April 16, 2017

The Beginning - in Faa'a
Biggest regrets of the week are when I forget to wear bug spray! 

I am in Faa'a!

I live with air conditioning which is the biggest blessing ever. Regardless of what happens during the day, coming home to air conditioning is incredible. 

So the four main food groups of Tahitians. 1. Poisson Cru 2. Chicken...bones 3. Bread 4. And Red Juice 

The fruit here is soo soo good. We eat Lichée and Pompeuse a ton here. And have Faatamaaraas every night. 

We don't knock doors here and we don't go contacting. We just stand at the edge of their house and yell Lorana!  Not many doors here - just open walls.  

Daily Routine: 

Wake up at 6 and run into the city and around the docks in the harbor. One morning we were in some torrential downpour. We couldn't see but made it home LOL. People looked at us like we were crazy.

Then we do planning and getting ready.  And we do all of that huddled around the air conditioner.
 

Then we have the sisters drive us into our Area - because we live too far away.   Then we walk and talk and kiss every walking thing on the cheek ....and sweat!  And I gawk at the incredible view of the coast and the reef and Moreaa that we can always see from our sector.

We teach about 4 to 6 lessons every day and just talk to every punk kid and angry mom and small child and the "I am super busy" men that we see. And it's crazy that they let us set up lessons with them! Then we go eat 5 servings at a member's house.  

Then we get someone with a car drive us back and we get ready for the next day.

And did I mention we speak a TON of French hahahaha wohoo!

The Dog Fight:  We teach this woman named Antonella, and we just walk over to this bus stop facing the valley jungle and teach her for a hour or 3.  Well this was my first lesson, having just left presidents house. And the lady has a stray dog she named Fiona, like from Shrek (she always tells us).  So we're sitting there and its super hard to hear because motorcycles drive by every minute, and there are lizards and centipedes crawling around the bench (BTW the lizards bark here).  Then her dog, Fiona, starts barking and darts down into the jungle. Then I just hear a ton of dogs fighting down there and dogs crying.  Finally, Fiona comes back up all limping and injured.  Haha how's that for bringing the spirit into the lesson? 

We teach multiple people at that bus stop. We are teaching 7th Day Adventists, Catholics, JDubbs, RLDS people, and Protestants.  What a riot! The Sanitos or RLDS people are tricky and so are the rest but also that could be because I am not yet fluent in French.

We had a great fast with our ami, Chico, to help him stop smoking weed. He is incredible.  He is so willing to try his best and open to learning new things.  He makes me want to be better which is the best.  He came with us to church yesterday in what I call the Swagger Wagon. It is this Truck Bus that comes around our area and picks up everyone for church. Can I just say already I feel so so humbled here.  Our ward has some incredibly devout, hard working, loving members and a lot of them live in deep poverty.  Sitting on that rickety bus with 10 families and our investigators is the best feeling in the world.  I am in love with this ward!

The members work so hard to feed us and come teach investigators.  Big shout out to member missionaries!! 

I think one of the craziest things to me is the mix of cultures here;  The three main cultures here are Chinese, Polynesian, and French. Their foods and work ethics and things they value and languages are so different!  Sometimes I just have to laugh outloud about it.

My Trainer is incredible. Not even half-bad things to say or think about her.  What a woman! Her name is Sr. Durrant,from Logan Utah.  She's been out a year, and she loves playing guitar, and teaching gospel things, and being my companion ;) 

Well, teaching real people is the best, but also I learned some great things in the MTC.  Prayers for all my friends now Teaching R and B converts all over the world.  The fundamentals are huge. And Jesus Christ is our Savior!  Once you come to learn how much he loves you, you can start to understand how much he must love others!

Tuahine Spencer