fighting for Jesus, and for dishes 11/7/16

 I think i cried when i read that story that dad sent me. thank you fam for still embarrassing yourselves endlessly hahahahaha i cant even stand it. oh man im excited to receive moms version also. sr james was like "what the heck is so funny"

good job isaac keeping the family proud. if no one else is proud of you guys, i sure am. stay the way you all are hahahaha im still giggling about it. i have this image in my head of poor sister authority "oh my" hahaha lol 

i have an experiece like that maybe ill tell you one time when i have more time 

mom to answer that question, i dont get letters for like a month after they are sent and then they all come at once usually. since im on a different island right now we have to wait for the boats to come with our things that are shipped from tahiti. so theres that lol island probs 

for halloween sr james and i made some hilarious videos about our strange experiences on mission already. it was like our videos we make at home hahaha ill find a way to send them to you but they wont make sense 

i dont have tons of time but i dont think i can vote! i tried and the site said there are no more ballots for me! and i never recieved an actual ballot in the mail... but good luck to evan. i wish you all a good election and the falling of our country. 

just kidding i have faith in heavenly father that he knows what he is doing! all will be well even if we have to hide from the governement 

ISAAC GOT TALL 

hey the wedding is coming up, hows everything going with that? its like a fixed baptism i think. its always possible it might fall through ;) just kidding but let me know. keep me updated erryone 

thanks for the update on doctor strange 

i shall try to write more spiritual details in my groupie sorry im never that spiritual in my emails to you guys. i promise i am a spiritual missionary hahaha 

heres some pics of me i dont know what i have or have not sent to you guys 

also i need a watch if you ever have no more ideas for christmas and none of you replied to my question last week!! lame sauce 

ok love you all really i do :) REALLY A TON AND IM NOT KID

 sorry short email this week! but its SO GOOD lolol read me

We fixed a couple of baptisms on Friday because of this AMAZING spiritual lesson we had (actually with pres of the mission and his wife). All we did was talk about christ and sing a song and bear testimony and cry a little. Incredible how just the knowledge of our savior brings that heart softening spirit into a room. I will never forget all of these experiences I have where all that Was needed to change the course of s lesson is just a picture. Just a picture of his face and a small testimony of his love. This changes people so quickly and so powerfully. It's one of the most profound things I have learned here on my mission. I know he lives and cares for INDIVIDUALS. he is there and his presence is physically there when he is testified of, which is why we have his name on our hearts. i feel so so grateful to be able to do this great work!! HE LIVES! he is real! i just wanna shout it from the tops of mountains! which works because we did a cool hike today to the top of a raiatean mountain. so pretty. why am i so lucky

Turns out that spirit doesn't last forever unless you make the efforts, because yesterday they told us they want to stay catholic. They didn't even have a good reason but we know it's because they just thought too much and went back to their comfort zone! After tons of talking and encouragement and sharing, they agreed to give it another go and keep praying and reading. Man it's hard to see things like this. I KNOW they are ready. They just have to do their part also. Step out of the comfort zone and into the miracle zone. 

Other deets... 

Every day I see the ocean and that's cool. 

There's a cute little Mami who lives here with us in our cute pink house 

Yesterday a woman fought me physically when I tried to do her dishes. This happens more often than it should 

Mangoes are GOOD 

Tahitian is hard hahahaha how am I Gonna learn it. Prolly just the same way I learned French lol 

heres our halloween pics. we didnt actually have basketballs but it worked. lebron and kevin forever. 

we watched a part of a thing that happens only once a year only in certain islands of polynesia, the hawaikinui. its when large amounts of muscular people canoe from island to island and its insane. 

heres a pic of a giant fish head we ate. and other things

Happy day of Fear 10/31/16

today ive been trying to be scary but ive only succeeded in scaring my companion. but we have a lot of action plans to freak people out. like... repentance. that is some scary business right there. no procrastination all yall!!! watch it you could die like next week hahaha 

uh. what happened this week? i dont even know where to start. writing emails is so hard. 

we ate with this crazy mami who taught us a halloween song: "halloween, halloween, donner les bon bons! halloween halloween merci halloween!!!" and then she ate a thousand ice cream cones and candies. we asked her, "mami, do you like sugar?" she said "no i cant eat very much its bad for me." as shes munching on an ice cream cone again. she also said we cant speak if we dont speak tahitian, but when we spoke tahitian, she replied in french. confused. 

we taught so many lessons and found so many more people. the thing about this culture is that normally it is SO EASY to start talking about religion with people. they actually want to teach you most of the time all about how god is everywhere and we breathe because of him and we should thank him every single second of every single day. 

then its usually pretty easy to get a lesson with someone. they are so open and not worried about it. like 'yeah come over and we can talk about god!' 

once you get them to stop talking and talking and talking about how grateful they are that god protects them, you can teach about all the doctrine very simply and give them very simple engagements. they usually take them. sometimes they are mad about the book of mormon that its not the bible. but usually its fine

but then. when it comes to changing religion. oh dear. hahaha 

but we have seen lots of miracles! god prepares people and its up to us to find them by our work and through the spirit. its so obvious. i am beginning to really understand by experience the power of the process of faith, planning, and ACTION. action by prayer and by postivity. even if things dont go your way, you DO NOT STOP trying to do the will of god. its the only intelligent thing to do. 

this week we were helping tons of women cut some flowers for a service project that we didnt wanna go to. we didnt think it was going to be very effective and we had better things to do, but for some reason we ended up going because we felt like we should every time we tried to change. at this project, we met a lady and found out that she is actually the mom of a young boy we teach! she told us all about how she loves that hes reading the book of mormon and that shes proud of him. we were like, 'and you dont want the lessons with him?' she was like 'YES I WANT THEM' almost violently. hahaha oh man it was funny. i think she will get baptised prolly 

but yeah. 

we are individuals. 

god looks at us as such. 

go help one person today. :) the work of god continues through his children. be of the army. 

by the way for halloween i am kevin and sr james is lebron. ill send pics next week

lolz love you all dont be nul keep rigoling.

hahahah after i read dads email and understood the costumes i died!!! that is amazing you guys are so creative. hahahaha the one where teesh is laying on the ground as an ice cube is just... the best. 

well i am sorry for aj who almost died this week because of finals. yikes. i helped my comp choose her classes for january when she goes back to school.. that was weird. dont really know what school is anymore. 

im also happy that dad had the experience of scooping a thousand carrots with the treacherous carrot shovel!!!! that was rad i want a shovel for carrots

dad! also is is bishop the one that told you to read the shackleton book? because i totally know what that is. he gave a whole byc on shackleton one time and willpower and stuff. putting that on my list to read when i get home. this list is really long and mostly consists of churchy stuff like cs lewis. but yeah thanks for that letter i got it this week 

hi and please make me a movie book music list someone its not gonna distract me i promise i just wanna know whats happening 

like elections, i didnt vote because i have 00000 ZERO idea whats going on. i cant even say i have any sort of opinion or knowledge. 

i vote jesus

mom hahaha that was so funny seeing your high school friend because we were going to the bathroom somewhere and these people came walking towards us like they were our best friends! i kind of recognized the boy because id met him. one time for like 5 minutes. but she was talking twenty miles a minute about how she wanted to meet me and i was already surprised they were saying english words... im sure i had the most confused look on my face. especially when she yelled AND I KNOW YOUR MOM!!! hahaha it came together after a minute but i was so lost for just a bit. 

anyway, super cool family. she seemed really outgoing actually and very friendly! she has very blue contacts. 

uh. i dont know what else i wanna say. news... hm. tahiti ruins skin. or my skin is just fragile. i have had so many weird things and ACNE bad bad bad. 

oh and the egberts send me a package hahaha SO MUCH CANDY! i guess they still claim me. no idea about ryan though. honestly thats my honest and final answer

sr james is finishing real soon. yall should go visit her if you ever go to eagle mountain in december. cause i love her. best comp ever 

oh! and if youre sending christmas stuff... can i ask for music and skirts? and just funny things. just go find weird stuff. ;) 

and send me more photos of my past life and your new life 

what do yall want for cmas

10-24-16 The land of milk, honey and Mami

one day, i got transferred to raiatea and had to drive everywhere around tahiti late at night with some stls to the city to sleep for the night. this one day, i started sneezing a whole ton and thought it was the cat that i had just attemted to hold for 15 minutes. but then my whole entire head began to pound and my nostrils refused to breathe and my eyes began to sweat profusely. like i was gonna explode. this was at 1 oclock am and my temporary companion was a crazy tahitian sister who was awake at the same time for some reason, and she gave me a very intense head massage which hurt a lot but actually made me go to sleep. tahitian remedies baby.

the next morning i got up at 4 so i could go fly to the other island. but the assistants didnt give me my passport so we got on a little different flight.

then i met my new companion, ate a giant tahitian breakfast, and did work all day! i really loved it cause this place is BREATHTAKING and i like missionary work and stuff but i swear i have never felt more close to death in my life. by the end of the day i actually couldnt do more and i didnt eat my giant steak that they gave me, i just laid on the table and died.

we went home soon after, i threw up, and then i went to bed.

but holy smokes my companion is sr james from eagle mountain utah who i am gonna kill in 6 weeks, and i really am so blessed. how am i so lucky to be with this girl. shes so easygoing and hilarious and we run around in the pouring rain and climb trees and stuff. put our hands in the air like we just dont care. im bummed shes finishing real soon.

we live in the cutest pink house and sleep in the loft.

i really need to work on my tahitian if i wanna survive here. bye bye french iaorana i te reo tahiti.

theres a random lady who lives with us. her name is mami. shes been doing misisonary work undercover for 13 years hahahaha. so funny. we laugh a lot.

ive eaten a lot of coconuts this week. we cut up some calf hearts for a service project. hashtag heart breakers. nothing too new. i think we are going to go fishing today also. rad dope rad. raiatea really is paradise. like i thought tahiti was beautiful but i think this is the land of milk and honey or whatever. polynesians are nephites too, so says a book i found in our house that i found.

theres a crazy person in our ward who only talks about cake but she never actually has the cake she promised us. im sick of this anticipation. theres also a crazy man named alfred who calls from time to time to ask for the lessons, even though hes actually a member who had his records taken out, then put back in, then i dont know. but he calls us saying he wants the lessons and calls again 5 seconds after to say he hates the book of mormon and he wants us to take it away from him.

everyone go hug my mom it was her bday on friday!!!! and my little bro whos bday is the 29!!!! HUG THEM TIGHT HUG THEM

2 Nephi 9:10

oh, comme elle est grande, la bonte de notre Dieu.

it is grande. dont forget to be grateful because that is what leads to true happiness!

`

MOM! HAPPY BDAY nobody talked about your bday to me so i dont know what you did? what did all of you do? me, i ate some pie on friday night in your honor. hope it was really fun! really i still have a package i meant to send so long ago and its still in my house in papeari... so.. yeah. but it will be sent before christmas and then ill probably send another one for christmas and then youll have double blessingssssssssssss

hahaha! oh my, i have so much to say and no where to start. i havent ever had too much time to be detailed in my letters but heres a story i never told from my last sector. this concerns the story that augustine mentioned.

so there was a man in my old ward whos like 43 and has a 8 year old son. he teaches our class of amis and hes really awesome spiritual you know, and seriously like 3 weeks into the mission i asked him if he wanted to work with us. like a good missionary.

well he took this invitation seriously. WAY TOO SERIOUSLY; and he spent a whole 2 weeks following us around. my comp acted natural and indifferent so little new missionary me thought yay! lessons with members.

the next week we had an activity and he was talking to me. my comp wasnt really w me in sound range officially cause i realize now she and i were really disobediant but i was surrounded by babylon missionaries at the time and was really confused. anyway, thats all finished now haha. but he proceeded to profess his greatest hearts desires to me randomly and talked about how he couldnt stop thinking about me, he even went to the temple and told me about this great spiritual moment he had... with my... spirit? im not even sure anymore because i didnt understand french well at that time. for this reason, i stared at him for a long time wondering if it was my french or his insanity that i wasnt understanding. this encouraged him to keep talking until finally i stopped doubting what i was hearing and i panicked and was like ahh no im a missionary and youre old and yadda yadda

hahahaha this is so funny now. but anyway i told the right people about it, pres didnt ever transfer me cause i guess this happens often in tahiti. but frere laborde continued until the end. one time he sent me a message about how hed prayed that we would be eternally together.

and bishop called him as assistant dmp.

and he wrote me a 9 long page note before i left.

and he found our raiatea number and sent me a message about carlos santano? i have no idea.

hahaha but that explains that dramatic little time of my life. kind of everything is so dramatic here its funny. thats kind of how the culture is, EXTREME EVERYTHING. its really so fun, i think i have the funnest mission in the world but also i think its the weirdest and most insane. i used to think it was just me not being able to adjust to the culture but now i realize that actually people are insane and thats not gonna change hahaha. i love them so much though. if they love you, they will do literally anything for you. theyre like EAT AT MY HOUSE WE ARE MAKING CREPES TONIGHT! TONIGHT CREPES EAT TAMAA QKDFMLQKJSFOIE

then if you dont come they save you 5000 crepes and bring them to your house

im gonna get fat soon. Watch out.

hey well im really happy that you all got to go to uea weekend at a slot canyon!!! i miss that like the dickens. i had a weird dream about ian last night that we were all chillin in a hot tub and he was being himself. i dont remember what else happened but something i miss being able to do is just chll with you guys. ive also gained a big testimony of hard work and patience. these last 6 months have been without doubt the hardest of my life. ive never questioned my testimony, myself, the church, the world, and my hair more in my existence. at first i really wanted to go home because of lots of companion, ward, and mostly self problems. but now, after a third of my mission, which is crazy haha, i realize how much i am supposed to be here even if success was hard to see at the beginning. ive started to learn by actual and real experience that faith WILL LEAD TO MIRACLES. even if sometimes the miracle is just you.

you are my miracles!!! sorry for the cheesy email theyre important sometimes.

good luck facing the world this week. are you having a haloween party? whos who this halloween? ive been thinking about my costume and i think im gonna be sr james.

teesh haha sorry you have to wear a face mask of rubber bands every night.

ian and isaac write meeee

dad im upset there is no more truck.

hey if you want pics youve gotta send me more. actually i really would like some printed pics of all things hahaha

aj good luck with all this homework. what classes ar you in? dont have to think about that for a while. lol

ian hows jr year treating ya? actually what classes are you in?

movies? music? elections? news? what am i missin?

FROSTY HAPPY BIRTHDAY OAOA FAAOAOARAA!!!!! YOURE GONNA BE A DEACON WHAT THE WEIRD

amen.

i would send way more pics but there is never ever enough internet or time in tahiti. its just so slow and silly haha. youll see all of them one day!!!

dead, dead, dead, dead 10/17/16

hey there everyone this is the last email my dear Sr Ho wrote about our adventures in papeari vaiari together. just read and laugh. this isnt even the smallest part of them. but yes anywho ill write more in my group email too. im getting transferred to another freaking island and im pumped but i wish sr ho could just come along with me and we could battle more crabs and deaf man together. shes funny. ill miss all of her noodles and sass and good talks when we really should be sleeping or something.

ok love you all tatou!!!!

they say some people come... some people go

coldplay.

ook so heres a fun little scoop of my life!!

i wish i had more time to write all these things and details

IM GOING TO ANOTHER ISLAND its called reatea i think thats how you spell it. but yeah its gonna be real fun! im super pumped to go experience a whole other island. i feel like there is no more america. theres only tiny pieces of land in the ocean where people cut up coconuts and drink them. and dont wear clothes.

this is bonkers.

IM SO SADDDDD theres a flipping baptism on saturday for this girl named samantha and she does tai kwon do and she loves to cook and then talk a ton and IM MISSING HER BAPTISM FLIPPPPPPPPPPPP \\

 AND im saying bye to sr ho and i really dont know what ill do without this little crazy. and her noodles. and her sass. and that she protects me from swallowing dangerous things.

weve had so many flipping adventures here in vaiari. from dead people in the chapel to ultrasounds to crabs in the bedroom to being so sick we wanna die. to eating lots of rice and chinese food and crap.

shes really just cool. im sad.

LIFE IS INSANE!!

heres a spiritual uplifting thought.

YOU are you most important work in this life. no matter how many people you WANT to help or how much service you WANT to do, if you dont live up to your potential that god has for you, youll never help them as much as you COULD HAVE with that potential.

pray for it. plan for who you want to be. read the dang scriptures.

thats all, tatou. love you

give em heaven.

The attack of mister crabs 10/10/16

malheuresement 

i dont have time today to write too much but here are some big points! 

aside from eating chinise food everyday with my hong kongian companion, i ate a lot of fish meat and unhealthy things! woot today we went to mcdonalds!! 

i opened the door to my bedroom one day this week and there was a giant crab and i think i almost pooped my pants

we have two baptisms coming up and its thanks to the book of mormon and the priesthood. 

jesus is real. 

we can live with our families forever. 

its important to follow the prophet

amen. bye everyone

i really dont have any time right now again. its because tahitians are insane and we dont have keys to the church. 

heres some photos. 

I GOT YOUR PACKAGE I LOVE YOU ALL AND I LAUGHED MY BUM OFF hahahaha thanks so much everyone. 

geez i have so much to say but i really cant

sorry 

these photos wont attach either

10/3/16

hey there tout les mondes we are going shopping soon and then a service project planting pineapples! so i cqnt really talk too much but love you all :) thanks for the support and all. i havent gotten the package but this week i got a letter that was from aug 30 so i think it takes like a month at least for things to get here. not a problem things come at the right time! hahaha

i love you all and the sun is hot the sin is hotter and we are cleaning up the hot mess. lol sorry i hope you all loved loved loved conference :) i sure did and we got to watch it in ENGLISH! so amazing. hashtag love everything. i will try to write more later. 

faaitoito. ua imi ia outou no i te maramarama.