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