Tahitian Hats Made Out of Coconut Bark

Loraana Tout le Monde!!

Sr. Marrett and I started the week out with a Family home evening with an inactive family. It was in Tahitian. Not many of our lessons are in Tahitian, but we have made a goal to read the Book of Mormon in Tahitian as much as we can. It is quite an exercise to do that. I read Te Buka A Moromona with Sr. Richards and we always had to be really patient with ourselves, but it is interesting to see how much we have improved. We made a lot of improvement compared to the beginning, even if we only get through like 5 verses.

   One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is getting to learn how to follow the spirit. We had lessons this week where we ended up not following the original lesson plan because the people had other needs. I love the feeling you get when you know you are there in a lesson not to throw up information on someone, but because you care and you want to help someone with their real concerns.

  Sr. Marrett got sick this week. I am pretty sure I killed her. We had some super lesson packed busy days when she first got here. Well, that caught up with us and we ended up spending a good portion of Thursday and Friday at our little humble abode. She slept and tried to get better. In the meantime, I listened to like a ton of conferences talks and BYU devotionals. I now feel like super talk charged. It was good to hear some inspiring words.

  Saturday we had a survey with the other missionaries in the zone. The survey rotates locations each week, and this week it was ours. The survey asks questions about an English course we give, the plan of happiness, and genealogy. I was super nervous because my comp was sick and I am the one who knows the sector and we had to divide out everyone to go places and do the survey. We also didn't have our coordination meeting  because it got canceled. I prayed super hard everything would go alright. It was a super big blessing thing did go well. Instead of just missionaries at the church Saturday morning to do the survey, we had a good group of members and our ward mission leader helped a lot to assign out people where to go. We got a ton of people who responded to the survey, which is great because we needed to find people to teach and now we will be using our time to go contact those people who responded. I was on a split with another sister in the zone (my comp was at home sick) and we found some people and got 2 different return appointments. I have never gotten return appointments during a survey, so that was a huge good success thing. The ward even made sandwiches for everyone after and we never have food after a service project. I was so grateful things turned out ok. There is another example of how Heavenly Father takes care of our concerns.

  Saturday, Valentina got baptized. Valentina is 17 years old. She started taking the lessons in January. We had our last lesson with her on Friday before the baptism and I just marveled at how much she has changed since January. She was confident about her baptism the next day. She was ready to start a new spiritual life. She has a really hard story. Her parents both died a couple years ago and then was abused by her grandparents. What amazes me is how much she loves the gospel. She finds the comfort and love she needs in reading the Book of Mormon and being active in the Young Women's program. Her learning and living the gospel really has brought miracles into her life and I am lucky enough to get to see that.

   Saturday we also went to a marriage and baptism of someone Sr. Marrett taught. It was in Mahina. After being  on the island for two months I finally left the city of Papeete/Faaa. It was really pretty over there. The wedding was really simple but beautiful. They had a little Tahitian "marching band" and everything. They also had poission creu (raw fish with coconut and lots of lime) in the spread of food. That is what I went for. We also ended up doing the Tour of the island (going all the way around it) that night, because we had to drop off some other sisters. It takes like 2.5 hours to do that. It is weird to think I am on a little island that small, but then to think this is considered the bigger island in French Polynesia. It was good to do the tour de ile, but it was at night. I guess you just take what you get because you can't do the tour de ile as a missionary, just cause you want too on a p-day or something.

   Friday I got my Valentine's Day package. Shout out to my mom who was so kind to send me a package despite the ridiculousness of the cost. It was fun to get my first package in Tahiti.  Please don't send me a ton more, though, seriously I can survive and I don't want to be transferring around with a ton of stuff!

  Our investigator, Noeline wanted to teach us how to make the Tahitian hats out of coconut bark. So yesterday after our lesson we started to learn how. We used a piece of a coconut shell to grate the dirt off the bark. We just did a little, but the process takes a long time. We are going to learn little by little. Hopefully, in the end, we will have a hat that looks like the one in the picture of Sr. Richards.

   I hope that you all have a wonderful week. Thank you for all the prayers, and love!! We missionaries couldn't make it without all the people both in the field and out of the field supporting us. REALLY, THOUGH!! Love you all! Have a fantastic week! ~Sœur Campbell

                                              baptism from Saturday with Valentina

Chopsticking it up in Tahiti

This week has been super busy. Especially the past two days.

  Transfers are happening (that is when missionaries get changed around in the places they are serving. I am staying here in Tipaerui, but Sr. Richards is leaving to go to another town in Tahiti called Mahina. She leaves today :( and I get a new companion, who has been out the same amount of time as Sr. Richards and is from Australia.

  That means...MY TRAINING IS OVER!!! Six months later and all the "official training" is over. YEAHHHHH!

  Saturday Toimato and Kulani got baptized. They are a young couple with a baby who lives like suppperrr high up the mountain. We always climbed 200 stairs to get there. I am NOT exaggerating, but I like climbing the stairs. It is a good workout. The baptism was so inspiring to see. We made sure to invite the other investigators we teach to it. We packed the Relief Society room. I was happy when at 3 of the other investigators got to see that ordinance too.

  Saturday, we also started teaching an English Class for the community of Faaa. The church has signed a contract with them here to teach each week. We teach on Saturdays. I am excited to start that backup, but a little nervous, because with the transfer and everyone being changed out, I am the only one who speaks English and knows how things should run out of all the new missionaries that will be coming in.

   Yesterday we spent the day with Sr. Kimball, a missionary who served in this area like a year ago and also I grew up with her a little bit. We spent some time seeing people she used to teach and found some more amis. We were so busy, we didn't even eat until 8 pm at night...oopppppss. Wonder who planned that day??? It was good though because we needed to find more people to teach and now we do.

  We also had a lesson with a recent convert who Sr. Arbuckle and Sr. Kimball taught in Takapoto (a little island like 1.5 hr flight away). He is so diligent. He read all the Book of Mormon since December and I guess he got a hold of The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson book that we use for lessons on Sunday and read that whole book through. He wants more of those Teachings of Prophets books to read through. Oh yeah, I guess I should explain why he is here on Tahiti. His mom lives here and was threatening to kick him out if he got baptized, but he got baptized and his mom didn't kick him out. We are going to give him more to read. It is fun to teach an investigator that my MTC companion, Sr. Arbuckle, taught.

  We helped one of our investigator's clean house this week for a service. That was fun to do and something different. Normally everyone says no when we ask, "Is there anything we can do for you?" but I have gotten soo sneaky and just started asking, "What can we do for you?" and they still say no. Usually though if you keep talking though you can find something you can do for them.

  We have been working with a couple, Elvina, and Yves, who have a 19 yo daughter and who have been taking missionary lessons for the past two years. We started teaching them as a couple in December and since then they have made soo much progress like it is a miracle. Now we are trying to help them set up a baptism date for April. We asked them to pray about that and when we met with them Thursday Elvina had. We asked her how she felt after she prayed and this is what she said, "I felt..... BIZARRE!" haha. YES!! We then asked her to explain what she meant by "bizarre" and we found out it was a good thing. She felt a feeling of warmth and comfort, which is what we call the Holy Ghost. 

   I used chopsticks this week. It was soo funny because I have used chopsticks before, but obviously, I am not used to it. People use their hands to eat here and a piece of baguette to shove food on to their fork. We were at a members house and they made us this super nice traditional Chinese meal, where you like boil your own food to cook it on the table. It was like super fancy and a good culture experience and tasted good. The funny thing is though that was our meal right after we finished fasting and normally when you haven't eaten or 24 hours you just want to shovel down food. The chopsticks didn't help that, especially because I barely knew how to use them. I guess I could have asked for a fork, but I thought of my sister in Japan and how good of a culture experience this was, so I just tried my best to make the chopsticks work. Then I got full really fast because it was taking little bites.

   Yep, so that just about was my week. I started my 3rd journal since being on a mission.

  I am so happy to be here in this area. We can busy all day. It is the best thing ever. Even better is that people are progressing here as investigators that have been taking lessons for a long time. That is huge. I am soo grateful to be in a busy area.

  I hope everyone has a great week! You love all tons and are so grateful for the letters and prayers!!

Soeur Campbell

                               Baptism on Saturday sr Richards, toimato kulani, me and fr. sala who baptized

                                                        sr Kimball and I sat night at the baptism

                                                 sr Richards and noeline (our ami) yesterday at church

               Sr. Marrett from Brisbane, Australia. she has been on a mission since January 2014

Legion

HELLLOOOOO EVERYONE!


First of all, I hope that everyone is doing wonderfully.


This week we got soo much food. I think we have like 8 meals worth of food in the fridge that have come from multiple people. It is crazy. We also got fed twice yesterday and on Thursday. We have to strategically plan our member meals, so we don't end up being fed too soon. Thursday night we literally ran to the church on the way to a dinner appointment with an investigator and picked up food from the members and then went to our dinner appointment. We are really taken care of here. It is soo nice.


So Tuesday night I went on a split (I switched areas and companions for a night). It was a weird feeling to be away from my sector for the first time. I got to spend the night though in the other missionary's house and they have an awesome view of the island Moorea. It was like better than the ocean front views we want on vacation. It threw me off soo bad waking up to the ocean like that. I loved it, though. It was beautiful.


During that split, the saddest thing ever happened. I was with my sister training leader, Sr. Moli and while we were doing our studies she got a call from the dad of a family, who were taking the lessons and progressing well. What ended up happening was like crazy. The whole family of 6 had a baptism date for the Saturday to follow, but he called to cancel everything. A whole bunch of things went down and it just felt so surreal for me, because I hadn't even met the family. That change our day, so at night we ended up going over to the ward mission leader's house and the family was there. They looked so burdened and downtrodden and not happy at all. The reason the called off the baptism, was because their family was threatening them to take away their care and house if the followed through. What do you do in a situation like that? Especially when you have never even met the family before. Well, we just bore testimony and tried to follow the spirit. We ended up praying with them on our knees, and then they had to leave. It was so sad. Then it was so real for me the opposition that comes right before you are about to do something good. That family looked burdened because to the fear of their family. Well, their day came for baptism came and went. Sometimes things are just so so sad. I know that was a little gloomy story, but I really learned from that a couple of things. The attack on the family is real. There is opposition right before people are about to do something good, but even more so for a whole family. I also learned it is so important to have during those times faith in God and that our faith is tried sometimes.


The Tipaerui ward got a new ward mission leader. We had our first coordination meeting with him Saturday. I am excited to work with him. He is very motivated.


We also had a Friday night dessert contest for the investigators here. Sr. Richards and I made better than anything cake for it. It was a miracle it turned out because we borrowed a cake pan and it was huge and so we ended up using 1.5 boxes of cake mix. The oven here doesn't have temperatures either, and we had never used it before. We said a prayer that the cake would turn out because we were 100% winging it and it did!! YAYAY. Everybody was happy. The cake was huge and we didn't return home with any of it. Something even better than that was that the activity turned out great and that there were a lot of people there.


I don't know what else to write. We continue to work with the investigators here they are pretty steady. We met with over 13 people last week. There is a lot of work to do. A mission is a lot of responsibility.


I have eaten more fried chicken here than I have in Georgia all my life.


Last night at our dinner/lesson with Noeline, she told us some Tahitian legends. I'll share one with you. It is called the legend of Hina. There once was a princess named Hina. She would often swim and wade in the river with her friends. There was a hohi (eel) in the river and whenever he saw her. The eel would try to kiss her because she was very beautiful. She though would always refuse. Well, another man found out about this eel bugging the beautiful Hina, so the man killed the eel and cut off its head. He then wrapped the head up in woven palm tree leaves and gave it to Hina with the order never to put it on the ground. One day, Hina saw her friends in the river and wanting to play with them put the eel's head on the ground without even thinking. The head turned into a coconut tree. Time passed and Hina continued to swim in the river with her friends. After a while, it got really hot and Hina and her friends were thirsty, so they cut the coconuts off the coconut tree and drank them. The eel's voice came back and told her, "now you have kissed me because you drank from one of my coconuts." Moral of the story, that is why coconuts look like they do. They look like eel's heads.


Transfers are on the 16 Feb. My companion has been in Tipaerui for 5 months already, so we think she will transfer out and I will stay. We should get a call today or tomorrow. They let us know a week in advance because of some transfer by boat, plane, or car here. It is complicated.


Hope everyone has a great week and keeps pressing onward! Love you all!


-Soeur Campbell


ps. and Happy Valentine's Day!! Show some love this week :)

                                This is sr Jarman and sr taputea. the two crazy kids we live with

The view from the split I went on. Personal study that morning was a struggle to focus... ohhhhh how I love the beach

Us with our investigators at dinner with a big bowl of chow mien. Chow mien is very common here. oil and carbs. that is how we roll. we teach all three of these ladies. it is tauhia, chantal, and leilani, sr Richards, and moi

Peace and Blessins

These weeks are just flying by! I have just 2 more weeks of training. I am so excited to be done. 

Lets start out with what happened. Everyone in our district had to go to the mayor's offices because our President of the mission was signing a contract with the mayor to continue the English class the put on for the community each week. We all had no idea why we were really there, and we kind of just told we had to be there. We waiting and then when the mayor and mission president were done, we took a picture with them. Then they told us they prepared "a little cocktail" for us. I was thinking like "cocktail?? Don't they know we don't drink?" Well, there wasn't any alcohol, but there was a HUGEE like 3 tables with the banana leaves woven as platters. On there 18 in long banana leaf platters there was fresh pineapple, papaya, grapefruit, watermelon, taro (a purple starchy fruit, it also comes in green), uroo chips (uroo is breadfruit), steamed banana chunks, fried banana things, and fresh grated coconut. It was like real Tahitian-looking. I was so tempted to take a picture, but couldn't because it just would not have been appropriate. There were also cold coconuts with just a little hole cracked into them so we could drink right from the coconut. They also had my favorite poission creu (raw tuna in coconut milk and cucumber and carrot). mmmmhhhmmm. There weren't any plates or forks because it was traditional Tahitian. My favorites were the pineapple, poissson creu, and fried banana things. We got to take some banana leaf plates home so we filled up the fridge with that. It was so fun and exciting. I really felt I was in Tahiti. 

  I started answering the phone this week all by myself! Yay! There is my language progress update. I also taught a good part of the Gospel Essentials class, but I am not sure if anyone really understood me. My trainer didn't say anything against it, so we will just assume that went well. 

   This week we had another miracle. So we teach this family, Elvina, and Yves. Elvina has had the lessons for forever, but we just recently started making it a priority to teach them together. Yves progresses really well and reads the Book of Mormon daily. They want to have an eternal family, but it soon became apparent to us going  to church as a family for them was going to be a huge step and something to work towards. We found out the block. Yves had a horrible experience at church when he was young and since that he vowed he would never step into a church again. He has kept that vow for like 30 years. Tuesday we were in a lesson with them and I asked the question, "What can we do to help you get to church this Sunday?" Then my inspired companion answered with this idea, "Why don't we have the next lesson at the chapel?" They agreed! Thursday we gave the family a tour of the church and it went really well. Yves even asked us at the end, "Can we do every lesson at the church?" Wow, to hear that was awesome. He felt the peace and the God's love we could feel there. We committed them to come to church on Sunday, but we still knew that would be a huge step because we have committed them before. Sunday came and the man who vowed he would never step foot in a church again was there!!! It was a miracle. The whole family was there. I am so excited for them. 

  Church was great this week we had 8 people who we teach at church. The Gospel Essentials class was packed. We have been working hard since I got here to help amis come to church, because before no one was coming. It just goes to show if you focus on some things and rely on the Lord and make goals, it can happen.

   I shared my Dad's conversion story in a lesson for the first time. For those who don't know, my dad is a convert. My mom who was always super faithful in going to church, even as a child (she would walk by herself if she had to) and always said she would marry a RM in the temple, married my dad when he wasn't a member. It took 4 sets of sister missionaries and some stubborn persistence of their part before my dad just decided to try out the gospel and put his faith to the test. That simple decision to put his faith to the test has affected my family TREMENDOUSLY. My family is eternal, just because of that act of faith. I got to share that wonderful story in the lesson this week. I think it was one of the most powerful moments I have felt on a mission because my family has been changed because of faith and changed because to the gospel. I am so grateful for that. Without them, I couldn't be out here in Tahiti. I wouldn't have the support I have to fall back on. To me it is incredible so much can be affected by one person's actions, because my dad decided to try something out, my family is eternal. We are happy, surely not perfect, but happy.

  Being on a mission we ask people to make sacrifices, to give something of little value for something of greater worth. One of the investigators here is really starting to learn that. we showed up for a lesson and she told us she had stopped smoking. We didn't even ask her to, but she knew it was a good choice. She gave up her smoking (something of lesser value) to be a good example to her 4-year-old daughter and follow the commandments (a thing of greater worth). That was a miracle too. I am just amazed at the sacrifices and changes the Tahitian people are willing to make to have joy in their lives. 

   Yesterday night (Sunday) the best, ironic thing in the world happened. So there are four of us sisters who live in a house. The Soeurs of Heiri (Sr. Jarman and Sr. Taputea) and us. The Heiri sisters had their dinner dropped off at the house. I know that sounds weird, but it happens here all the time. Families just drop the missionaries off food as an opt out for having them over. We were driving back from a fireside and it was like 8pm. We were all in the car and pulled over to get the food from their member and they come back to the car with McDonald's. It was soo funny. We just started laughing. MacDonalds for the missionaries on the Sabbath. Then to make it better, the member bought 2 family meals for the 2 sisters. It was like 4 big macs, 6 cheeseburgers, 8 large cokes, 4 large fries, and 20 chicken nuggets. ohhh. my goodness. We did not eat it all. We had like 3 big macs left and 4 cokes and a frie and 4 cheeseburgers that we quickly ran over to the elders. The story of my life. Welcome to Tahiti. That food had to at least been like $50s too all for 2 sisters. Well, we fed the whole district with it on Sunday. 

    I hope everyone has a great week and isn't too cold. Enjoy the hot coco and what not. Be grateful you have 4 seasons and not one! I forget what month it is sometimes because the weather is all the same. Peace and blessings from Tahiti!

 - Soeur Campbell

                                                                    Eating at the Mission home

                                   Soeur Campbell at the celebration she talked about that had such good food.

                              Mission home