Elise's mission letters

  Iaorana tatou. This week was awesome! Last Week was difficult adjusting to my new area, but this week we saw à ton of miracles!  ☆We were out doing contacting in between lessons one day and Sr Mapuna's sandal broke, thus leading to a slow, sad, and muddy walk back home. Rip rop flip flop ☆got out of a lesson with some Jehovah's Witnesses. They gave us some candy! I said thank, and then like an idiot, I said "oh did you guys buy it for Halloween?"  ☆taught English class! It went a little like this.  One student: how do you spell "Hatch?"  Other student: W A S H  Can someone please explain why everyone calls me Wash when w is neither a letter in French nor in tahitian?  We found some new people! This area has struggled to find new friends for a long time, but this week we found Christine, who is super prepared, Teddy, and Marion and Malia, who have a ton of questions and came to English class! God is good! I went on an exchange with none other than Sr ...

  Iaorana tout le monde! Vous allez bien?    This week has been very good, if not very exhausting. I am now living in Hitiaa, which is absolutely gorgeous. One of the biggest highlights is our house-quite literally ON the beach. The crabs don't get into the house and the view is absolutely beautiful so it is really à win-win situation.  A Story about Service, Answered Prayers, and Learning to Let Go.  Because we live on the other side of the island, and because we had meetings in the city this week, we spent the first half of the week making the tour d'île multiple times. By the time Friday arrived, I was incredibly antsy to work, contact, teach, and find people.  Thursday, while we were making our last trip back from the city to Hitiaa, we got a call from à companionship of sisters telling us they were moving Friday.  I had made à goal to do an act of service every single day this transfer. With my goal in mind, I asked the sisters if they needed help...

  Iaorana tatou.  Do you remember Papi Reid? Because I do and I have a story for you.  Papi Reid is this wild Papi we found, taught, and baptised while I was in Mahina. He only speaks Biblical tahitian, but for every lesson he would say the exact same prayer in French. We couldn't really understand his French, and his prayer was kind of weird, but we taught him how to pray and he understood so ça va.  This week, the sisters finally figured out that, for EVERY SINGLE LESSON, Reid has been in fact simply just reciting the directions for how to say a prayer in a missionary brochure. These directions are given so that you don't give a memorized prayer, but he outsmarted us all and memorized the directions. His French was so thick so we just never understood but behold his prayer (to be read while grunting like Papi) 1. Address your Heavenly Father. 2. Express the feelings of your heart (gratitude, ask, questions, confirmation of what the missionaries said.) 3. End your p...

  Some events from this week:  We were teaching my new best friend, an 8 year old named Teipo. She is adorable and I love her.  Me: so teipo God has given us so many blessings! He created this beautiful world for us! What are your favorite things on this earth?"  Teipo: "uhhhhh naps"  We also have a new friend named Mami Mado! Voici another petite conversation from her leçon.  Me: "Mado can you read this verse?"  Mado: "OK...'now it came to pass'" *sees an airplane flying in the sky and starts waving her hands in the air* "oh my goodness hello!!!!! Say hello to my two grandsons in France! Tell them that I love them and that I miss them and kisses and kisses et bisous et je les aime et bon vol!!! Hello!!!!!!!"  We had to pass our friend Tehani off to missionaries in Papeete and I was so so sad. Pray from Tehani! She is so amazing.  I am kind of sick of writing this email so I will just send it, but know that I love you all!  Spiritual...

  Sometimes life is simply just a two year old who has discovered a fan  AND WE ARE THE INNOCENT ICE CREAM CONE GETTING JAMMED INTO THE BLADES  Not to fear tout le monde. This week was not a "getting jammed into a fan by chubby hands" kind of week. It was really good! And, for the record, nobody got hurt, but the floor was COVERED with ice-cream.  Iaorana!  Some random thoughts from Sr Hatch: -I had a dream this week that there was a senior missionary here who took it upon themself to go into every missionary house, eat all their food, and throw away the food they didn't like. "Sr Hatch's apple sauce isn't good? THROW IT AWAY." In my dream, us missionaries RIOTED. This dream wouldn't be as scary if it wasn't 100% something that would happen in this mission. I'm looking at you Elder   In all honesty, I am very grateful for the senior missionnaires in this mission.  -We were fed Mexican food TWICE this week which was absolutely incredible becau...