Rollins also spoke about the Gift of the Spirit and how
all of us have the gift, but AFTER we are baptized we are endowed with a more
"amped" up version of the Gift of the Spirit.
My favorite quote from Elder Rollins: "like fireflies,
light goes unappreciated without a dark backdrop."
One of my favorite lessons we had at the end of the week was
with an amis named Maire. She is so ready for baptism and she loves the
lessons, and we had planned to teach her about baptism and the gift of the Holy
Ghost that day, but she was so sick. Bless her heart she felt miserable, but we
were more than welcome to come back the next day, but as we were rescheduling
the lesson with her she asked what the lesson was about..."bapteme and le
don du Saint-Esprit," we said. She then said "oooh..venez venez. oui
je sais je suis malade mais je veut cette lecon." So we went inside to
begin teaching but we ended up rescheduling because she was still so sick. How
amazing she is, because no matter how sick she was she still wanted to hear
about baptism. She wants to be baptized, but she wants her daughters to start
taking the lessons too. We also explained to her that the power of prayer is
amazing and we invited her to pray for her daughters that they may soon accept
the lessons.
There as been so much that has happened now that I have
entered the field. I'm getting better at understanding the language(s) but now
that I hear actual natives speaking it's kinda made me a little discouraged but
Soeur Spackman told me that the first 3-4 months in the field is gonna be like
that, so I just gotta keep doing what I'm doing and it'll come. The Christ like
attribute of Patience is such a big thing to work on while in the field.
I don't have much time left, but I will also send more
pictures. I hope everyone can see them, and if you can't just let me know and
I'll will try and fix that.
Good luck to everyone who starts classes or who have already
started classes back home. It'll be great!!
Ua here au ia outou!!
Tuahine/Soeur/Sister McKenzie Morrill :)
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