Texan in Tahiti

Hello Everybody!

This past week went by fast! It was a good week though because we had so many great experiences with our new member missionary, Mami Teura! We're besties because she taught me how to basket weave and now, she comes with us all the time for our lessons! She's so cute because she told us that she's always wanted to go with the missionaries but she never wanted to ask them to come and pick her up for the lessons. We were so touched and happy because she is actually a convert of only 10 or so years so her story is very powerful for a lot of our stubborn investigators who don't want to change religions even if they know it's true.

On Saturday we went to go see one of our new investigators. Her name is Linda and she lives with a less active member. They aren't married and she became our new investigator when they were invited to come to a temple activity by a family in our ward. She is Protestant and she's already asked us a lot of questions about why we have to be baptized again because she feels like it was sufficient when she was baptized. We were happy to have Mami there because she was Protestant (and very active) before she converted. Right from the beginning they were both really happy to meet Mami and when Mami started talking to introduce herself and talk about how happy she was to be a member, Linda just started bursting into tears. I had no idea why or what caused her to cry, but I knew that the Spirit was very strong during the lesson. When Linda was able to talk, she told us that Mami looks JUST like her mother who passed away a few years ago. Mami helped calm her down and we were then able to teach the Restoration with the story of Joseph Smith. She was really touched and to top it all off, Mami shared her conversion story which had a really powerful impact on Linda. Basically- IT WAS AWESOME. Members are the best. Especially when they're my adopted Tahitian grandmothers :)

Remember Margarita? Well we had a few great lessons again with her this week, especially Friday. Remember how we committed her to read Chapter 8 In Moroni? WELL SHE DID. She told us she read it over and over again because she loved it so much. After a very long time, she finally got a complete answer to her question about infant baptism. She always knew that it didn't make sense and when she read this chapter which said that infants were innocent and not in need of baptism, she felt completely comforted. We were soo happy inside because the Book of Mormon teaches so much better than we do (thank goodness) and we knew that she found answers inside. While we were talking about baptism and how important it is, we asked her if she felt that she needed to be baptized too when she read and she told us that she thought about it, but that was the end of it. She wants to go nice and slowly and she told us that she wants her whole family to be baptized when she decides to make this commitment. It was a great lesson but I really do hope that it won't be too late for her if she waits for her husband and son to convert as well (because they both don't believe in God .. at least not yet!) Over all, we really enjoy teaching Margarita.

Splits with Soeur Tetua on bikes.

Other than that, We did a split with the sisters at Pare Wednesday and I got the experience of being on a bike again. We were laughing in our neon vests and helmets. It was fun, I got to work with Soeur Tetua!

On Thursday, we did a split with the sisters at Matavai and we had one of the best faatamaraas with the Fareata family! She gave us a few robes and Soeur Marrett and I had so much fun trying them all on. How I feel with a lot of families in our ward is how I felt when we had some cool missionaries in our ward growing up. I'll never forget when Elder Hall and his companion (can't remember his name but I know that it starts with a B and that he was INCREDIBLY smart) ended up dancing with us at the last minute in our talent show act for Christmas. They were really great missionaries and sometimes I hope that we have the same impact as these two missionaries did on me and our family.