Texan in Tahiti

Bonjour tout le monde!

 

First of all, I would like to thank my Grandma who sent me one of the greatest packages! I really did need a lot of the things you sent me! Thank you, thank you, and thank you!!

 

Can I just say that I have never had so many people want to give us so much food EVER in my life! Man do Tahitians love food and especially to give it to missionaries. Whenever we go to dinner appointments, they LOVE it when we eat a lot. So we do. Rough life, eh?

 

This week was pretty great like every week. Remember Christian? He's read all the way to Mormon now (he started in like April) and has reread a lot of chapters too. INCREDIBLE, right? Well anyways, we had a really good lesson with him because the only thing that holds him back from getting baptized is his divorce to be finalized (normally in July) and to figure out if he wants to marry his girlfriend or to separate. We talked about goals and the importance of realizing what we want because if we're not working towards something, we're not really progressing. It was really good because he's so ready, but he just has these obstacles keeping him from progressing.

 

On Wednesday, we had a lesson with one of our amis, Fiona. She's still a pretty new ami and when we were talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the importance of making covenants and fulfilling certain ordinances on the earth so that we can return in the presence of God, she tells us, "I don’t believe we need chapels or temples or that we need to make covenants and what not to return to God. I believe that the greatest temple we have is our self." At this moment, I could've felt a lot of different things but the greatest emotion I felt was just pity. Why? Because Fiona doesn’t understand how important and sacred these covenants and ordinances are so that we can become exactly like our Heavenly Father. We testified and we hope that by reading the Book of Mormon, her opinion will change.

 

We had the blessing of doing a lot of contacting this week. I’ve actually come to love going from house to house because we meet so many interesting people with different stories. Yesterday we ran into two young girls in the neighborhood who talked with us for a little bit. We talked about the Book of Mormon and at the end, we asked them if they had any questions. Poehere (one of the girls) said, "Yeah, why don’t people accept to talk to yall and why do they reject yall?" We were like, good question- we are fun people! LOL We just told her that it was because our message is true and they aren’t ready yet to accept it. I’m excited to start the lessons with these girls.

 

Yesterday we had our baptism of Linda!! She wanted to do it at 6:00 in the morning before church at 7:30 so it was an early morning for us but TOTALLY worth it. Linda has been waiting a long time to be baptized and I was really touched by her joyous testimony of finally fulfilling her dream. We contacted her husband at the baptism and now we are going to start the lessons with him! Whoop!

 

Love all yall and I hope yall are doing well!

 

Special shout out to my incredible family who's currently having the famous family reunion in Florida! Miss yall like crazy!!!

 

Whoops forgot to add-

This week our new mission president arrives! Next Sunday we have a last and final missionary concert and that will be the last night with President Sinjoux. It seems so weird to change presidents, but I’m excited to serve under another great president, President Bise!
 

Also, I ran into Torea (my convert from Papara) by the temple and he's getting married August 1st to a member! He told me the marriage is in August but the real marriage (for all of eternity) is in January. :) It really is great to see our converts progress towards eternal life well after their baptism. So heartwarming. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soeur Taylor