Changes are Happening in Takapoto!

Helloo my friends and family,

  This week. haha. Let's just be honest, I don't feel like writing much today.

  We worked a lot with the members this week which is good. President Bize has asked us to do that more often. He has challenged us to work with at least 4 different members each week. 

   Sr. Sommers and I felt inspired to start a choir here in TAKAPOTO, so that the members can sing and feel the spirit. Music is powerful and I know that will be something that will help the branch. We found some choir music on lds.org and are going to put it to good use. At times like this, I am grateful for the ward/stake choirs I went to growing up.

  Tuesday we did some service for a member. Here they put long cords with plastic on them in the lagoon for little clams to grow on them. Then after the cords are left in the lagoon for about a year it produces a clam and the inside of the clams are shiny and they use the to make jewelry. The metallic clam is called "knack." The service we did was helping arrange the plastic cords to be put in the ocean. The cords are at least 20  yards long. 

  Well, the next morning after we did that little service, there was  a knock on a  door. The member, Pres. Pickett, had bought us two HUGE boxes of food. 6L of milk, 4 boxes of cereal, 4 bars of chocolate, a ton of apples and oranges, many packages of cookies. It was a huge blessing. The members really sacrifice to feed us here. Those boxes of food had to have been super expensive, considering a box of cereal here is like $7.

  Friday they had local dance competition for HEIVA. Well pretty much every girl on the island danced (literally every Tahitian girl knows how to Tahitian dance), so we went to support our investigators and members. It was super fun to see some culture and dance.   

  We invited some drunks to church Wednesday.  One of them was inactive. Then Saturday we saw this same young man (it is a small island, you see everybody all the time), on his hammock smoking and re-invited him. Sunday he was there at church. It was a great miracle. 

  We fixed a lesson with him after sacrament meeting and so Sunday afternoon we had a lesson with him. 

  He told us he had come here to Takapoto to escape his problems back home in a way and think things out. We shared with him how there is ALWAYS hope with Jesus Christ. He told us in tears that he was almost convinced there wasn't hope and thanked us for reminding him.

  We then gave him a Book of Mormon and read with him the sentence in the Introduction that reads, "Those who read this book will find the way to have peace in this life." I then bore testimony that through reading the Book of Mormon I find peace every day. He then looked at me and asked, "How do you know I am searching for peace?" I didn't know, but Heavenly Father sure did.  

  It was so nice to have that miracle lesson Sunday. My companion and I both felt the spirit strongly and it was an encouragement to us. 

   My companion finishes her mission in 3 weeks (the same time as my sister in Japan), so we have decided we are going to make some sacrifices this coming week to show our commitment. It works out well because yesterday in Sunday School, we talked about the young rich man and sacrifice. 

   As for me, I am pretty sure God sent me to this island to learn patience, faith, and humility. These past 2.5 months in Takapoto have been super eye opening to me, pushing me to be more and more reliant on God. I am so grateful for Him in my life as a rock, someone who stays constantly there for me. My mentality is becoming more  and more, "just forget everything and rely on the Lord." 

  As for today, I discovered in the bathroom a big spider and didn't scream or kill it (they don't really kill bugs here, that includes cockroaches and bees, the only exception is mosquitos). The bad new is though I think it is still lurking around in there. Oh well, some things are just better left unknown.  Then later this afternoon we made fondant (like brownies)  with one of the ward members, Sr. MATEHAU. 

  My sister, Abbee, asked me how we wash our clothes and here is the answer. Well, we have a washer outside our house, and then we hang our clothes out to dry.

  Enjoy your summer! I love you all.

  Love,

Soeur Campbell 

Cow Heart and Speaking in Church

Iorana outou!!

  Tei vai ra i te mau mea ino teie hebidoma, tera ra, aita vau hinaaro ia papai no nia i tera mau mea. 

   Ok, good luck translating that! :P I will tell you though what I ate this week. 

  We were at the barracks (the little "restaurant" stands for the July festivities) and I was eating chow mein. Then Sis. Tehiva told me to try this meat that was on a skewer, so I did. Then found out it was cow heart. 

  I ate cow heart!!! There aren't even any cows on this atoll! like the duck, I ate last week, AND like the duck I tried last week, the cow heart wasn't my favorite. 

   Then I don't know if it was the cow heart, the raw fish, or the water, but something made my stomach upset for the next three days after. So I survived off of crackers and rice for those days. 

  The Heiva July festivities continue here. The whole island meets to compete Monday-Thursday from 6pm to like 8pm ish. Then Friday and Saturday each team sings and dances. There are 6 teams, each is a color and they all play. The branch has a team. It is awesome because Eria, our investigator decided to play on the branch's team. 

  They compete on a point system and there isn't really a winner. The Heiva will continue through this whole month. It is really simple, but it has a big family reunion feel. I really like it because there are maybe like 600 people on the island right now, and most of them are on a team. 

   Right next to the fields they play at is where the barracks are, and that is how the barracks make money. 

  This week it was really nice to have all our amis back from the other atoll (Takaroa) and our ward mission leader.

   We had lessons with Vaitea (who wants to know more about the Book of Mormon) every day. He has read almost all of 1st and 2nd Nephi in the last 2 weeks. We keep on encouraging him to pray about it. He is loving what he learns in the book. He keeps telling us he reads when he can't sleep and then when he reads his eyes don't want to put down the book. 

  He has changed since he has started the reading the Book of Mormon and it is really a miracle to see. What really gets my companion and I is that he brings his co-worker, to the lessons because he wants him to learn more about the gospel too. 

   Then Vaitea was at church Sunday too. And he even stayed for Sunday school. That is huge!!

  One of the other greatest parts of my week was our amis Loic. He loves to fish and is always all over the island. We go all over the place to find him for lessons, but the great news is that now Loic carries a little backpack with his brother's Bible and friend's Book of Mormon in it everywhere he goes. Now he is always ready to have a lesson. And he came to church Sunday too!

  Oh yeah. Sunday I spoke in church in French. I spoke about Elder Renlund's conference talk and  Nelson Mandela's statement, "I am not a saint unless you consider a saint to be a sinner who keeps on trying."  

   Pretty much everyone feels great right after they are baptized because they are cleaned from sin, but after that what happens. We all mess up, so we need to keep trying: praying and going to church when we don't want to. When we keep going, despite our weaknesses, we can be made holy or saint.

   Also, I would like to give a shout out to my older sister, Sister Campbell, who is on a mission in Nagoya Japan and whose birthday is this week. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! mahana oaoa no oe! And Bon Anniversaire! From a sister, sister missionary to sister, sister missionary: I love you!! 

   Good luck this week!

  Love,

 Soeur Campbell

When MOST of the ATOL is gone..... The Work Still Moves Forward

Hi everybody,

  I hope you are having a great summer. It has actually been "cold" here the last couple of days. It had to have been in the 50's with wind.

 

  I ate duck yesterday for the first time. There isn't any ducks on this atol. It was imported. It wasn't my favorite.

  Another great eating experience I had happened Saturday. We were just outside the church eating with our Branch President and his family. He encouraged us to eat with our hands. Well, everyone eats with their hands here, even for steak. So we ate with our hands.  

  For the 4th of July, we did nothing. haha. I had Sr. Sommers, my Tahitian companion, sing "America the Beautiful" for companionship study. I also read in 1 Nephi 13 when Nephi prophesies about the American colonization and revolution and how God would help them be free from captivity of the mother Gentile nation (England).

 This July 4 was special because I was far from America and now I really appreciate America more. I realize more how guided our founding fathers were and how America has been blessed as a nation.  

  This past week most of our investigators were in TAKAROA (a different atol) for the sport challenges this week. In other words, there was like no one on the island. Sr. Sommers and I would go running in the morning and practically see everyone on the atol within that 30 mins of sport and then we would go see them again throughout the day. 

  We had some good experiences thinking of people to see this week, because like I said we would see everyone before lunch time. 

  Saturday we were totally stumped on who to go visit, so we asked ourselves, "First off, who is here on the island?" Then we thought about it..."pretty much everyone is gone and if they are here, we have already seen them." haha.

  Saturday we were also at the airport to send off Mami Gloria, the mother of Marie Louise (who we made cake with that one time). Last Monday her leg got infected and swollen, so she was at the little clinic they have here. She also had a really high fever. So Tuesday we went to see her and encouraged her to get a priesthood blessing and she accepted. The next day the swelling went down in her leg, but she spent the rest of the week in and out of the little clinic here. They decided that she needed to go to the hospital on Tahiti, so Saturday she left with Marie Louise. 

  I am so sad they had to go to Tahiti. They will probably be there for like a month. I will especially miss Marie Louise who has shown us us much love. She doesn't know how to read, but has sooo much faith. She is a huge support to us in missionary work too.  

   Now that July is here there is something going on called Heiva. Heiva is a month long celebration that happens on all the islands of Polynesia Francais. Here on Takapoto they are going to have more sport competitions like soccer, basket ball, volley ball, and pitonck. They also have built "barracks." A barrack is a structure made out of plywood that the community has built for people to buy out a room and sell their goods. Then everyday from 5-11pm at night. The people who bought a barrack sell their food as concession. So pretty much a barrack is a Tahitian concession stand. 

  I have started teaching in Tahitian more. We were in a lesson with an inactive this week and I was trying to explain something in French and the member wasn't understanding, so I looked to my companion to help me and then she told me, "try in Tahitian." Then I started teaching in Tahitian and the member seemed to understand. It was truly a miracle and the gift of tongues. 

  I am learning switching languages during the lesson helps, because Tahitian is a supperrr simple language. You can't confuse the investigator too much in Tahitian, like you can in French. 

   Yesterday night (Sunday), we had a huge miracle. It was about 5:30pm and we had a meeting at 6pm, but we knew we had to go see someone. I had previously made an attempt to set up a lesson with a family earlier in the week, but they weren't there when we went over thereon Friday afternoon. So Sunday night we went over to their house again and they were all there. It was a miracle. This is like the saddest thing ever, but that was my first time teaching a family who is all not members to put things in perspective. My companion and I were thrilled to be there with all their family, and they were thrilled too. They gladly accepted us. They were happy to be together as a family, because 2/3 kids go to school on a different island during the school year and they aren't often together as a family. It was wonderful. 

   The other good news is that our investigators all came back today from TAKAROA, so we are going to have people to teach this week. They were supposed to come yesterday (Sunday), but there was a big rain storm. They were smart and didn't want to take the chances of getting caught in the storm trying to make the boat voyage between the islands. 

   Thanks for your prayers and encouragement and your faith. I love you all!!

 

Love,

Soeur Campbell