Elise's mission letters

  "Comment dit-on iaorana en afrikans?"  ---some little kid after learning I was from America.  hello and iaorana and bonjour -I started out this week by learning a new word: fuite. Our downstairs neighbor who happens to be a member calls us and starts going off about a fuite in our house. I, being stupid, did not understand and just rambled off a response like "ohhh sorry frere that we dropped something! We will go pick it up!" This frustrated the frere.  It turns out fuite means leak and there was a leak in our pipes that caused one of their ceiling panels to crumble to the ground.  And that was the only really interesting thing that happened this week. We had to stop teaching a lot of our friends, and struggled to find ANY new friends.... except for Agath.  In our area, there is a corner that is lovingly called crêpe corner ™. This is where a bunch of men in faaa just chill, cat call the sister missionaries, and get super drunk on a Wednesday at like 2 p...

  tchuru, maitai?  I hope you all had a wonderful week! We did a lot of work, I got somewhat more tan, and I ate a new fruit, so the week was pretty solid.  While street contacting, we walked past this old woman who was waiting for the bus. She has a super high pitched nasaly voice. We shared a little tahitian message, and she just went off about how jealous she was of our youth. We kept going on with the message, and then the Mami proudly and loudly exclaimed "ON EST PECHEUR!!!!!!" WE ARE SINNERS!! Sinners people! parau mau, parau mau , c'est vrai.  Other events:  Sr Cloud found out the Queen of England died and had a breakdown.  "I never thought it would happen! How could nobody have told me? THE QUEEN DIED?!?!??" silly  Also, I asked Cloud about the new styles of clothing in America. Behold the following conversation:  Me, wearing a giant bright baby blue tahitian mumu grandma dress with lime green leaves all over it: "so would I be able to get...

  Iaorana tatou!  Gutentag!  I said Gutentag because my new companion is the lovely Sr Cloud! She is American, but because her dad is in the military she lived in Germany for a while. She is a new missionary and I love her enthusiasm and energy.  There are many dogs in Tahiti. When a dog approaches you and you want it to ~ ️go away ️~, you can do this thing called yelling the word "heesh" and it will go away. On Sr Cloud's first day, literally just hours from being off the plane, she saw her first tahitian dog, who was harmless and literally just minding its own business. Sr Cloud: "do I heesh? Do I do a heesh?!?"  Me: "huh???"  Cloud: "I think I just need to powerstep heesh him!"  Me: ?!? Sr Cloud, stomping her feet: "HEEEEESHHH" Needless to say I don't think anyone needs to worry about us being bitten by dogs this transfer. Sr Cloud is a powerstep missionary.  Being back in F3A has been WEIRD, but actually a huge blessing. You...

  Iaorana tatou!  I somehow got sick again. I don't LOVE biking in beach winds with a fever, but ça va and I am now feeling a lot better.  Because we didn't have our car, two members picked us up for the fatamaraa (member meal.) We enter the house. Their 8 year old Anapa is quietly standing by the food, waving his hand to swat away the flies.  The mother: "when we went to pick you sisters up, we asked the older kids to fold the laundry and Anapa to keep the flies off the food!" Which means that this kid just obediently stood above food for maybe 20 minutes, doing nothing but waving his arms. An example of childlike obedience. I love.  I will be transferred to..... Faaa!  In the Ruatama ward!  The ward I already served in!  I was very very confused when I learned that I will be going back to an old area, but I'm excited. I will be training again. I'm excited to get a second chance to work in Faaa- the first time we didn't get to do a lot of work an...