Questions for Morgan:)

Every week I send Morgan a list of questions that we hope she reads and answers back quickly.  Here are some of the questions and answers for this week....
1. Anymore weddings planned......We have a ton of weddings planned..its nice and a ton of work.  But that's all good
2.  Have you got your package?.....Nope no package.  I have only gotten one letter here
3.  What new thing have you eaten this week?....I ate this strange berry that makes all the sour things you eat sweet.  Like I ate three Limes after I ate the Berry.  It was pretty cool.
4.  How is your cough?....My cough is good
5.  Do you have warm water?....Yes we have warm water.  It's quite nice.
6.  Do you still run in the mornings?....Yep.  I run in circles around the house.  Because Soeur Li "doesn't do sport".....She loves Soeur Li!!!!!
7.  Have you heard of or seen cooked dog?......Yep and Cat.  I haven't seen it yet...thankfully.  I am having a hard time eating all this meat.  I am super close to just calling it vegetarian.
8.  What kinds of bugs do you see every day?....Cockroaches and Mosquitoes, nothing to crazy
9.  Do you have to do yard work?  Who does it?...Nope. Our yard is kinda just let it do it's thing.
10.  Do you have a ipad or cellphone? ....We have a cell phone and a portable DVD player.  Ipads are coming next year.

Once There Was a Snowman...oh wait. Not in Tahiti...

Ia Orana! C'est the premier semaine ou je parler toute le tempe en i te reo Tahiti. :) (Hello! This is the first week were I spoke all the time in Tahitian.) Every time we're in the house we speak Tahitian only. It's pretty nice.

 

me, my trainer Sœur Li, and her trainer Sœur M. (I feel very tall here...)

 

This week was really really good. It was overall very strange. But alls well that ends well, right?
We had lessons with almost every investigator who has a baptism date, and they all went very well. Right now we're working on finding new people to teach, which has been the most fustrating part of the week.

 

We ask the members to find people we can teach, to invite their friends to have a family home evening with us, just little things like that, but it's been difficult because everyone is scared. But we ask anyways. On Saturday we had a huge party for the anniversary for the primary, all the kids were invited, and a few brought nonmember friends. One of the little girls, Jenny, (we're friends. :) ) was talking to me and I asked her to invite a friend to come to Church with her. Me, thinking she'd forget or ask later, was completely shocked when she walked back over to me a half hour later. I was talking with her mom, and she says, mom, why didn't you invite the lady to come to Church with you you were talking to.  Hehe. And then she says, Sœur Taylor, I invited two friends to come tomorrow. One is Catholic and the other is Protestant. They said yes. Bah. So cool. :) I was pretty proud of her to say the least.

 

The dock next to our house. That's Moorea in the background.

 

We fasted last Sunday to find new investigators, and each day this week we had nothing. I was getting a bit discouraged, Well. Yesterday we did porte a porte on the mountain with the ward missionaries. Yes. The mountain. Hello Jungles of Tahiti for me! We were talking with people and I'd share a message and then ask if they wanted to hear more this week, everyone said yes. We have 5 new investigators this week. I was pretty humbled. I definetly learned I just need to be patient and work and we will find the people we need. It was very cool.

 

 

 

After the porte a porte we headed to a house so the missionaries could bless the kids going to school (today is their first day.). Well, when we got there 2 members of the family needed blessings. The mother twisted her knee and can't walk very well, and the baby was having some problems with his head. *pause story here*  In the MTC our instructors had said it's a good idea for the sister to have some oïl for the blessing of the sick, just incase someone needs a blessing and the priesthood holder doesn't have any. So, I went to the book store, bought some oïl, had it blessed, and threw it in my sack and forgot about it. *unpause here* We were sitting in their home and the missionaries say, we don't have any oïl. Bam. I remember I had some in my sack. I'm such a good boyscout. ;) I was pretty happy I was prepared.

 

 

Tahiti is great. It still doesn't feel real. I don't know what I expected though. For me this isn't a tropical paradise. This is home. The ocean is normal. The trees are just trees. I don't think twice when I see the "tropical" things here. It's normal. I like it that way.

 

 

 

 

Fruit of the week! These are star apples. They're pretty good. The color is a tad strange to me, it's not crisp like an apple. It's not in any way, shape or form like an apple. But it's good. :)

 

I'm doing well. I love my companion! And i'm going to be training in October! If you know some good ol Americans in the MTC, one of them is going to be my new daughter. :) I'm pretty stoaked. That means I'll be staying in Maraa for another 3 months, but that's just perfect for me. I like it here.  The sketchy islands can be next.  I hope. I really really hope. I need more practice with my tahitian!

 

One more week down! They're going too quickly, enjoy everyday you can.

Love!

Sœur Taylor

 

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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Soeur Taylor, Morgan

 

B.P. 93

Papeete, Tahiti

98713

French Polynesia.

Livin' On The Beach

Hello week 4 in Tahiti. Wow. One month here.

This is my, I'm a dork picture. 

This week has been awful. I'll be honest. It was so bad. I just sit here and laugh and laugh because it was so awful. 

Monday night I found out Soeur Li had to go on an intervention in another area of the island. FOR 3 NIGHTS. That means for 4 days I was going to be working with the ward missionary. Who doesn't like me. At all. It was a very rough three days.  The Tuesday was pretty good, just because we had lessons scheduled all the time, and I made her study on the beach instead of inside the house. Wednesday. Was just terrible. I have another lovely cough, a nice cough out your lung cough. Thank goodness for Delsym. Anyway, the lessons for the entire day, were all cancelled. That means porte a porte. Nope. She did not want to. What did we end up doing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I get frustrated when we do nothing. The next was wasn't great. The Friday, thankfully, Soeur Li came home to me. And I taught the trainining lesson in our Zone Conference. Yep. Me. In French. Boom. (Um, not saying it was good, by any means, Soeur Li had to translate my french, into better french, but hey! I tried. :) )  

On Saturday we had a nice 3 hour long training with President Sinjoux. It was very good. Until the last bit where he called on me to address all the bishops, counselors, and ward mission leaders. That was fun. (I'm being honest here, it was fun, the gift of tongues really set in then)  

Oh, did I mention, I did all of this, and made a wedding cake. We won't discuss that stupid cake, but it was the nice highlight of an extremely stressful week. 

(This is Hina, and for each wedding she gives me a crown. She's a keeper,)

But, now, I can sit here and I just laugh. I think it's hilarious. The crazy situations I get thrown into, like the wedding cake, and playing the piano each week for another ward's sacrament meeting. Yep, the piano. Nope, I can't practice. Yes, it is very painful each Sunday. I officially apologize to the members of the Orofero Ward right now.  But it's fun. It's all a learning experience, and I am going to have fantastic stories to share. :) 

Story of the week: 

I taught a group of grown men how to build a fire. *sigh*. 

We were making breadfruit, yes mom, I ate breadfruit, no, it was not good. Why? Let me tell you.  So, it was a nice rainy day, we decided to eat the breadfruit avec some nonmembers. The men were teaching me how to make it. Basically start a fire and throw it in. Step one, start a fire. I was helping Soeur Li make the dessert, when I look over, 20 minutes after they were going to start the fire, to see Haifara pouring gasoline on the wood and throwing matches on it. *sigh*  I walked over, laughed, and walked away.  Then I decided I should help... Thank you Dad for making us start the fires at Glendale. I'm a pro.  After the breadfruit was cooked, i ate (I hit italics somehow and don't know how to fix it... sorry)  I ate the fruit. It tasted like gasoline. Not a fan. 

Here are the strange fruits of the week: 

Pockeye.... I don't quite know how to spell that to be honest. It's the strangest thing I've ever eaten... It's delicious, but I'm not going to go hunt for it. 

For P-day today, we headed to the Grottos of Maraa. It is so beautiful there, ah. I was walking through thinking, hmmm it's just like the Jungle Cruises at Disneyland. Oh, that waterfall is cool, I wonder how they made that. Oh wait. This isn't Disneyland, that wasn't created with oodles and oodles of Disney magic. It's real. Mind. Blown. 

Our investigators are doing good. :) We are working really hard to find new ones, all of our main investigators have baptismal dates, so we need new ones. We're working nice and hard. :) :)

Until next week!

XXO, 

Soeur Taylor

Death To All I Touch

Hello.

Yes, this email is a few hours late, and it's going to be reallly short..

To make a very long story short, I kill all technology I touch here. Including the internet connections for every computer. I'll blame the crazy storm we had this morning, but I'm pretty sure it's me. So, keep your fingers crossed all goes well until I can finish this email. 

This week has been so good! A lot of people have asked me how I'm adjusting. Honestly? There was no adjusting... I showed up in Tahiti and I consider myself Tahitian. The language was hard, it's just strange not being able to have conversations with people, but everything else is honestly great. I dont know, it's like I came to Tahiti, I loved the fact I was teaching in shacks. The key is to understand this is how people live, you either love it and embrace it, or you are miserable. There's an ant in your water? Great, I need the protein. Everyone is sharing the same glass at breakfast, why not? If they can do it, I'm expected to do the same. Ah, if only I would have known french before, then this would be easier. :) 

So, this is a tad short, we have things to do. Next week will have lots of details. But, enjoy a multitude of pictures: 

Okay, nevermind. I'll try to figure out how to send pictures. Please stand by. 

Okay. Next week. You can enjoy a multitude of pictures... 

Love, 

Soeur Taylor