lorana!!!

This week has been packed full of learning experiences.  

An Elder during Gym time Clothes-Lined Himself and went into a seizure, got a concussion from hitting the floor and broke his sinus bone.  That was a really somber day.  

The Sushi Miracle! Soeur Miller was telling us again how she really missed sushi and we opened up the box in the mail and there were chopsticks and sushi waiting for us!!  Thank you to the Seo Family!!!! And the Wasabi made for good Food Challenges with the Elders.  

We're a trio now, Sr. Miller, Sr. Colledge and I, and we have 7 hours of classes together everyday.  Now they only speak to us in Tahitian hahaha.  Lessons are crazy, Tahitian doesn't have a "to be" verb in their language, there's no Tahitian Google Translate, they don't have translated the Bible dictionary, Pearl of Great Price, and the Intro to the Book of Mormon, and there are times the people are illiterate, so we're coming across new barriers, but it's cool to figure out the ways to get around that road block. 

So...our package this week was unique.  Got a 12 pack of Sodas and low and behold, two of the bottle were lighter than the others and I bet you know what that meant!! ............ It meant my family sent me two live goldfish.   LOL.  So now we have live animals in our room, naturally we named them ELF and Aussie.  

We miss the 3 who left a ton, we were lucky (blessed) to be together.  

Here's a taste of Tahitian if anybody wanted it. (the First Vision)

Ua ite atura vau i te pou maramarma i te faaatira i ni'a noa a'e i to-u upoo, e us pou matira te reira i ni'a iho ia'u.  

There's the first sentence. If you try saying it out loud the C, D, G, K, Q, S,T, X, and Z make T sounds, the B makes a P sound and the L makes an R sound.  #Tahitian 101 

Classic Sister Spencer French blunders, 

Family and Wife sound similar in French and so I kept telling my investigators about my wife.  And I thought proper, for proper priesthood authority was "propre", which actually means our "own", so told several converts to get baptized by their own authority lol.  Obtiens-le!

Something I loved from Sister Sheri Dew's Speech about Engage in the Spiritual Wrestle

"We can only bear witness of what we know. We can't testify of a wish or a hope or even a belief. We can express a hope, a wish, or a belief. But we cannot stand as witnesses of Jesus Christ unless we can bear witness of Him.[ii] We can defend the faith only if we have faith."

None of us are entitled to revelation without effort on our part. Answers from God don't just magically appear. If we want to grow spiritually, the Lord expects us to ask questions and seek answers. "If thou shalt ask," He promised, "thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge...."[x] How much clearer can it be? The Lord loves inspired questions asked in faith because they lead to knowledge, to revelation, and to greater faith. "

I do know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is our savior.  And I look forward to stepping off that plane to tell Tahitian children of God that he has a plan of happiness for them.

7th week down! 

Je vous aime! 

Bon courage!

 Soeur Spencer

Dear Family and Friends,

BEST THING JUST HAPPENED TO ME AT THE TEMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haley Brown (my cousin who just got back from her mission) was waiting for me at the entrance as we came out!!!!!! Ah, honestly my favorite thing.  Glad to break up the long 3 years with a couple hugs :)

Our district is now down to 3 sisters, and we start Tahitian on Monday! 

Our zone family is doing really well.  30 or so Elders and Sisters, and 20 of them will be leaving with us in 3 weeks.  I really still love our 7 am temple session with all of them and the delicious breakfast after.  A temple worker always talks doctrine with Sr. Miller, Sr. Colledge and I at breakfast, we call him Brother Mike.  

The Presidency for our branch is great.  One of the counselors is super successful pediatric dentist, name Bro Markham, and he is so intelligent and engaging.  We got a super cool verse by verse lesson about Jacob 5 and verse 72, he broke out the glass bottles of Different Assortments of Grape Juice from his personal vineyard in Orem called Chateau Markham.  

Family packages are such a fun part of the day!! Multiple districts come in to share in the fun and sneak some food.  This week, fam, you out did yourselves! Cakes with the flags?!?! Umbrellas, drinks, silly string, great pictures, the works.  I love the letters on the back even more than whatever's in the packages.  You all are the best.  Pictures and videos below of that.  Also the Pinata still lives on, in our window sill.  

Loving the work.  Next week we become a Trio.  Sr. Miller, Sr. Colledge, and I.  We hear more and more about Tahiti everyday from our teachers and can't wait to go! The 3 from our district leaving this week won't be able to go to a temple for the next 2 years so it was bitter sweet this morning.  

Our teachers are incredible in the French district, one of our teachers, Bro. Vanderholm is really profound and ​we were talking about how Christ is the center of our lesson, the Restoration.  But actually, it's in the first three lessons.  As the center of each.  The Restoration in the form of a story, the 2nd in the form of a Plan, and the 3rd in the form of a Process.  

I've learned so much from meeting people here who have sacrificed a ton to get on this mission.  And the Lord qualifies those whom he calls. 

It's so wonderful to be a missionary for a church who has the whole truth.  

Looking forward to loving the Tahitian People! 

Soeur Spencer 

Dear Friends and Family,

Sorry for the long letter, I was just in the mood to write today, unlike most days!

The Play

Everybody handles the stress of the MTC differently, and indulges themselves in different ways.  Some read comic books at night, some write their own raps, others draw pictures of clarinets, or look at their home on Google Maps and show everyone.    ​​​​

Ah, our zone is awesome here.  There's 30 of us and we're super close.  Today we're doing the weekly bowling, darts, and Pinata. Every day we have a zone game of Basketball Revenge going,  I got termed the "Jebron Kybrant" this week, so you could say my basketball skills are getting pretty serious ;)  Our zone also has a board of French Records to beat, One of the new Elder's beat the zone record for the mile with 5.04

We did lose one of the sisters last week, she went home and got engaged that very same day. Haha When you know, I guess you know! 

Pictured below is our district's S'floral Saturdays.  Soeur Miller got floral ties for the Elders so they could keep up.

Thanks family so much for the packages!!! We always laugh when we get the package slips and wonder what could possibly be the boxes.  Definitely out did your self with the Last one :) We wore the sombrero party hats all day, indulged in Los Hermanos Chips and Salsa, shot hoops, had an Elder imitate a Mariachi band, and we're busting the Pinata today with the zone, so pictures of that next week! Elder La Fontaine takes his airplanes everywhere. In fact we were in class when we heard something clang to the ground.  Look down and it's a metal knife...that he took from the cafeteria. haha He needed it to fix his plane. Also the caffeine is traded like gold here lol 

The Work

Each week when we go to the temple there's always this old man temple worker waiting for us in the cafe, he gives us homework to do over the week and articles to read and then we discuss the doctrine with him over delicious temple breakfast.  

Coming out of the temple today we saw this Elder who had a Tahitian type name.  We stopped him and he's actually from Tahiti (props to us for recognizing that)! He got called to Sydney Australia speaking Mandrin.  So by the end he'll know French, Tahitian, English, and Mandrin.  I think that's incredible.  We found out that our Tahitian teacher here at the MTC gave the discussions to his parents and baptized them 3 years ago and now he's serving a mission! A couple of things he said about Tahiti.  One: it's hot.   Two: lots of Transgenders Three: You call everyone "Tu" the informal you.  he said "because we believe that no one is any better than anyone else".  Also French uses the informal to address God, because we are to be familiar with him.  No thee and thine.  I personally love that.  

To be honest I love it here.  And 3 of the 6 of our district fam leaves in a week in a half and that's going to be the worst.  I love the 3 of them so much.  The good news is we start Tahitian in a week and a half! 

We have 3 formal investigators, and couple inactives that we teach, and we teach each other several times a week.  I love that the gospel makes sense in a very logical way but also is confirmed through experience and personal feelings.  What a relief that I'm a missionary for a church that has all truth.  When we teach lessons you learn that every person needs to hear different aspects of the gospel to meet their needs, but I'll often find when I learn about the person's life that I'm surprised by how perfectly the gospel can help them!  I never realized the importance of asking questions until now.  I really love the way it can open people's hearts and help them develop a desire to understand specific questions.

We also skyped a French woman in Canada this week and gave her a lesson :)

I already am beginning to understand that the mission can help you in every aspect of your life.  It's the greatest irony of this is life, that the more you lose yourself in the service of others, the more you find and become your greatest self.  

The support here has been amazing.  I love you all so much! Congrats to those getting their calls and leaving into the field and coming home! Miranda went out this week and Elder Busby leaves soon as well.  I caught him using chopsticks at dinner, he said someone from his district gave them to him.

I found a picture of Grandma and Grandpa in my building :) 

Alright, talk to you in a quick week! 

Time goes by so fast in here!! 

love,

Souer Spencer

 

 

Dear Family and Friends,

This week we worked with our first French inactive which was really cool and difficult in it's own way. 

We had a district counseling visit.  The counselor was hilarious, and our district dynamic is so funny, We loved the break.  

We got to be hosts for the new missionaries coming in this week! We'll do it again this week, so if you know of anyone coming in, I could figure out a way to be their host.  

We got 18 new missionaries in the zone going to Paris and Lyon France, it's been a humbling experience being in charge of the Soeurs in the Zone.  There's a new Elder here who paid for his mission by having a youtube channel where he played Call of Duty.  He has 50,000 followers.  Also he has a pilot and helicopter license, like whaaat? 

Priesthood blessings are really powerful especially here because we all have the same goal and calling to bring others to Christ.

Our district is super close and there's always a lot to learn from each other's experiences.  The language classes are so cool because they take secular nuances of grammar and vocabulary and help us achieve our purpose to help others come unto Christ.  We learn 10 times faster I ever have in my life.  

Thank you so much to the fam for all the hilarious packages, they are honestly the spice of life.  We love our roommates here and don't plan to leave any time soon.  Je Blague, we just have another short 5 weeks until we ship out.  But something about all this time and energy focused on the gospel makes everything funnier :) 

Here's us saying goodbye to the Paris and Lyon crew.  

And our snow-missionary, named Henrietta

All my love 

Soeur Spencer

“During your life you may achieve wealth, fame, social standing. Real success, however, comes from helping others"-Thomas S. Monson​