November 2, 2015
Ia ora na tatou!
Eaha ta outou huru? Maitai? Maitai!
So this past week was pretty great! We got blessed in
gaining 4 NEW AMIS, and a lot of other lecons.
One evening when we were doing porte a porte we came
upon a quartier (neighborhood) and we decided to stop at one of the houses
farther in. We met Nelli and Mana (his name means power in Tahitian). They have
been together for about 5 years, but aren't married. Nelli is in the process of
studying with the Temoin Jehovahs, but had a big question regarding their
teachings. Mana is protestant but isn't baptized into the church. AND THEY ARE
SO CUTE AND ARE SO POTENTIAL! Soeur Hillier forgot her brochures in the car,
but I remembered I had the "The Family: A Proclamation to the World"
brochure in my bag. We got to know them, and they seemed really interested. Fun
fact: they thought I was from France because of my accent haha. I started to
tell them how the church was centered around Jesus Christ and His gospel, but
that also the family is the other most important part within the church.
AND...just wait...I told them that the families within the church have to
opportunity to see each other again after this life, and that families can be
eternal. When I told them that their faces instantly changed, and I knew right
then that the Spirit had just testified to them that what I said was true.
After that they started asking more questions and asked if they could have the brochure
without us offering it to them first. They didn't accept the lecons, BUT they
did say that they would like to read the brochure and call us after they
finished to tell us if they wanted to take the lecons after. THEY WERE SO
AWESOME and SO NICE! I'm praying that they eventually accept the lecons,
because they both agreed that they would love for their family to be eternal.
We have been teaching a famille, le famille TEAVAE for a
while, and our Bishop and his wife were talking to us about how ready they
think Titaina (le maman) and Tema (le fils) are ready for bapteme.....you don't
say...we were thinking the exact same thing!! So this coming Friday we have a
Faatamaaraa with them and Bishop and his wife, and we are praying that what the
Spirit directs us to say and what we have planned will help us in engaging them
to be baptized!!
CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE! CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION
PLEASE! Will the Va'a racers of Hawaiki Nu'i please stand up!
That's right! Hawaiki Nu'i is this week and it's gonna be
huge!!!! It's this big Va'a (outrigger canoe) race full of a ton of club
teams and single racers that race from Huahine to Raiatea to Tahaa and finally
to Bora Bora. This past week en ville was getting ready for all the vendors,
racers, and va'as that would be coming into Huahine. It's so cool. We saw so
many racers come in today and have their big "weigh your outrigger
canoe" event before the official race starts early Wednesday morning.
I don't really know how else I can describe the race, but the 3 big events that
happen in Polynesia Francais that everyone loves is the Beach Soccer World
Cup, Hawaiki Nu'i, and the Heva.
We don't have that many lecons scheduled for the next few
days a cause de Hawaiki Nu'i because all of our amis and most of our members
have to work it, so that is giving us some time to tract other quartiers that
we discovered this past week!
This past Sunday was fast and testimony meeting in
Sainte-Cene, and right as we were about to begin our service an entire team of
12 Va'a racers came into the chapel and sat down right behind me and Soeur
Hillier. None of them were wearing church clothes, but it strengthened my
testimony in the power of faith; that those racers, even though they were away
from their home paroisse, still wanted to find one of the chapels and have the
opportunity to partake of the sacrament and that they still wanted to spend
their sunday here like they would back in Tahiti and not make the race an
excuse. We come to find out that they are the Tiapa va'a club from
the Paea stake in Tahiti, AND out of the 12 racers that came only 5 were
members and 7 were NON-MEMBERS! It was so cool!
One last fun fact: So this week is supposed to be the next
big former transfer pour les nouveaux missionaires qui ont besoin d'arriver de
Provo ce soir mais they're departure date from the MTC has been bumped back TWO
weeks, because they are now making it a requirement that the Tahitian
missionaries need to have 2 WEEKS of LEARNING TAHITIAN before they come out
here now. SO now the Tahitian missionaries (from what President Bize told us)
will be in the MTC for 8 weeks instead of 6 or 12 weeks. which means the next
former (training) transfer will be in 2 weeks. I'm glad they're letting the
new missionaries get some background on the language before they come out here.
This past week was super fun, and I'm being blessed petit a
petit avec le don du langue chaque jour. Ua here au te evanelia e aita vau ite
ou je serais aujourd'hui without it! I hope y'all enjoy that trilingual
phrase I just put there.
Ua here au ia outou! May this week be full of smiles and
hopefully not too much crazy weather and heartbreaking football games :)
Jusqu'au semaine prochain!
Tuahine/Soeur McKenzie Morrill :)
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