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
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