Texan in Tahiti

Hello my wonderful friends and family!

 

Life is pretty good here in Mahina and I have the feeling it’s really going to start picking up. Our ward is so great! We've started committing a lot of members to do missionary work and to participate and we’ve started to see the beginning fruits of it.

This past weekend was the big event celebrating 170 years since the first missionaries arrived here in Tahiti and it was so fun to go and see! There was a big cultural night on Friday where each Stake on Tahiti danced and they had a choir too. It was so fun! I saw a bunch of members and amis from Papara again so that made me so, so, so happy. Saturday night we did a little march and sang Called to Serve in the stadium which was fun and interesting. Never thought I would be doing that on my mission! Ha ha. The only bummer was that it rained Friday and Saturday night so we were soaking wet when we marched in and for the first time on my mission, I was actually cold! So bizarre.

 

The 170th anniversary dances were way cool.

 

I got to see my favorite family- Family Tauhiro and I was so happy to hear about how well they are doing and progressing. Denis has a calling in the youth and Heiranie still does her splits with the missionaries. (She is actually in America right now! She is taking a trip with her grandma and other friends to Los Angeles, Las Vegas and another city that I can’t remember) I was really touched though because when I was talking with Heiranie, she told me that she was really sad because she would be in America for 2 weeks and wouldn’t be able to take the sacrament while she’s there. I was definitely the proudest missionary EVER when she said that because I know that she is completely serious and really understands the importance of going to church! I was just like please, go tell that to all of our other amis too! Ha ha .

Other than that, Soeur Titaina found a job and Heiti is still preparing for her baptism in January. Whymea has gotten SO big and is almost walking! Ahh so crazy and so great to see my favorite family here.

 

A cool experience that we had was when we were walking to the stadium from the parking lot, there was a man walking next to us and Soeur Terooatea started to talk to him.

This was the conversation:

Sr Terooatea- “Frere, tu es membre?” (Are you a member?)

Man- “No, Je suis ami de l'eglise!” (No I’m an investigator!)

Moi- “D'ou tu viens?” (Where are you from?)

Man- “Mahina!”

Moi-  “C'est vrai?? Nous sommes les missionaires a Mahina!” (Really? We’re the missionaries in Mahina!!)

 

We got his name and number and told him we would contact him to see when we could come by. He said that it wasn’t a problem. SO Sunday we find out that the man we talked to is actually the husband of one of our amis who has never accepted the missionaries and who doesn’t want to get married with our ami, Melanie (which is the only thing that blocks her from getting baptized) We were like WHAT? So cool. Melanie was so excited too and we all freaked out together at the chapel. I’m so excited to see what happens with that!!

 

Other than that, we are on the brink of fixing 3 baptisms this week and 2 marriages with 2 of them. We are blessed here with great amis in Mahina. I’m excited for this week!

Soeur Faana got transferred today so now it’s just me and Soeur Terooatea in Mahina! Also, Soeur Carter got transferred to our zone and we now live in the same house. YAY. I’m excited for that.

 

Hope yall are doing well, I miss yall!

 

Soeur Taylor

 

Making cookies with our cute convert, Tea.  She LOVES the famous chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that I made all the time back home.

 

 

One time we stopped and contacted these people in this neighborhood but I had to stay in the car in case someone came by and needed to pass so I took a cool shot of Soeur Faana and Soeur Terooatea being great missionaries!