Easter Week

Hello family and friends, and Happy late Easter,

  There has been so much good that has happened this week. I'll start with a miracle. 

Saturday and Sunday we had general conference (it is a huge deal because it is when the church leaders speak and it only happens 2 times a year), so Sr. Marrett and I had been making our proper efforts to explain the importance and good opportunity to go to the conference to the investigators here. We have been talking about it for a while with some of our amis like Tauhia. She has been taking the lessons for a  while but hasn't been able to go to church or come to activities because her concubine won't let her.Thursday we were over there and she wanted to go so bad but didn't  know if she could because she hadn't asked yet. We gave her the church website in hopes maybe she could watch it online, but she doesn't have the internet. We continued to pray for her.Saturday morning at 6am we had the first session of general conference and she wasn't there at the chapel. Like a half an hour before the next session, she still hadn't asked her tane(man) yet, so her sister who is a member said a prayer for her tane to let her go. After that, she begged him.

 The Saturday 10am session we got a phone call that she was coming!! She came and was soo grateful to have been able to go and found the peace and felt the spirit there. She even told us the songs the Mormon Tabernacle choir songs were two of the songs we had sung that week in her lessons. 

  The general conference sessions here were at 6 am and 10 am. We got up at 4:45 Saturday and Sunday to be on time. We didn't even take a nap. We watched the Sat morn session in French, but I only understood like 30 percent of it, so we watched the rest in English. Sunday we watched it at a member's house (the Reyelts). They were so kind to us and fed us a nice Easter lunch afterward. We got back at like 1:50 and then went back out to work at 2 and worked the rest of the day. I really thought I was not going to make it through the day, but somehow we did. We saw a lot of people yesterday, so that was good.

  

General Conference really works miracles. A lot of the investigators here went and have renewed desires to act. I am soo grateful for that. We had a good amount of people in the last week tell us they didn't want to get baptized this month, but with general conference, they have a renewed desire to refix a date. Thank goodness.  

  Thursday morning we went to the store after our run and a car drove up waving us down. It was Sr. Tareva and her mom. They were off to the market to sell pork they cooked traditionally on a bamboo stick. They gave us one to take home and eat. It was huge like 3ft long bamboo with 2 in in diameter. 

 Thursday night we made cookies for a Mami who was having a birthday. She turned 62. We had a lot of things to do but somehow we made time to make the cookies and by the time we got around to delivering them it was 7 at night. We went over there to drop them off and her whole family was there having the birthday party. She insisted on us staying and eating aka crashing her party. So Thursday night we crashed Mami Louise's birthday. Then we were trying to get out the door after we finished eating the cake fast and they handed us a huge ice cream cone. Then we had to eat the ice cream fast and then we left. I was surprised they gave us a piece of cake before Mami Louise even got a cake and it was her birthday.

 I found out this week Sr. Stevens, who was in the MTC with me and is from Vanuatu, her family is ok in Vanuatu. They finally got a hold of them. 

  Another miracle happened this week with Tatiana. She wants to get baptized May 16 but wants her husband to baptize her. He is inactive and as of last week he wanted nothing to do with going to church or missionary lessons, but last Sunday (before gen conf) he came...and LOVED it. The third hour was on family history and Tatiana and him set up an appt. with the ward family history person. We went to see TatianaTuesday and her husband, Moroni, had a total change of heart. He started reading the Book of Mormon and before he never wanted to be there when the missionaries came over, and now we are going to have lessons with the two of them. Tatiana was so excited. I was too because we teach a lot of woman who loves the gospel and often they have trouble progression, because their husband/concubine won't let them. On the other hand, if the couple is on board with the gospel and they both take the lessons. They are much stronger together.  

  Other MTC news is Sister Arbuckle is back on the islannddddd!!! She is not in my zone, but not far either. And Sister Erickson is now in the house with us. We lost Sr. Chapman (who was waiting for her visa) because she got her visa and is now on her way to Australia.

 Alright, have a great week everyone. I am exhausted, hoping I can get a nap today and recover from the conference hours!!