Helloo outside world!
Hope all is well out there! MTC is still going well. For those of you who don't know, I get to be here until Dec. 1. It is pretty much a spiritual haven. I am going to start this email by sharing an experience. I had the opportunity to sing for an apostle, M. Russell Ballard last Tuesday. In the MTC you have the opportunity to participate in a choir and I think it just may be my favorite part. Like a thousand young men and women come together to sing, all wearing a black name tag. We sang "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" and let me tell you, it. was. powerful. The testimonies in that room were just radiant. There was a feeling of peace as I sang about God and Jesus Christ appearing to the 14-year-old boy. I am so grateful for that experience. Something Elder Ballard said in that meeting was that "simple prayers are powerful." Oh boy! Can I agree. I am constantly praying as I am adapting to this new environment. I have seen God answer prayers in the 2 weeks I have been at the MTC. I lost a water bottle and my MTC card (which gets me into all the buildings and lets me get food) this week. I prayed both times and lo and behold both items were found. God answers prayers. He answered Joseph Smith, he answers mine. Pretty cool.
That was Tuesday night and Wednesday Tuahine Arbuckle and I gave a lesson in Tahitian without notes for the first time. Only Tahitian scriptures and our minds. It was quite the experience. Somehow we made it through. I am going to give that little triumph to prayer as well.
Tahitian is coming along. I learned the word faahanahanahia yesterday. It means glorified and is so fun to say. We had a lesson about passive and active sentences. It took me a while to get, I never really liked English, but am learning to love it now.
The ice cream here is awesome because it comes from BYU. It may just be the death of my compy and I. haha.
I want to give a shout out to Sister Stephanie Ellis who sent me my pillow. It is wonderful, maybe a little too good. It makes getting up at 6:30 am harder!
So after Sister Arbuckle and I had taught like 5 lessons to our "investigator" Terri. We pretty much knew he was a fake, because what were the chances of some white person living in Provo who spoke Tahitian, which is a dying language. We told this to our teacher, Brother H., but he wouldn't admit to it. I jokingly said, "well, one of these days, Terri is going to come out and already be a member of the church." Sure enough, that happened Friday. To our relief, we didn't have to teach a lesson that day.
Next item, almost everyone at the MTC feels bad for us Tahitian missionaries for having to be here for 11 weeks (most missionaries are here 6). Well, our district was talking about this and someone finally gave us the reaction of, "I am so happy for you!" That was an awesome attitude. One of the Tuahines in our district always is telling us "we can do hard things.... WITH A SMILE!" haha. Love this motto. Also because we are here so long we get spoiled. I hear our group of missionaries is going to get a new classroom, like a nice renovated one! So that should be happening in October. We will change buildings, but I like this building because I get to see my friend Davy from my BYU ward, who works here and my friend Milet, from GA.
Ohh another cool thing happened just on Monday (yesterday), a new teacher is coming in to teach the new missionaries, who already speaks French, Tahitian. She is super cool and lives where I used to live at BYU and knows all these people I know. That was a HUGE YAYAYAYA of yesterday.
K, our district has 4 super pretty sisters in it. I am just going to give some advice right now. Elders are so distracting. So many try to get our attention. Oh my goodness. My companion and I have are trying to figure out where to draw the line. I have heard elders use the phrase "MTC crush." We are like "WHAATTT??!!" This is not high school or EFY! We have black name tags on. Oh goodness. They put so much pressure on us sisters to appropriately support the elders. I just sure hope they are talking to the elders too!
Sister Arbuckle and I were called as music coordinators for our branch. We got a list of everyone who can help out with playing piano and leading and are going to delegate out some jobs. One elder signed up as a joke. haha. We are going to get him to lead and teach him how. I am sure he will end up needing that skill in Tahiti.
Being here for just 2 weeks we have already seen a group of missionaries in our zone leave. They all went to France. It is kind of sad, but I can't really be. They get to go to FRANCE!! I hope the best for them.
I hope everything it going great and thanks for the dear elders and especially the prayers! I love hearing from everyone and my day is seriously made 10 times better when I get to hear from you! Sometimes that is the happiest moment of the day when your district leader hands you a letter from a loved one! I am so grateful for your support! Have an awesome week!!!! -Tuahine Campbell
