Birthday, 1 Year Mark, and Transfers

Helllooo everybody,

  This past week I celebrated my birthday (September 16) and my 1-year mark as a missionary (September 17). 

  Things were pretty quite those two days. I was pretty happy about that because I just wanted to really work hard as a missionary on my birthday because I only get one of those in my life. We did have a couple of birthday miracles.

  I will tell you about the miracles later, but first off I just want to express my amazement and gratitude. I cannot believe how far Heavenly Father has taken me in the last year. I would have never thought to the miracles I have seen on this mission when my family dropped me off at the curbside of the MTC. God has truly taken care of me and has stretched me to be someone better. He has changed Tahitians right before my eyes. He really has a hand in each one of His children's lives. It has been a miracle for me to see that within the last year.

  Sr. Stosich and I decided to make a cake for my birthday, so we had bought the $5 betty crocker cake mix from one of the little  "stores" here. We mixed the cake up before we started our personal study at 8am and put it in the oven. Well, we forgot about the cake because we were so immersed in our studies, but the spirit put into my mind to check the cake around 8:45. Good thing. The cake should have been burnt because it was in the oven for like an hour and 15 mins, but it wasn't. It was a birthday miracle!! Our oven runs off of propane and the propane cylinder had run out of propane, leaving our cake perfectly cooked. It was wonderful. 

  We worked hard the rest of the day and then returned home to eat that miracle cake without frosting (we don't have frosting). It was perfect. 

  The other birthday miracle happened the day after my birthday. I knew my family had sent me a package, but the mission home hadn't sent in on the boat yet to get here in Takapoto. They usually tell us 2 weeks in advance when they put a package on the boat, so we know when to pick a package up.

  So the day after my birthday (Thursday), I got a call from the mission office, telling me there was a package for me on the boat that was coming Saturday!!! Yayayay! Miracle. I had no idea about it. 

  The boat was late getting to the island and I actually got the package today (Monday). Thanks family for the package! 

  Wednesday, we talked to a man named Marere. He is a Tahitian papi. The whole conversation was in Tahitian. He was telling us about the importance of marriage between a man and a woman. I was impressed on how current he was with his information. It was a perfect opportunity for us to give him the brochure, The Family Proclamation, or in Tahitian (Te Utuafare). He received it gladly. We committed him to read it and pray about it. 

    That has been our little theme this month, "The Family Proclamation," because it makes 20 years since we have been given that inspired document as a world. I love it. It is a testimony to me that family is the most important social unit in society. Heavenly Father knew what He was doing when He sent each child here to earth with a family. I love my family!

   Jean-Paul, our ami, we have been teaching for the last 3 months, decided to cut his hair in preparation for his baptism. We didn't tell him he had to do that, but he just did it. He has completely changed in the last 3 months. Before he wouldn't even let us pray with him. Now, he has told us that if he has to cut off his foot for the Lord, he will do it. 

  Friday afternoon until Sunday morning, we didn't have cell phone service. Those also happened to be the days the assistants were making the transfer calls. Meanwhile, Sr.Stosich and I were just out here in Takapoto "stranded" and had no idea the whole mission was getting their calls. 

  

This transfer is huge because there are 30 new missionaries coming. 

  Sunday after church I called Sr. Arbuckle (who is serving in Papeete right now) she told me transfers really were happening. 

  Later  that day I got my transfer call....meaning I am leaving Takapoto. :( I will be returning to Papeete to be a Sister Training Leader. My companion is Tahitian from another island called REATEA. We will be serving in the chapel right next to the temple. 

  It is sad to go back to Tahiti, but it will be good for Takapoto to receive a new missionary. Takapoto is beautiful and has changed me as a missionary. 

  I will be taking the plane either this Saturday or next Saturday. There is only one plane a week. 

  I am excited thought to go back and make smoothies like never before. I haven't been able to because there really isn't much fruit here. I am also excited to take a hot shower and to dry my clothes in a dryer.

 Other then that, I will miss this awesome island and fantastic people. 

 Well, everybody. I love you all! Good luck this week! 

Tons of love from the little island of TAKAPOTO,

 Tuahine Campbell

Blue Lagoon Baptism

Iaorana!

  O oaoa rahi roa vau no teie hebidoma i mua. Ua baptizohia Mami Gloria! 

 This week was wonderful because Mami Gloria got baptized. There were also many other blessings that happened, but nothing beats seeing an ami filled with joy coming out of the lagoon all clean and starting a new life spiritually. 

  It has been 4 months that I have been here in Takapoto and this week has just been blessing after blessing. 

  Saturday Gloria at the age of 68 made her first covenant and got baptized. We have been praying for her and teaching her since when I got here. If you really want to read her conversion story it is in multiple of my other emails. 

  Baptisms here are done in the lagoon. We started the service in the chapel and then walked down to the lagoon (like 3 min walk) for the baptism.

  Then Gloria, the first counselor in the district presidency (who baptized her and we are in a district because we are a little branch in the islands), and the two witnesses, waded out into to baptize Gloria.

  Gloria was so happy walking down there. She kept telling us, "oaoa roa vau teie mahana" or "I am so happy today." She went to shore with the biggest smile on her face and giggling. I was so joyous for her! We have seen her every day for the last 6 weeks and she was just the happiest person ever Saturday.   

  We joke around now that there is going to be lots of blessings in the lagoon because there was a baptism in it this week. Blessings as in everyone here makes a living off throwing cords into the lagoon to grow clam shells to sell for pearl production and everyone also fishes all the time in the lagoon.    

   We had our interviews with Pres. Bize over the phone this week. He was happy with us and the area. 

  Another huge blessing we had this week was our members gave us like $100's worth of food. It was crazy. There was a ton of apples, yogurt, milk, cookies, and 4 boxes of cereal. It is great because we have some food storage now if we do get hit by a cyclone.

   Also Saturday we picked up a package at the tiny airport here from Tahiti. Elvina and Yves (recent converts I taught in Papeete) had put together a huge box of food for us and sent it on the weekly plane that comes here. I was just in awe of their kindness and love. They had gone way out of their way to put it together for me. It amazes me because they had no need to do that, but insisted. People here are just so giving and loving. It is really incredible. 

  I seriously am in the best mission In the world. I am so grateful to be here.

  Sr. Stosich and I  have been putting a Book of Mormon to be passed around each week in relief society to motive the members to do missionary work. The plan is for one sister to have the book each week then with that book to read a couple of the verses we marked in it, then throughout the week pray fully invite a friend to church or to have a family home evening with us or to give out a Book of Mormon.  

 Well, family and friends, I love you all. Good luck this week!

 Love,

 Tuahine Campbell

Me, Marie Louise and Camille. Marie Louise has been praying for 6 years for her mom to get baptized and God answered her prayers. There has been a huge change for the better in their home over the last couple months

Marie Louise and I. The house in the background is how most the houses are.The black stuff and buoys in the background are the cords or "station" that people throw in the lagoon to make clams and sell.

Smiles all around

le bapteme dans le lagoon 

                       te baptizoraa i roto i te miti

5 Great Things From Takapoto This Week

Dear everybody,

  Yay! For this week

  Sr. Stosich and I just picked up a package that the mission home sent on the boat. It took two weeks to get here. And we received Books of Mormon in it! No there wasn't any letters from home, but now we have things to give our investigators.

   I am just going to lay this letter out in a list of 5 great things that happened this week.

1. Yesterday, Jean-Paul came to church for the first time and stayed all the three hours. This is awesome because, Jean-Paul had been mad at God for decades, yet yesterday he found himself at church.

2. We taught some members, Sr. Marie-Louise and Sr. Perepere, how to make brownies. They thought it was the best cake ever when they ate it. (the cakes here usually don't have frosting, so it fit the description of a cake) 

3. It rained a ton. Sunday we rode our bikes to Gloria's lesson. It is a 2 min bike ride from our house to her's, and by the time we got to her house we were soaked. I literally wrong out my skirt before walking into  the house. The rain is great, though, because it means we have water to shower!!

4. Sr. Stosich and I have realized genealogy is a great way to get people excited to keep records. We found some "My Family" books (the booklets FamilySearch has distributed to promote family history) and have been helping people to fill them out. It is awesome because record keeping is not a thing here, so helping out to fill out these booklets with their ancestor's names and birthdates is just a wonderful thing. 

5. For Sunday dinner, we ate chow mein. I love chow mein here because it has veggies in it. Veggies are very hard to come by here. It was great to sit down and eat some of those things. 

Well, that is pretty much it for this week. We have been working on fixing baptisms for the month to come. God has really been working some miracles for us.  I love you all!

Love,

Soeur Campbell

I Am Excited!

Mes chers amis et ma famille,

   I am so excited about missionary work here on Takapoto. Sr. Stosich and I have lived some great experiences this week. 

 We have really buckled down and centered our lessons around commitments. The results are blowing my mind. 

  One of our amis, Jean-Paul, who didn't want anything to do with religion when we first met him, decided this week that he wants to give up his old habits of drinking and smoking, to come closer to Christ. Sr. Stosich and I were thrilled to hear this.

  We then taught him about the power of priesthood blessings and how it could help him to resist temptation. Jean Paul wanted a blessing, so the next day we went over to his house with President MAA (in the branch presidency) and Brother Ruamotu (our branch mission leader) and Marie-Louise (Gloria's daughter). The members were so happy to be there to support. 

  It amazed me how God prepared them to be ready to help us. The day before Pres. MAA shared with us that he couldn't stop thinking about Jean-Paul, and then I called him and asked if he would be willing to give a blessing. It was not by chance that God was preparing him to give that blessing. It was a good experience for me too because I had forgotten to call Pres. MAA for the blessing, but as I was praying the day before the blessing, I had the distinct reminder to call Pres. MAA. 

   That whole experience with Jean-Paul and the members was a miracle. At the end of the blessing, all I could feel was how powerful and real the blessing was. I am so grateful for the priesthood power that blesses my life and the lives of the investigators. 

  During that meeting, we discussed with Jean-Paul about praying to overcome temptation. Pres. MAA said that when he has bad thoughts he says this to the opposition in his head, "Heavenly Father is my God,  you have no place in me." 

  I love that phrase. We have the choice of who we will serve, God or the adversary, and if we would just recognize that Heavenly Father is really our God and He is more powerful than anything else, we wouldn't be so worried about being tempted. 

  This week we also worked with Vaitea, who is reading the Book of Mormon and wants to stop smoking. It is just a pleasure to help these people know it  is possible to stop and overcome. The solution is simple: the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

  One of the things we have been doing is just encouraging the amis to count how many cigarettes the smoke each day and then how many chapters in the Book of Mormon they read. It has been working pretty well. 

  We are excited for Vaitea because he has almost finished the Book of Mormon in two months. He has also had a mighty change of heart since he started reading. Now he has a date that he wants to stop smoking by. 

  We are constantly praying for the amis to have strength to stop. It is on my mind all the time because I know what it could mean for them. The blessings of the gospel are right in their backyard, we as missionaries are just working hard to help them get there. 

  Another miracle we had this week was Mahina. She is the one who came up to us at the boat dock a couple weeks ago. We asked her to pray about the way to be baptized and she did. Now, she knows she wants to be baptized. She is always so happy when she sees us. I love Mahina.

  I love being here. Yeah, I feel like I am in paradise with a lot of responsibility to help people get to the real paradise. 

  The other good thing is that my companion and I are getting really good at killing cockroaches. We have this little racket that shocks the cockroaches. I usually do that step and trap the roach in the racket while shocking it and it paralyzes it, then Sr. Stosich gets her shoe and smooshes it. Then the roach dies and we are happy. CHAMPIONS! and it works.

  Gloria is continuing to prepare to get baptized and the rest of the island is too. they just don't know it yet! :)

  Well, hope you have a great week and when you all feel down remember that "Heavenly Father is our God and that those thoughts have no place in you."

Love,

 Soeur Campbell 

Things I Wouldn't Give Up For the WORLD

Bonjour ma famille et mes amis!

  My companion, Sr. Stosich, and I came back from our "camping trip" Monday night. haha. For those of you who don't know we lived without running water and electricity last week, but Monday it all came back on. We had just finished planning for the next day and all the sudden there was a flicker of light, but we didn't want to get our hopes up, so we ignored it. Then after about another 5 minutes of darkness the light came on, we heard the refrigerator, and our AC start to run. Needless to say, we were super duper happy. Sr. Stosich and I just looked at each other in awe for a couple minutes in shock and then, yeah, we started laughing and celebrating. OHHH. It was a good moment, after living without those things for 5 days. 

  We learned our lesson for sure. We immediately knelt down and said a prayer of gratitude that our water and power were back. 

  It was a miracle because I thought the island's electrical generator wouldn't be fixed for another couple of weeks. It is kind of bad, though because it has been a week since we got our power back and I feel like we have just fallen back in our old "oh to have power is normal" attitude. 

   Our ami Gloria, who is 65 and has taken the missionary lessons for the last year, has made it official that she wants to get baptized. 

  This is a 100% miracle, because three weeks ago when Sr. Stosich got here, I was explaining to her how I have no idea what we can do more for Gloria to help her progress. Sr. Sommers (my old companion) and I had been praying for God to work a miracle in Gloria's life for us because it is hard for us to communicate with her as she has trouble speaking and then she speaks in Tahitian. 

   Well, our prayers were answered. About three weeks ago, we gave her 2 Nephi 31 to read, just out of the habit of giving her a Book of Mormon reading after each lesson. The next lesson it was me and Sr. Stosich and the responsibility was on me to communicate with her in Tahitian because it was Sr. Stosich's first lesson with her. I hadn't really taught in Tahitian too much before that. There is a tender mercy that is called the gift of tongues that helped us during that lesson. Gloria's countenance had changed because of the chapter she read in 2 Nephi 31. She started to take the Book of Mormon more seriously and she really understood. 

  Since then there has just been a huge miracle happen for her. We give her a couple of verses to read in the Book of Mormon every day. She loves the Book of Mormon. She tells us all the time how everybody needs to read this book.

  She even told the branch council after church yesterday, that we need to tell everyone about the power of the Book of Mormon. I love Gloria! 

  Friday we were with her (we see her every day and are going through the lesson brochures with her because the understands well through reading) and she was just so joyous. She had told her brother in Tahiti she was going to get baptized. We expected him to be contrary to the decision, but just the opposite happened. Her brother told her over the phone to "go get baptized if that is what you want." Gloria told us for 20 minutes how happy she was and how much she wanted to get baptized. 

  It was one of the most happiest moments of my mission so far. I have never seen her that happy. Considering most of the time she is at home and doesn't have many people to talk to. Man, I am just so grateful she has found joy she has never know before in the gospel. I would never trade anything in the world for that experience I had seeing Gloria happy. 

  My favorite was in Relief Society when Gloria made a comment in Tahitian and one of the older sisters next to her leaned over and asked her for a high-5. 

   Thursday we decided to play "futsalle," which is pretty much soccer on concrete. My companion and I  have no idea how to play soccer, but we had fun. The whole island loved seeing us foreigners trying to play. haha. They wanted us to be on their team because we were that amusing. 

  Saturday we had our mission conference broadcasted to us. Elder Person and Elder Robbins of the 70 spoke to the mission on Tahiti. It was actually my fist mission conference.

  I also heard from Elvina and Yves this week. They were in my old area in Tahiti and got baptized in May. Last week they went to the temple! I was so happy to hear that from them. 

   Then I got a call from Sr. Arbuckle today about Sr. Stevens (from Vanuatu, who was in the MTC with us). I guess her health is falling back into its old ways. They are wanting to do all the tests we did in the MTC with her again. I am just grateful we did all we could in the MTC for her. That was surely inspired.

  

   Well, I love you all. Thank you for your prayers and love! 

Love,

 Tuahine Campbell