The 21 Day Promise

Hey everybody,

  So for the last 21 days, we have been praying morning and night for the missionary work here. The branch also joined us in the prayer. I didn't know what to expect out of it when we started. But in the last three weeks, Sr. Sommers and I have gotten to witness many great and small miracles. The Lord has helped us to start teaching a consistent amount of new investigators. You can just imagine trying to find new people to teach when all 400 people on the island already know who the missionaries are. The members also have been strengthened as they have exercised their own faith in praying. As I wrote about in last week's letter we found a golden investigator, Eria, as an answer to the numerous prayers the branch has prayed for. It goes to show God is still a God of miracles.

  One of the best things as a missionary is that we are literally on the front lines of seeing the impact of the gospel in people's lives. 

  We continued to marvel at the faith of Eria this week. Pres. Bonno is always there in the lessons with us and Saturday he stayed after a little with Eria and talked about how we were going too fast for his situation that day. After that Sunday we had a lesson with Eria and he told us he decided to fast too. We hadn't even taught him about fasting yet, but he has such great faith, he knew it would help him and went for it. Then during that same lesson on Sunday we were teaching about keeping the Sabbath Day holy and he told us he already started to do that. When his son asked him to go fishing last week Eria told him, "no, because it is the Sabbath Day." 

  Ahhhhhhhh. It is sooooooo goood to live these faith building experiences with the investigators.Saturday, we experienced some real island culture. We were waiting for an ami to show up for his lesson. We started talking to this man who was sitting there, just across from him was a little plastic tray with a raw fish. He was waiting for the neighbor's dog to come and eat it, so he could poison the dog and eat it later. I have never seen anything like that in my life. I felt super bad for the poor dog. Good thing the dog didn't come when we were there. They haven't fed me dog yet, but they did to the sister missionaries before us as a joke. There are a lot of dogs here and they are all super skinny. 

  Sunday we had a miracle. Loic, one of the new amis came to church. He told us Saturday he didn't know if he wanted to go to church, but Sunday he was there. 

  Another miracle we have seen happened Friday. At 5pm I was supposed to give a piano lesson to a member, but she wasn't there. We are on a small island and if you want to find someone it doesn't take much effort to find them, so we set out to go find the member to have her piano lesson. In walking around searching for this member, we saw a man carrying some groceries behind the mayor's office. For the past 3 days, we had been trying to find a man named Martin, but he hasn't been home and we just hadn't contacted him when we wanted to. Put simply we wanted to meet him but hadn't. Well, out of nowhere my companion just straight up asks this "random" man, "Hey are you Martin?" He responded yes. Then we started talking and invited him to English class that night at 7pm.  After I asked my companion why she asked him. Yeah, she was totally guided by the spirit. After we met Martin, we found our piano girl and had our piano lesson.

 Right after the piano lesson we had another lesson at the church with Lulu and Pres. MAA (pronounced ma-ah) (def:food in Tahitian) (of the branch pres). Well, in comes walking Martin early for English class. We didn't tell him he was early for eng class and just invited him to sit in for the lesson for Lulu. He enjoyed it and we set a return appointment. 

  Then at 7pm Friday night we had English. It went really well. I was worried it wouldn't go well and we had a lot of fun. I am learning just have fun. The people here love fun. Not like what I am used to work, work, work.

  Yeah so by the end of the week, I was just super grateful. I think about where I am, an ile in the sea and all the promises God has made to the people here about gathering them into Israel in Isaiah and the Book of Mormon. I can't help but be in awe that we get to be a part of this great work. Sunday, we did planning and drank coconuts. The coconuts here have the sweetest water in the world. yumm. 

   Shout out to my little sister Abbee, who turns 15 on June 10th! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Joyeux anniversaire! Mahana oaoa no oe! Good luck getting your permit and congrats on receiving your personal progress medallion! 

  Also, shout out to my dad. Happy Father's Day (I don't know when it is)! Love you tons! You example means a ton to me. 

  Have a great week everyone else! Thank you for your prayers and words of encouragement. God be with you.

  Love,

 Soeur Campbell

This is Sœur Campbell's investigator Maapo.  Yes, that is his house on the beach.