This week was a game changer. It started Tuesday night like a slap in the face. We got our new sister who will be rooming with us. She is so kind, beautiful and a good example. Our new Tuahine is from a little island called Vanuatu and is learning how to live in a whole new world here. After talking with her a little, I realized I am sooooo dumb. America is wonderful, just living here is a blessing. The church is providing most of her stuff for her. I tried to talk to her a little Tuesday night. I got literally like two things about her. I asked her, "how far did you have to drive to church (and then thought and rephrased the question, because she is from an island) "how far did you have to walk to church?" She relied on not , "3 hours." I asked, "one way." IN a soft voice she responded, "yes." I just about started to melt. Here I was so concerned about me me me in the MTC and how I would survive. I couldn't im even knowing 90% of the things we do like wearing tennis shoes or never feeling cold weather before or using a computer. That moment has changed this mission I am on. It put things into perspective. Sometimes God does that to us. Some may say this would be a humbling experience, I sure hope in the end it is. I just don't even feel one ounce of humility when I look at the way I have been raised. How can I be humble when I have come from wealth? The other thing I learned from that first conversation with her was that she spent the night at the SLC airport reading The Book of Mormon after traveling who knows how long on her first plane to this crazy foreign land we call America. Wow, I am learning to learn from other people. I really just want to apologize for the words I said last week about the new roommate. I joked about First world problems, but really. God is so awesome and perfect, boy did He show me. I don't know this has just been on my mind.
Wednesday atopa 8 was quite a day. We had our teacher Oremetua Honey teaching us. We talked about PMG chapter 3 lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked about having a balance between going into a lesson with a plan and following the Spirit. It really got me thinking. The Spirit was so strong. It was probably the best MTC class I have been in so far. Every day I love my classes more and more. Tuahine Arbuckle and I also memorized the baptismal commitment. For me, this was a big deal. It is "E hinnaro anei oe I te pee I te hio'ra o Iesu Mesia i ia baptizoraa i te hoe taata tei mau i te mana no te atuahu'araa o te Atua?" Yeah. I had been working on that for weeks. That was a miracle!
Thursday Tuahine Arbuckle and I taught a lesson and it was hilarious, well at least to us. We taught our "investigator" Christian (really our teacher Orametua Honey) about The book of Mormon and prophets. The lesson was going great until he started laughing. I could tell it was our teacher laughing and not Christian. I wanted to make sure he was STILL on track to be baptized, but I didn't know the word for "still" in Tahitian, so I just said it in English, which you really aren't supposed to do. I guess I was so serious as I said, "Ua hinnarro oe baptizoiraa...STILL?" (do you want to be baptized still?). He found it sooo funny, so he laughed first and then we followed and he ended up having to "give US a minute to collect ourselves. I was really confused, because I am pretty sure he needed to collect himeslef more. Then in that same lesson we wanted hime to read Mosiah 15:11 and I as opening to it and trying to show hime where it was in his Book of Mormon and I was telling him where it was at the same time in Tahitian. I said, "E nehenehene ta oe ia tai'o Mosia pene ahuru ma pae irava... ELEVEN." In english will you read Mosiah 10:11. I didn't even catch that I went to English for that last part. Then he spoke to us in English during this lesson which NEVER happens. He said practically laughing, "stop mixing English with Tahitian!" We just laughed. haha. Well, this is me trying to learn a language. It is fun.
Sunday, Tuahine Arbuckle and I were in charge of music for our zone church meeting. That is what we do every time, but this was our first go at it. We delegated people to lead and play piano and picked some hymns. It went well. I love delegating.
Sunday night for the devotional (we have devo every Tues and Sun), the missionary media head of the church spoke to us, Greg Droubay. He talked about some stats and how the church will be buying out some billboards in times square for a Christmas initive they are doing. December 7 they are buying out the youtube banner space so watch for that. I learned the church pays for over 4-5 million ads every day so they can be the #1 search result for stuff like when you google, "is there a God?"
Monday was wonderful. Since it is our last week of Tahitian I have fully recommitted myself to working super duper extra hard. I was seeing the "fruits of my labors" of course it was possible through God and His goodness that He blesses missionaries with. So cool. Also, Tuahine Arbuckle and I taught Leziann (aka our teacher Sister Cook) and we only had 20 minutes for the lesson and it was so lead by the Spirit. we are learning to make that a top priority for any study. We shared the First Vision and Moroni's promise in Moroni 10:4-5 (in Tahitian), bore testimony, and had our investigator do a pray right now to know if what we were teaching was ture. Most of that little thing was not in the lesson plan, but I brought up one thing and then Sis Arbuckle transitioned to another thing and it was just natural and so INSPIRED. After that lesson, we did a comp. evaluation of it, and we were sitting on a bench outside a bathroom and I said a closing prayer in Tahitian and this Sister missionary asked what language was that in? I told her Tahitian and come to find out that she is really from Tahiti. Her name is Sister Bellais and is going to serve a mission in temple square and she is in our building learing Enghlish for the next wouple of weeks before she leaves. I made an appointment so I can practice with her in Tahitian the next couple of weeks every day before she leaves. It was so coool. She is super pretty and kind and was like in President Bize's ward. OOKKK Last story. So Tuahine Arbuckle and I have been wanting to talk to a "gold tag" (everyone at the MTC wears tags, The black ones are for misionaries and Branch Presidencies, the white ones for paid workers, and gold ones are for people we can talk to practice on, sometimes they aren't members of the church and sometimes they are) any who I just went for it. I didn't even ask my compainion, so she couldn't convince me otherwise. His name is Alan and apparently he was roomates with Max Sultan at UVU and I asked him if he had talked with Max about the church. He said he hadn't. (ok lets be honest this guy is faking it, because he goes to BYU and I highly doubt he never talked to Max and as Sis Arbuckle would say, but what ever). We talked to him for a while about his life and it was hard to transition to the gospel, but he made it easy for us and we got an appointment for today to talk to him about the Plan of Salvation. It was soo good. After that we jsut felt on cloud 9. we finished the night with a super sweet comapoinion study and recommited ourselves to our purpose. Life is so good.
As for Tahitian, Tuahine Arbuckle and I reached some milestones this week. We memorized, our purpose, the baptismal commitment and Moroni 10:5 in Tahitian. There is no way I could be able to memorize with out God on my side because memorizing is one of my weaknesses for sure. I played piano for years and don't have any music memorized. It is incredible how much we have learned in so little time. Saturday night we picked up Preach My Gospel and read through a whole paragraph without comparing it to anything. that's for all your prayers and dear elders and I have loved getting dear elders with Max and Journey's letters about their mission. God loves us and provides a way for us to accomplish the things He wants us to do. He is all knowing and all powerful. I love it.
Fav thing to do in MTC: MTC choir, the choir director is like an EFY speaker and we get to sing it is def a "special treat" I also love to learn, learn Tahitian. learn how to have the Spirit better. It is a wonderful feeling. I also love to feel the Spirit during study time or a lesson. It is the BEST.
lots of loveeee!
-Tuahine Campbell
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