Friday, September 19, 2014

Bonjour tout le monde!
Today was the best Pday (Preparation Day) ever!!! Why? Because we went out to the Motu (little island) in the lagoon of Tahiti. So our mission president is the best ever and said that we could go on a boat if we had life jackets, distress signals, and if we stayed in the lagoon. So we organized a little trip with some members and investigators and we went to go hang out on the Motu!
It was the first Pday with Soeur Spackman (she got here last week) and so we all told her that she was incredibly lucky to have spent her 1st ever pday at Tahiti on the Motu :)
We didn’t go in the water, but it was way fun to just hang out on the beach anyways :)
Heading out to the Motu.



Soeur Teinauri was clenching the rope because she was terrified.

Other than our wonderful Pday, this past week went really well! I’ve been loving working with Soeur Ntsiete. The ward is going really well and we've been getting more and more member references! (Over all, it’s only like a few the past 2 weeks but hey, that’s a lot!) With almost every member reference we get, the investigator ends up getting baptized. Why? Because they've all been prepared by members! It’s incredible how effective member missionary work is. The full-time missionaries really couldn’t do it without the members, that is for sure!
A SUPER cool experience we had this past week was Tuesday when we went to go and see our investigator- Margarita. She's been taking the lessons ever since I've been here in Mahina (I was there for her 2nd lesson) and she really has been someone prepared. She knows that the Book of Mormon is true and we've already committed her to baptism but she hesitates because her whole family is Catholic and she has a lot of respect for her grandparents who baptized her Catholic. We've been working with her and she's had so many incredible experiences. I’m just waiting for the day when she tells us that she’s ready. And I know that it’s close! We had a great lesson Tuesday, committed her to continue reading in Moroni with the chapter 7, and we fixed the next lesson for this coming Tuesday (at first she wanted to fix it for 2 weeks later). The NEXT MORNING, she calls us up and tells us that she’s reading and she wants us to come and help her understand better. We went and had a great lesson and while she was expressing how she felt, she told us that during the whole chapter, she thought of me! I was a little surprised and then she read verse 29-

 " And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men."
Then she said something that I will NEVER forget.
"The children of men = Me (Margarita) and the angels- that’s you Soeur Taylor"
Woah.... I was so baffled when she told me that- I had no idea how to respond.
After, she shared verse 34 -

" And he hath said: Repent all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, and have faith in me, that ye may be saved."
She told us that she realized that because he said to repent before being baptized, it was not right to baptize babies because they weren’t capable of sin . We were like- YES, that’s EXACTLY right.
We all knew that she understood the truth there and I pray that soon she'll announce that she's ready to be baptized despite her huge Catholic family.
We told her to keep reading with Chapter 8 (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/moro/8?lang=eng)  which talks all about infant baptism.
This Saturday, we have our 2 baptisms of Mihirangi and Eric.
Eric is our incredible investigator who is progressing SO much! Our first lesson with him was August 26th and he'll be baptized this Saturday- the 20th of September. He wanted to be baptized this past Saturday, but we decided that it was better to keep the 20th.
Seriously- our investigators are golden.
I love them.
Other than that, we've been really practicing our Tahitian with our new investigator Sonia who lives with an inactive, Emanuel who only speaks Tahitian. Sonia is a cute little Mami who has a hard time focusing in our lessons but we love her anyways. I’ve really seen the power of the gift of tongues though because without a Tahitian companion, I’ve really had to rely on the Spirit to be able to communicate and teach.
I love it.
Well that’s about it- I hope yall enjoy a TON of pictures today :)
More pictures of our day on the Motu.




The beach is made up of coral.

We found a lot of creepy crawly friends.

Our food! Fish, Uru (breadfruit), beans and canned beef.


And of course, coconut.

Hina-ora and Ohana - we're besties.

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She's the cutest, right?!



Love yall!

Soeur Taylor 

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