jif got jipped


 Americans living in à french-speaking country that is literally named French Polynesia talk with french tourists and realize, for the first time ever, that they don't know how to pronounce the French word for "goodbye." 



Nana is way easier than "au revoir" or whatever the word is. 



Anyway, this week was a doozy. Very tiring, sometimes frustrating, sometimes exciting. 

Here are some ~-Highlights-~

"You see, I'm tahitian but I don't know how to say tahitian names." 
-our friend after we asked her what her granddaughter's name was. 

"Do you think that jif is jealous of skippy?" 
-Sr Young 3 weeks after learning that the tahitian word for peanut butter is skippy. This fact is clearly still bothering her. 

We went to the trois cascades and the beach last p-day. Very fun. Took lots of good pictures. Jokes, the pictures weren't good. Thank you wind. But it was still fun. 

While street contacting, we met this older couple. They weren't interested in being taught, but they had us sing with them for a few minutes. 🥰

Behold the most frustrating street contact from this week: 
Us in French: "do you want to hear a message?" 
Man: 
Us, louder but still in French: "can we share a scripture?!?"
Man: 
Me, in Tahitian: "can we share a message?" 
The man says yes and we proceeded to share a little thought i roto i te re'o tahiti. I then asked him where he was from and he said France. 
🇫🇷
And then he started speaking in French. Grrrr. We got his phone number though so that's good. 

A huge miracle from this week came from our lesson with Puaua! I won't go into a lot of details, but Puaua is going through a really hard time. While it was absolutely heartbreaking to learn of his situation, (it's not often that I cry during a lesson) there was definitely some divine intervention that led to us asking a very specific member, Dauphin, to come. Before, we had asked another member, Arsene, to come to the lessons, but Arsene told us this week that he is no longer the fellowship for Puaua. Because we are no longer in a trio, we have to have a member in our lessons, thus forcing us to ask Dauphin to come. Dauphin, whose job involves helping people in situations like that of Puaua, was able to help Puaua and because of this lesson, things will get better. I am so grateful for the divine guidance that led us to this lesson. Puaua has such a pure, sweet soul, and I pray that he can start feeling some peace and joy in his life. 

We had another awesome lesson with Ismael! He has had a hard life and it is really difficuly for him to understanf that the blessings of the gospel- repentance, forgiveness, love, joy- apply to him to. As children of Heavenly Parents, we all have to right and privilege to partake in the blessings of the gospel. Ismael has a very pure desire to find truth. He comes to church every week and has told us many times that he wants to be on the right path. It was very powerful to tell him that he IS on the right path. His desire and faith has already produced miracles. 
Alma 32:27 reads: 
"But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." 

I love you all! Serve someone today- give a compliment or a hug or a smile! 

Ua here au ia outou! 










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