Sea Urchin for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Cold and Hot:)

Ia Orana from the lovely tropical storm (not really, it's just my first big rain storm) in Tahiti! Don't worry. I'm alive, and miraciously, the internet is working. Whooo!.

 

What is this? Is this a Sunset? Why yes, yes it is. What does that mean?

 

I'M BACK IN MARAA!

 

I decided I'm just keeping my suitcases packed at all times. And the new transfer is in 2 weeks. :) Who knows where I'm going to be heading? Not me... Not yet.

 

Aside from the crazy back and forth between sectors this week it's been a good week. In Orofero, we had crazy miracles again. The first week I was there we had no baptisms fixed and a handful of investigators... I don't know how it happened (hence the miracle) but the day before I left we had 12 lessons scheduled for one day. I love Orofero. Love. Love. Love. It's not about how many investigators you have, it's not about numbers at all. I don't care about numbers at all. It's the people. When you start from scratch and Watch people change and grow, that's the best part of a mission. The new investigators really want to learn, and that's something I love and appreciate so much.

 

(Orofero, imagine Oakley, Utah just tropical. :) )

 

This week has been a week of crafty things. I learned how to make nets. Yep. Fishing nets, call me Tahitian. Then a cool little thing to put the fish it. It floats and lets the water in so the fish can be chillin in there alive, but they can't escape. I made one. But it was too big to fit in my suitcase so.. I gave it to a member. :) And then I became the master coconut husk trinket maker on the planet. I made a keychain this morning. An inactive member taught me, and she made me this ring. Yes. It's legit. I'm making one right now. :)

 

MMM. I ate vana. In English that's sea urchin. It was... not good. :) I had the most delicious fish on the planet the other night. I'd be happy to eat that everyday. I could live off poisson cru and swordfish and guava and bananas. I'd die happy like that.  Speaking of food. I've noticed 3 things about Tahiti this week, that I noticed for the first time:

 

One: You can live in Tahiti without working. There's trees everywhere with fruit and the fish swim right up to the beach. Oh, and the baguettes are only 50 cents. Yep.

 

Two: There's only one paved road. Well, I've only seen one paved road in Mara'a. It never hit me before that all the roads I go on aren't paved...

 

Three: There aren't worms here. Normally when it rains (in Utah) the sidewalks and roads are covered in worms. I haven't seen any here. At all. Just poisionous centipedes.

 

 

I saw another centipede at our house this week. I tried to kill it, but Sœur Li wasn't very happy with me. She wanted to catch it. Ha. There was no way that was going to happen, and I didn't want to get bitten when I run in the morning. So I stomped on it, then cut off it's head. You know, just a normal day in Tahiti.

 

I'm trying to think of anything else I missed. I'm doing well, I'm super excited for the next transfer in 2 weeks! There's a rumour (oh rumours rumours...) That a new island is opening for the sisters. That's much needed, and I want to go. :) So. If you are looking for anything to pray for......... ;)

 

 

 

Have a good week! Love you all!

 

XXo,

Sœur Taylor

 

 

Fermented Crab Coconut

Ia Orana i te mau taata na roto i te Fenua! O Tuahine Taylor to'u i'oa. E mea maitai i te hebodoma. 

Sometime I pretend I can actually speak Tahitian, and every time I teach in Tahitian people are super shocked because the silly white girl is speaking their language, but really, I have no idea what I'm doing. :) I adore the language, I prefer to pray in Tahitian, but sometimes I just make up things I know aren't right. But hey! I'm trying. :) 

(yes, that is my super tan arm) 

This week has been good. We successfully managed to avoid more dog births, and I, once again, did not have the lovely occasion to eat fafaroo. One day. One day. I haven't hit the point where I'm going to pray for someone to serve fafaroo, because I know once I do that I'll be eating the lovely fermented fish every night for 3 weeks. I don't think I could do that quite yet.

I did however make some concoction I was pretty scared to eat. It all started with 47 coconuts.... Yes. I was super epic and Tahitian and first cut the coconuts open with a machete, and then after shredded the coconuts. True story. I have video. You'll just have to wait for a few more months because it's too big to send... :) So I shredded the deliciousness into a giant bowl. (The bowls here in Tahiti are pretty impressively huge). Fresh coconut is ridiculously delicious. I'd buy a bag every week in Maraa where the fruit vendor is, I've been missing it in Orofero. I was stoked to eat my coconut. I'll just say it. STTTTOAKED. So I finish shredding the coconut, and walk over to help with the other food and I see the wife of our DMP smashing whole crabs and scraping the smashedness into a bowl of water. All the little bits went into the water. Afterwards she had me help with straining all the little bits out. .... then she poured the crab water into my coconut. SHE POURED IT ALLLLLL INTO THE COCONUT. My little heart just cracked into a gazillion pieces when that happened. I do not like crab. I didn't like it before. I don't like it now. And now the beautiful coconut was tainted with the intestines of crab. The morning after, after it fermented through the nice, we chopped up raw tuna and put it in. Then I ate it. It was delicious. I'm making it again this week. Oh the world is a strange place... 

(that's my super tan hand again. No, not really... this is the smashed crab guts) 

We are still teaching Otako. He gave me a waffle this week. It was the best waffle I've ever eaten in my life. Holy cow. So delicious. It had a nutella whipped cream on it. It was so delicious I couldn't finish it. :) He's doing well. One of his friends he invited to a lesson accepted to hear all the lessons, so we went and talked to his very anti-Mormon family, and they accepted to have a family home evening with us. The world is progressing. :) We're literally teaching an entire neighborhood. 2 weeks ago nobody in the neighborhood was being taught, now, nearly every house has had lessons with us, and the majority have accepted to hear the lessons, and 3 people already have asked us to be baptised. #miracles

(this punk likes to take my camera and take pictures. I think I have 100 pictures of her dogs on it. They're actually good pictures. :) )

Something that amazes me every single day is the wisdom of the children. We're teaching a new investigator, her name is Hereani, in the neighborhood of miracles, she's 10. I think she understands the gospel better than we do. Her and Otako. They're both 10, and wow. I can't believe their faith and their wisdom. We don't have favorite investigators here, but I will always prefer to teach children. Their hearts haven't been hardened by the things of the world. They're not addicted to alcohol or cigarettes, they don't live in concubinage, they don't have the same problems that affect all the adult investigators. They have the faith. That's what's most important. 

(sorry it's turned funny. This is Coeur de Boeuf. aka. Cow heart. It's  fruit, and I will never eat raw cookie dough again. It tastes exactly like cookie dough and has the same texture) 

I got my first package this week! It only took 6 weeks. :) It was filled with all the delicious things from home. Now I can eat my oatmeal in the mornings with spices. Yes! Score! No more plain oatmeal for me! I eat fresh guava all the time, and banana, and soon the mangos will be ripe again. Ah. I can not wait! I love me some mango. Papaya is good, but nothing can compare to mango and guava. 

This week is going to be a good one! We have lots of lessons planned, including a new investigator who's been taking the missionary lessons for 30 years. Yes. Thirty. He just barely moved to our area. I'm quite excited. I also invited the Jehovah's Witness missionaries to have a lesson with us on Wednesday. That's going to be super good. I've been studying for it. :) I love teaching people who have questions and opinions. That's the debater inside of me coming out. Those are the people who really want to learn. I love it. I eat it up. Send me some more. :) 

Until next week!

XXo, 

Soeur Taylor

p.s. I've lost all faith in the US Mail system. It only took 2 weeks for me to get a letter from Finland. And I still haven't gotten all my letters from the US. Sigh.....

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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Soeur Taylor, Morgan

 

B.P. 93

Papeete, Tahiti

98713

French Polynesia.

Weeeee Thank Theeeee O Cannnddbbury For Choooocolate!

to me

(My camera is bomb! It's a tiny puffball) 

Ia Orana a la monde! 

This week in paradise has been hands down the strangest week of my life. I have  no where I can possibly begin. Well start with something pretty amazing. 

It's purple on the outside, silver on the inside, and you can eat it! What is it? Only the most delicious chocolate in the world. Hello Cadbury. Why have you only been in my life in the form of Easter goodness? I was introducted to Cadbury this week. Dang it's delicious. There's nothing better than having a delicious square of deliciousness right before bed. (How many times can I say delicious in one paragraph? Challenge accepted.) Really though. It's delicious. 

(ugliest dog in the world award)

One thing I'm thankful for? Green Slime. Yes. I did just say Green Slim. It's a handy dandy way to patch flat tires... which are the bane of existance for missionaries. Dear Pops, you saved my life with this stuff. And Dad, for all times I watched you figure out where the hole in a tire is. Soeur Li and I tried to patch  it, but that was a failure. So I sneakily (that's a word in my mind) threw in some of the green stuff and my bike has never been better. I just don't want to share the precious stuff with every missionary who has a flat tire.... call me greedy.... 

So this week I was transferred. I'm now serving in Orofero with Soeur Rima. She's great. She's from Raitea and is almost done with her mission. She heads home in December. Orofero is nothing like Maraa, but its literally the sector next to Maraa. We  still go to the same chapel and everything. There is a ton of poverty here. Much more than I've seen before on my mission. I'm glad I'm able to do something and not just sit back and watch. That's the blessing of the Gospel. It's for everyone, and everyone pitches in to help share it, 

(family home evening. They had to blance 15 nails on top of one) 

I had the most terrible, strange lesson in the world this week.  It all started with Otako. He's the little boy from the pictures last week.. He was playing soccer with his friends, when he stopped to have the lesson. He sat down, and I'm like, Otako! Tu peut inviter tes amis! So he yelled, and invited all the little boys to come listen, and they did. Picture this: we're sitting outside, on rocks and buckets and rickety wooden benches, we have a plyboard table we're all sitting around, and there' a dog sitting under the table.  We start going, we're having a great discussion one who is Jesus Christ and then we asked each kid if they want to be baptised, they all say yes. I'm thinking to myself. Yes! Now we can go teach their families, we were about ready to ask if we could go talk to their parents when.... the dog gave birth.  No joke. I don't even know how to explain how odd and terrible that moment in my life was. The thing is, I knew. I just refused to say anything. This lesson was super important and I needed the attention to be on the Spirit, not the dumb dog. Until Soeur Rima realized what was going on.... Goodbye attention. :)  There wen't the spirit, that was for sure. We quickly ended the lesson, went on our way and left the boys to watch. Ugh. That was a moment where I sat and thought, "wait, this is my life? this isn't some strange missionary movie"

We had another lesson that went very well. We started to teach a new investigator who also accepts the lessons from the Jehova witnesses, That was a fun lesson.  One is the mother of a member, the other is a transvestite inactive member. (he/she was baptised when she/he was 12 and never went back)  The funny thing is, they believe everyting we believe. They just don't have the knowlege of the restoration and the commandements. They are so spiritually ready it's crazy, but it's going to be a matter of being able to teach them instead of answering questions that will get us nowhere. Such as: Did Christ have a wife.. Ugh. Not in the Bible, we don't know. Yes the TV may have said something. No, we don't know. Continue this for a good 10 minutes, while we try to change the subject. I'm quite excited for the next lesson. :) 

(BAM! 33 nails, it's possible, we've got skill) 

Last crazy story of the week.  A new sister joined our District this week. Her name is Soeur Weller and she's from... wait for it... Kamas Utah! Boom. Small world. She's great, She finishes in Novemeber or December, so she already knows all the secrets of being a missionay, it's going to be great to learn from her. 

Until next week!

XXo, 

Soeur Taylor

p.s. All I want for Christmas is .5 G2 black pens. Buckets and buckets full. #firstworldproblems

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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Soeur Taylor, Morgan

 

B.P. 93

Papeete, Tahiti

98713

French Polynesia.

:

Hello week....I can't remeber!

Hello week... I can't remember!

 

This has been a crazy week. Sœur Li has had quite a few meetings because she's the Sister Training Leader, so Sœur Avae and I have been tearing up our lovely little sector. I'm fairly certain we did Porte a Porte in every neighborhood of Maraa. We might have missed a few, but it went very, very well. We found some new investigators, made some new friends, and found a few people we'll see if they want to listen to the lessons. :)

 

We had a pretty cool experience this week.  We were eating lunch with the Young Women's President and asking her if there were any inactive Young women we could visit, or girls who's family aren't members, ect. Well, her "son-in-law"  walked into the Kitchen and I asked if he was a member. Nope! She walked up to him and asked him if he wanted to have a lesson, he said why not. We taught him a little about the organization of the Church and why were missionaries, ect. And he had a lot of questions and he talked a lot, that was so nice, I love it when investigators talk back. :) He decided to invite us back again next week.  Which is so nice! I said "son in law" because he's not married. His girlfriend is a member who's inactive, and she also agreed to listen to our lessons.

 

This weekend I've been working in the sector of Orofero. ONe of the sisters is too sick to work, so I've been filling it. It's been interesting. We did however, manage to fix a date for a baptism for one of their investigators. That was pretty nice. He's 10 and boy does he a have a million questions. To him baptism is just logical and he just wanted to pick a day. Oh, if only all of the people we talked to were like children...

 

Well, I'm off, back to Orofero for a couple of days. I'm sad to leave my investigators, but I'm excited to meet some new people and help them out.

 

Until next week!

 

Love,

Sœur Taylor

to me

Sunset of the week

Fruit of the week. Just chillin on the side of the road.

 

We did about 6 hours of Porte a Porte this week. :) Here.

 

My camera was stolen. And I have a ton of pictures of her. :)

 

OH. We ate lobster. You know. They just caught it that morning. :)

 

Lesson! This is in the Sector of Orofero were I'll be serving for a few days while a sister whose sick gets better. He's getting baptised October 10th. :)

 

Love you all!!

Sœur Taylor
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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Soeur Taylor, Morgan

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Tahiti Papeete Mission

Manger Les Mouse Ears

I ate mouse ears this week. Yep. I know.  (No, they weren't real, they're a kind of mushroom.) I thought they were real for the longest time. And I was very scared. I also had tamarine. (Don't really know how to spell that.) It's basically a war head fruit. It's super sour and you just suck on it like a candy.

 

I've never been more worried about my teeth in my life. Sœur Li had to go to the dentist our first week, and the patient who came in after her was not happy at all. Why not? Well... He needed a root canal, and in Tahiti you just pull the tooth. Well... the dentist pulled the wrong tooth. So hello flossing and brushing like crazy. :)

 

I have been roped into being the pianist for the Firesides. So... I'm Learning arrangements for Come Thou Fount and He Sent His Son. It's been interesting. We're using the melody for Come Thou Fount, but singing Joseph Smith's First Pray in French. BUT. Wait for it. I moved the words around and figured out how we can sing it in Tahitian. So It's a mashup of French and Tahitian. It's going to be very cool. And all the missionaries who know me from the MTC know I have the worlds biggest case of piano stagefright. Bad. So, if you can play the piano, but not in front of people, don't let anyone know you can play the piano in Tahiti.

 

Okay. Announcement of the week.  I have a new companion. Nope, Sœur Li didn't go anywhere. I am in a trio. There are pros and cons to this. CONS: Shower time. Pros: Splits! I get to learn new things from another Sister.  I actually really like Sœur Avae. (Avae means foot in Tahitian) She is almost nearly the complete opposite of Sœur Li, but they both works super hard.  Which I appreciate. She's from Tahiti. She's been on her mission for 5 months now and she'll be with us for this transfer. It will be good.

 

This week really flew by. I feel like I didn't do anything. But we did. :) We taught lots of lessons, we have a baptism next Friday, we had a Zone Conference with the Faa'a, and Papeete stakes. It was nice to talk to Sœur Mann, Elder Squirrles (Squires), and Elder Ball. The Elders were pretty shocked French came out of my mouth when I talked to them. They had studied French before the MTC, Elder Squires tested out of the french part of the MTC and only came for the Tahitian, and said my french was good. That was nice. :) 

 

This Sunday was a tad difficult. A member of the Ward said something about my french that weren't very nice. SO. I have no idea if my french is good or not. :) I just go with it. It gets better everyday, and my Tahitian is going to be a lot better. Sœur Avae speaks Tahitian, so it's nice to have her with us. :) I don't have to search for my dictionary she can tell me what the word it.

 

Missionary Story of the Week:

 

We have a family we've been trying to have a family home evening with for a couple of weeks now. They're friends with our DMP, but each week it's been hard to have it. Why? Well, the Concubine (girlfriend, it's rare to find nonmember married couples) has cancer. She has chemo on Thursday, and is tired for the rest of the weekend. So we can have our Family Home Evening on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. It's been a tad difficult because last week she was really sick and was taken to the ER. But her Boyfriend called DMP and told him she said, "All of this is Satan trying to keep the truth away from me."  It takes a lot of faith to understand that. I'm pretty excited for this lesson (Le Plan du Salut) with her this Wednesday. It's going to be very good. I'm excited for her and her family.

 

This week is going to be very busy. We have a lot of lessons planned already and some more lessons we need to plan. I'm excited! It's always better to be busy. It makes the day more fun. The worst parts are when you don't know what to do because your plan and your backup plan fell through. So, have a plan A, B, C, and D.  That's the moral of my missionary life. If you Family Home Evening is a disaster (Like last night), use the terribleness of it to explain the Great Apostasy.

 

Okay, I'll explain better.  Last night we have a Family Home Evening with 20 people. That's a lot. We were going to play a game where you draw things and write things and pass the paper every 30 seconds. Well. Silly me forgot Georges is deaf and can't hear me yell stop.... So we had a nice traffic jam of paper and everyone was fustrated, and it was very bad. (Thankfully this family loves us, or we might not be going back.)  So we talked about how this game is exactly what we wanted to demonstrate. The Apostasy was confusing and fustrating for many people trying to find the truth, but because of the Restoration we know the truth and don't have to be fustrated. It was a pretty fun, take what we have and run with it moment.

 

FRUIT OF THE WEEK:

Say hello to the Hamburger Fruit. It's a special type of Breadfruit. It's ridiculiously, oddly, delicious. It tastes like a McDonald's cheeseburger. No lie. I'm dead serious. I can't eat it all the time, I just think of McDonalds, but when you're craving a burger, this is the fruit for you.

 

Oh. Advice for people coming to Tahiti. You need a converter for the outlets. Buy a good one. Mine burst into flames. Literally. I've been conserving my camera battery, so.. That's why there aren't very many pictures this week. :)

 

Well, I'm off! Love you! Have a fantastic week!

 

XXo,

Sœur Taylor