Texan in Tahiti

Oooookayyyy Famille WOW.

 Lots has happened.

First of all, I hope everyone had a Joyeux Noel et Oaoa i te Nohera! Because mine was the bestttttt! I got the BEST Christmas package in the world from the best family ever (which I ended up opening on the 23rd whoops) and I also got the package from the best home ward ever! Thanks a ton Cypress Ward :) I definitely felt spoiled. I did get the package opened though so that was kind of a bummer but I think I got most of everything inside. MAURUURU ROA! (Thank you so much!!)

Our Christmas trees.

BEST PACKAGE EVER!

In Tahiti, most people celebrate Christmas with a big meal on Christmas Eve and they party for the rest of the time. Needless to say , the work was a little slower, but it ended up being fine. On Christmas Eve, we spent it with DMP Scott and Hine (In Mahaiatea) and we had a big feast of ALL seafood. Y'all won't believe that I ate... lobster, sashimi (raw fish with this sauce), shrimp, oysters, clams, annnddd escargot! I decided to be courageous and try it all since I've never had most of that ever in my life.

 

Seafood!

Christmas eve dinner. It was the best!

Guess what?? IT WAS SO GOOD. Tahitians can make some good seafood, let me tell you.

Christmas day wasn't that special from any other day, but Soeur Carter made some cake and we had fun delivering cake and singing hymns for our amis. We had a faatamaraa Christmas night with a family that literally would not let us leave the table until they thought we had eaten enough. Which is A LOT. So yeah, it was pretty hard to move/ breathe for awhile because we were so full buutttt we survived. haha

Our Ami Raf and her niece Kahaia with our beautiful necklaces Raf gave us for Christmas. We just started teaching Kahaia which is super exciting - more about that later.

 

This past Saturday we had the baptism of Papi Teuira! It was so so so great to see his baptism because it's been quite an adventure with him. He's the grandfather of Soeur Mathilde and he's taken lessons in the past but has never been ready. We started teaching him again and it has been so great to see him progress. We taught him ALL in Tahitian so that was definitely an adventure but so good at the same time for practicing my Tahitian. We have to teach him pretty slowly because he wants to understand everything but I made him a notebook with summaries of each of the lessons so that he can study on his own and he has really loved that. When we started getting him ready for baptism, we found out that he didn't know or have a testimony of Thomas S. Monson. So, of course, we taught him and engaged him to pray about the living prophet. Needless to say, every time we asked him if he prayed, he would say Aita! (No) and so we would try to help him understand better the importance of the prophet. That happened literally like 5 times until we finally prayed together the lesson before his baptismal interview and he offered the prayer at the end of the lesson. He has never prayed for us before but after waiting and insisting that we wouldn't say the prayer and that he could do it- He prayed! And it was so great. He got the confirmation of the living prophet and when he bore his testimony at his baptism, a big part of it was about the prophet, Thomas S Monson. We were definitely some proud missionaries :)

 

Papi and Stacey at the baptism

Papi and us with President Lai who baptized him.

Papi did a little dance after he got baptized - So Cute.

After his baptism we went back to their house (DMP and their family live with him) and we had a big faatamaraa and he pulled out his ukulele and we sang some traditional Tahitian songs. It was FUN. I loveeeeddddd everything bit of it. 

So on Christmas Eve, we got a call for transfers and Soeur Carter is going to Tipuari (FAA'A is her zone but it's basically Papeete) and I will be staying here in Papara. The big news is that I'll be training and Soeur Green (who will finish in February) will be my companion too! We dropped off Soeur Carter last night and then Soeur Fisher and I are heading up today to pick up our trainees. So I'm training Soeur Kavera (I think that's how it's spelled) and I will be in a trio!! 

Lots of changes but I'm excited.

Soeur Fisher and I are the only newbies training so we won't get to see any of our MTC family again, but we're excited to meet our new trainees.

 

Tried to get a picture of us all but Soeur Fisher didn't quite make it. Whoops.

DMP Scott and Hine and their cute little baby girl, Olivia. They are our angels here in Tahiti.

My favorite little munchkin - Stacey

Famille Maono. They're all inactive except for the girlfriend and boyfriend of two of their kids who are amis. We teach the whole family all together and it is so great!

DMP Tchong Tai and their cute family. Soeur Carter's last Sunday in Papara.

Mami Tufariua! My favorite Mami. She's a hard ami but she just loves us so much and loves being taught. She was pretty sad when she found out Soeur Carter was getting transferred, but we got one last picture together.

Last picture with my mom, best trainer ever! I am going to miss her like crazy.

Well that's about it!

LOVE YALL et Bonne Année!! 

 

Tuahine Taylor