A big fat joyous welcome home!

All you have to do is read one more 10/30/17

The impossible

I guess sitting here in this little office where ive been so grateful for wifi and air conditioning is making me all nostalgic.. snif.

or maybe it's the fact that this is the last email. lol. watch out nicholas sparks

well its been a walk to remember.

imma try and keep this short... theres so many thoughts and feelings rolling through my personal space today. actually its been a while that i feel like that. like, 18 months.

It's sometimes fun to think of how much fun God had when he created us and our complicated little brains, think about it. our knowledge is so small compared to His and everything he has and is, and yet we overcomplicate everything. Perhaps the smarter we are, the more simple life all seems to us. at least thats how i feel after 18 months of becoming more smart. I cant say ive become smart in the eyes of the world. i didnt learn SQUAT about computer systems or mathematics or hyperboles.

but i feel more intelligent anyway

before my mission i wrote a little book for young womens personal progress and i called that book "what smiles are made of." it was full of things that made me happy and had all these cute pictures of nature that id taken with my iphone. :) rainbows and butterflies for days. it made my mom proud at least hahaha it was cute ok?

i guess all of this that im saying has to do with the fact that i feel like im made of different things now. the heart that is in my chest is the same one that i had there a year and a half ago and it beats at the same rate.. i think, but now my heart is full of a thousand names and faces that used to be strangers to me. people that never in all my life i would have thought i would become close to. im made of their stories, of their challenges and of their senses of humor. ive seen people change and become completely different people and it doesnt make any sense to the eye of the beholder, if he or she doesnt understand what is happening underneath. the truth is, we all dont understand each other because there is no mortal who can read the mind or feel the feelings of another person, not that i know of. BUT! and i am grateful to say that i know this with my entire being

there is someone who (thankfully) knows those things, and therefore knows exactly what to do to solve every single problem that exists within each one of us, and he helps us when and if we are willing to walk into his arms that are always open to receive us. then he helps us, he changes us, and sometimes that change is painful. we have to adjust certain things, we have to let our pride go, put our head down, promise to be a good kid and stop living selfishly and just help others

and in return this man, our Savoir Jesus Christ gives us a pathway and an eternal helping hand that leads to things we cannot imagine with these small brains God created for us. at least now we dont know the extent of joy that we will have if we are simply FAITHFUL and valliantly so to be able to follow Him.

And that is what has been changed in me personally. my heart is made of palm trees, dark skin, small skinny black eyed children flying kites in the road. bathrooms with holes in the walls and no one cares because theres no snow anyway, one bottle of water for the entire family and no one cares because we are all brothers and sisters who have the same germs. i dont know what carpet is anymore or what it means to sleep underneath large blankets or not have a super strango tanline. the cars that got stuck in tiny tiny roads and the chicken we eat for every meal along with rice and melted snow cone juice. that every time we walk into certain houses it smells like fish and in other houses it smells like coconut oil, and rarely rarely do i feel like the servant of god, i feel like the one being served. the millions of kisses planted on my head from all sorts of different lips everywhere and the complaints of poor papi tautu that he cant kiss the sisters, little rosina and her brother tua who give me a hug every time i see them and all the children whos eyes shine when i talk to them in my funny accent. ill miss sitting in homemade chairs made from various cupboard doors next to the sound of waves while we do our lesson and eat bananas. ill miss most of all my dear friends and sisters that ive made in serving with 8 different companions, their laughter and stupid stupid jokes together and our differences that became beautiful to me after a humbled myself. their examples to me that i will never forget. the realisation that every single person i met i think i needed to meet, especially mami salome who just changed my entire life and i dont know if ill ever see her again, it breaks my heart in a very real way. the very real way that a mission in tahiti is not a vacation- a vacation should not make one feel more alone at times than thought possible, or be so hard that you need to curl up in a small corner and cry. im made of the worst times where i pleaded my Heavenly Father for a pardon and i received it, along with the most sacred moments of my life on dirty tile floors that showed my really how much he exists and loves me. im made of his eternal presence, i know he is with us. thinking about how the Charles Dickens was right when he said through Jacob Marley

"Mankind was my business." and this is why he helped me learn two languages, and teach through them and through the spirit, and he helped me truly truly feel like i was making a difference in the small (but large) way that i can. he helped me forget myself

  im made of sacrament meetings and the unlikely people who showed up and made us thank heavenly father for pushing them to come, and im made of their tears when they finally found out that everything we said wasnt a joke.

itaia the 13 year old said to us the other day as we taught his family "everyone listens to you two! how do you do it? are you witches?"

truth is i dont even know the answer to that. i mean ive always held on to that little bit of hope that i wasnt a muggle... but i think the real magic doesnt actually come from the missionaries but the name on their chests. ive loved being a part of this army, the army of Jesus Christ. it's not a joke :) i know what ive learned and what ive learned to teach is TRUE, and that truth frees us. and i am free because now i am a true witness of what that truth does to people.

i have seen miracles and i cannot deny them.

im so full of love, ive been blessed so much i have not room to receive it. i dont have room in my suitcases to bring it all home 

ua hinaaro vau ia hoi mai i ta u fenua here i te hoe mahana. aita vau i heru ia farii te mau haamaitairaa mai tera i tau oraraa, ua here vau i te fenua tahiti no to mea ua farii vau ia iesu mesia i o nei.

i wish i could just send pics next week because the most miraculous family is ready to be baptised this saturday. Levy, Elvina and Titaua (the parents and the sister of little itaia.) if any of you have ever doubted yourselves, dont because the heavens opened on this little confused and lost family because their small son had the courage to do something different with his life.

the last and greatest truth is

HE LIVES.

and he accomplished the impossible.

in the name of Jesus Christ, amen

Letter from Dad 10/30/17

Hello Queen Audrey Anna the Resolute,

Do you recall the scene from “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” where Aslan crowns the 2 sons of Adam and the 2 daughters of Eve and gives them their royal titles?

“To the glistening eastern sea, I give you Queen Lucy the Valiant. To the great western woods, King Edmund the Just. To the radiant southern sun, Queen Susan the Gentle. And to the clear northern skies, I give you King Peter the Magnificent. Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia. May your wisdom grace us until the stars rain down from the heavens.”

Have you ever wondered what your own title might have been in that scene?  There are a lot of words in scripture to describe those who are true disciples of Jesus Christ.  I have been pondering on what title I would now give you, at this time of completion.  I thought of a few, including “Audrey the Stalwart” and “Audrey the Steadfast.”  A writer named Francis Gibbons who was a member of the Seventy about 25 years ago wrote a series of prophetic biographies, all ending with the phrase “Prophet of God.”  Joseph Fielding Smith was well known for his gospel knowledge and study over a long lifetime and his biography was titled “Joseph Fielding Smith, Gospel Scholar, Prophet of God.”  President Benson was known for his patriotism and government service and had the title “Ezra Taft Benson, Statesman, Patriot, Prophet of God.   President Kimball, who was really the prophet of my childhood has my favorite title, and one I’ve pondered a lot on: “Spencer W. Kimball, Resolute Disciple, Prophet of God.”  That is where I chose the title at the beginning of today’s email from.  The word “resolute” defines as:

firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion

I am guessing that you, my Royal Resolute Daughter, are feeling a flood of emotions right now and the probable reaction for this coming week is going to be to bury yourself in work and pretend that next week isn’t coming.  Kind of like Grover in his book “There is a Monster at the End of this Book” that you’ll probably remember.  And if you do that I will be more proud than I can say.  One of the memories I most treasure from my whole mission came the week my parents came to pick me up.  We had already had our final testimony meeting with the end group, my fellow missionaries had already flown home, I had already had my final interview with the President and we took one last trip up north to Coquimbo to visit my favorite (and most distant) area.  It was the last thing we did before leaving Chile.  We had a big farewell party with so many people that I loved there and stayed overnight and the currently serving missionaries in that ward had a sick companion and a lesson to teach that night and I can’t remember how I found out about their dilemma but I gladly volunteered to go in the sick missionary’s place.  I hadn’t been released yet, so I was still an official missionary and went to teach one last lesson.  The missionary I went with commented that he couldn’t believe I was going with him since I was officially done and I answered something about how much I loved being a missionary… but that last night of teaching has since become one of my very favorite memories of all. 

Halloween party this week.  AJ and Nicole were voted the best costume of all.  But you won’t have any idea who they are until you come home and watch a TV show that is all the rage right now.  It’s kind of a recreation of the scene in E.T. where they go flying in the air on a bike.  And the rest of us you’ll get no problem I’m sure.  It is one of our better years for costumes although mine was too small and I couldn’t breathe.  But one family member hated his costume way more than I did… haha

Yesterday we had a great birthday party for Isaac who is now 13.  He got food, clothes, money, Legos, and a new phone.  And his own phone number.  Which I haven’t memorized yet. 

Know how much we love you and how much we are anticipating next week.  Audrey, you are such a blessing in our family.  Thank you for being a missionary these past 18 months.  You have served well and faithfully.  Matthew 25:23

I’ll end my email today with the lyrics to the ending song from the “Prince Caspian” Narnia movie which I think are extremely profound.  And remind me so much of the beginning and end of serving a mission:

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry
I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
'Til they're before your eyes
You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

Love, Dad

P.S.  And remember that Grover finds at the end of the book that everything turns out just fine. 😊

Taken 5 10/23/17

yo de lay hee hoooooooo

i live with two girls from france and one from switzerland. the swiss sister taught me how to yodel properly. you have to go into the mountains to do it, though, and also have a cow to yodel TO, but in any case i know the requirements now.

ive learned a lot of european things in the last few weeks of my life. like how to shave my legs by violently ripping out the hairs with a machine, how to sing french musicals, and put clay on my face. ive been taught which cheeses to try and mostly which ones to never go anywhere near (by the way, swiss cheese isnt really.. well, swiss). and i learned that one day i WILL go to europe. if it kills me.

anywho.

Rosina and Steeve got baptised this thursday!!!!!!!!! another man with my dads name is in the church. im so proud of them. :) rosina is 9 and Steeve is like 45 and they have absolutely no connection whatsoever... everyone kept on congratulating the father and his daughter, but then they just looked at each other with awkwardness and would say, "hes not my dad" or "i dont have any kids..." hahahaha i was way too entertained during the service. in tahiti baptisms are a big deal, after the service we put flower and seashell necklaces on the person who got dunked, kiss them, and go eat. actually those three things happen about everytime there is a party. necklaces, kissing, and food. tamaa maitai.

the young adults in our ward tricked us. they told us last wednesday night they had a reference for us to teach and so we picked two of them up (maud and teipo) and went to the church. they made us wait upstairs with them, saying their friends were coming soon. we just joked around until finally they said "oh they are here!" so we went back downstairs, then they led us outside and all of this was a little bit weird and fishy because there were cars everywhere and no sign of any investigator. then they covered our eyes and took us captive! it was intense and dark. when they let us open our eyes there was almost the entire ward playing their ukeleles and laughing with their beautiful eyes. in the middle of it all were two chairs just for sr meloen and i. we looked at each other with panic and almost started crying because our dang ward had thrown a surprise party for us. we played games, received lots of presents and sang songs. best thing ever. they made us bear our testimonies and i had no idea what to say... i just feel lost inside and empty.? but full. i ate so much this week. what is this?

im happy. life is great. i cant explain how much i love these people so i wont try peut etre.

i love you all!!!! see you next time

surprise party dab pics

us with our tahitian gifts

rosina :) i dont have a pic of steeve yet sorry

happy wednesday 10/18/17u hn

heyiiiiiii world!! heres my experience from this weeek i wanna share cause its so cool! pardon my french in it... i copied it from another email.

story of itaia
the miracle i saw this week was... ok i wish i could tellyou all of them. that would talk pages and hours and malheureusement we dont have time for that.
I dont know if you read about Itaia, hes a 13 year old boy who used to smoke 3 packs a day. his situation was tres grave, actually. he did so many betises that the people in his quartier were sick of him and threw rocks at him if he came by, stuff like that. street fights and what not. its always hard for me to picture my 13 year old bro being involved in that junk. but anyway, the lessons changed him. we dont even know what the deciding factor was for him but he stopped smoking and started being a good boy. gospel changes behavoir quuuuooiiiii :)
his behavior changed his mom's behavior who used to hit her children and was a recluse in the house, she threw rocks at the sister missionaries before as well so we never went to their house haha. until one day when she invited us. ca faisait peur mais on est parti quand meme avec une grosse priere de ne pas devenir les tentatives de meurte... lol but the impression she gave us was not that, in fact she is very douce and humble and just wanted to thank us for changing her son. and also that she wanted to be baptised. turns out she just has some major life problems and depression. hence the rocks avant...
so she came to itaias baptism on saturday WITH HER HUSBAND AND THEY ARE MARRIED, which was the first time in a very long time she had left the security of her home. she also came to church sunday with her husband again, and then we went over ther monday. pretty much the whole family wants the lessons and the mom and dad talked to us about baptism and a change they have seen in their family that they dont quite understand, but they love.

whats more, in a different sector just a coté, there is a couple who the elders helped be married and baptised on saturday. they just happen to be the  godfather and godmother of itaia. we didnt plan that out but they all celebrated together and cried a lot.

 i just dont understand. its one of those things you just watch happen, it unfolds before your eyes and it's obvious that YOU ARE NOT THE ONE DOING THIS. nothing that we have done should have or would have changed these people, i mean we just taught them and invited them, the normal stuff. dealt with the stress of family problems and organizing baptism problems, trying to get itaia to stop smoking and saying the F word problems... but in all logical sense this shouldnt have happened. something changed them and its called the Spirit!!! i wish i knew at what moment that happened, but im not sure it was one moment. it was a series of small truths that penetrated the hearts and made a miracle. yesterday at our multizone conference elder ardern said soemthing along the lines of

"miracles dont often happen in one sweep, they are more often than not a series of small events that come together and lead to one life changing conclusion."

and thus it is. we also have two baptisms tomorrow for Rosina the 9 year old and Steve the older man and im so proud of them!!!! im so proud of all the people who have the courage to change their lives even if their families and friends get mad, because they know that God will be happy!

guys. im not ready to be done with this great life i live. maybe im so tired i feel like im gonna die and maybe i have no clothes left because i gave them to people but i dont wanna be done being a missionary. beh. more on that later, i still have 3 weeks. :) and im a lucky duck for these three weeks

other things that happened were that my companion got hit on the head by a 9 yaer old boy for singing, we walked to theocean a few times, laughed a lot and ate fun food, and mami salome gave me a ukelele!!!!!! shoutout to her.

pics, itaia and his family (hes the young boy with the flower necklace)

a cute tahitian and her river 

other stuff

the deteriorating mami durrant finds her love for the chilluns 10/10/17

i realise this is being sent really late at night and stuff

but i love you all so ill send it in hopes that there are some survivors other than my mom who still faithfully read my group emails. anyone? anyone?

soooooo

tired.

thats all i can really think. they all told me this would happen. they said i would physically crumble at the end of my mission without any explanation. i said no i dont even need sleep its fine.

now the girl who used to stay up until 4 am wants to sleep by 8 pm. whoooo... who is this grandma je suis devenu...

i think though its for good reasons. we did so many lessons this week. we are actually at the point where we have so many amis who want the lessons so badly that there are too many lessons we can possibly do between the two of us (like it says in the white bible, but i never thought that would actually become true), so we did splits with members like all week long and it was super productive and tiring!!! i dont know if ive ever worked so hard in all my mission. and it was hot. man it was hot this week. good thing we have the air conditioning.

we teach mostly children and sr meloen and i were so touched this week by the numerous, simple actions that children take to gain faith in jesus christ. i saw some very sacred things happen in the testimonies of young kids this week and it was just so sweet... i love that children are so close to heavenly father. its a different kind of searching that they do once they search to know who he is, it is just pure and sincere and beautiful and simple. and it leads them to know very real things that we as adults forget sometimes. (did i just call myself an adult? i still feel like im 14) even though little rosina asks me for a different present every time i see her and its a little annoying, i give stuff to her anyway because i feel that love that heavenly father has for her and that he is so proud that she learned how to pray and prays every day now and taught her little brother how to pray also. she even convinced her mom to come to church with her. children are powerful. they speak with the tongue of angels

we were supposed to go on a hike today that was gonna be super cool, but it didnt work out for technical reasons and i was really sad and mad. but we did a different hike that was also pretty. it was like 8 kilometers and a lot of it was on the road lol. my legs hurt im out of shape.

also we had a sisters conference at presidents house and i loved that thing so much. i felt like i wzs back in young womens at testimony meeting and we all cry because you just feel the love man! i dont know why when a bunch of girls get together for spiritual stuff it is SO SPIRITUAL. like we cant get along if its not for something spiritual but otherwise whoopdeedoo. but i love these sisters... its hard knowing that many of them i wont see again pretty soon

other than that i dont know what to say. i love my mission and i will always love it. if there is any advice i could give to any young adolescent, lost or confident, short or tall, faithful or doubtful, it is go serve a mission. you go out there and you serve your Savior who served you enough already. it doesnt matter that we are not perfect but god needs YOU!

elder roi in his prime, a good advertisement and just a cute situation

 you!!!! you whom i love so. thanks for all your emails. dont be trunky for me just pray for me to finish strong!! hahaha theres lots of emotions happening in my life right now... its crazy. i dont know what all of you did your last 4 weeks of the mission but its like nothing ive ever experienced in my life! i feel like half of me is dying and half of me is being born again and half of me is the one giving birth... all of those are good things technically but its a lot to take in.

i wont be sending an email next monday but it will be next wednesday(the 18th). we have a conference with elder ardent (?) who is a 70 and he will be here monday. so its not a pday.

as for other things dont worry about me. just tell me how to register for classes at usu (i let the byu thing go for now lol hope you are rejoicing)

super sad im missing the halloween party but send me pictures :)

*

thats super cool of scott and karen to let that girl live with them.

aj and nicole dont die at school i need you as tutors after

ian looking good even though your foot is being stupid and your football team doesnt win. thanks for the poem. i like to see that nothing has changed

teesh you just keep running. you remind me of me when i started cross country because now you dont have time to email me about the details. sad day

frosty dad sent me a picture of his 4th grade class and i found him, after i thought it was you. but there is a little boy named Iona that i know and he is 9 but he looks just like you. it is weird for me too. i think im the most scared to see you

mom ive been an stl since august but idk why he just sent that haha. and soon you will be the one making girls laugh in the nursing home.

dad i sometimes feel like you will have a lot of fun in tahiti because you will just astound the tahitians. ive never heard a tahitian talk about shakespeare. but thanks for the quotes to keep me literarily intellectual. i dont know if thats a word.

i love you all bon soireeeeeeee taoto maitai 

The perks of being murican

hi!!! i only have what feels like 24 seconds to write like 245 details from this week. i guess ill sum it up into the most important parts

we had a really giant week planned out.. tons of lessons and contacts with references because this ward is AMAZING!! they just understand missionary work and are very unified, willing, and motivated and flipping FUNNY. i think im happy to die here.

but then transfers happened and sr durrant gets called as the stake taxi driver so tuesday our lessons had to all be cancelled. it was fun though, we got to see everyone receive their new missionaries and go walk around this cool book store in the city that ive always wanted to see. shoutout to my dad who likes book stores. too bad everything was in french dang it

during tuesday my comp and i came down with a bad sort of cold and were like dying.. then wednesday i woke up and thought i was dead, but we had tons of lessons that day also so we tried our best. my comp ended up not making it. i left her at a members house where she sat on a bed in front of a tv surrounded by children.. i left with a vain hope she wouldnt be forced to watch the tv. more on that later. we did a split after that and i took a soon to be missionary with me to do the rest of the lessons, which were only with children which requires a lot of energy haha. it was fun but since i had a cold my ears were clogged and i started to have an ear ache that got worse and worse. pretty soon i was acting like a granny trying to hear the children and then saying "ouch talk slower that hurts my ear!" when we finally finished i was really in pain so i decided to go take an advil and sit on my bed. sr meloen told me stories about how the children had watched minecraft and justin beiber videos for 3 hours. but nothing happened because of my advil, it just got worse and i wanted to cry lol. we called some of our leaders and they told us to go to the doctor but it was 8:00 at night. everything closes in tahiti at 8:00, even the doctors office. so our leaders panicked and they came all the way from papeete to INSIST to take me to the ER for my stupid ear infection and it took them like an hour to come, then an hour to get to the hospital and then an hour in the waiting room (they told me it was only an hour because im american). and then an hour for the french doctor to come see me. i just sat sadly in a blanket on the paper covered bed and wondered how the crap i got into this situation, midnight tahitian hospital jumping and i was still in a dress! never done that before.

on the bright side i got to sleep in Pirae, where both Sr. Andrus and Sr. Spencer live!!!! my two best friends that i lived with for 6 months... it was so nice to see them again. and the nice doctor told me my inner ear was very messed up and gave me some meds and ear drops. yahoo. but now it doesnt hurt anymore so yay :)

what i learned from this experience

 if youre ever at a tahitian hospital, be american because they will give you special treatment

never wake up sister andrus in the middle of the night. she gets really scared

take dolipran for pain

if you leave your companion with children and their grandma, most likely she will be forced to watch minecraft youtube

i dont like hospitals

BUT HOLD ON WE HAVE A MIRACLE IT WAS SO COOL

itaia, a 13 year old boy we teach, wanted to be baptised and said his mom wanted to see us after he told her. we were scared because we have heard a lot of stories about her, that you should never go to her house because she will throw spoons at you and scream and stuff and you will never see her child again. but we went anyway and what did we find? a lovely, humble, short woman who was sincerely happy to see us. she welcomed us onto her cement porch and proceeded to tell us her story. Her son used to wake up at 5 am, go to the road with his friends, skip school to smoke all day and street fight, and not return home until midnight the next night. she takes care of her 7 kids who all have problems and sometimes feels depressed, so she drinks and then fights with her husband and her children and neglects them. but then, in TWO WEEKS (and perhaps this is the amazing part) her son suddenly and without explanation stopped smoking altogether, started to work hard at school and treated his little brother with love, and she was so shocked that she humbly asked him why the change. he told her two white girls came to tell him smoking was bad for him and that he was better than that. and that he wanted to be baptised in their church because an old man at church had told him to and those words kept going through his head endlessly.
then she stopped drinking. and she decided she wanted to follow her son. so now shes reading scriptures instead of yelling and shes praying for us instead of throwing spoons at us.

i love what we do :) we didnt do anything really, my companion just showed some hope for a little teenage boy she had met a few months ago because she had a spiritual impression. and we started to joke around with him, encourage him and become his friend and teach him and his friends. in reality all we did was become his friends who prayed for him and who believed that he could do it. and he did!!! whoah. the scriptures are true and im proud of Itaia.

well thats all folks. ill try and send photos some day. nanaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

ps GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS SO GOOD ALSO!!!!! probably my favorite ever. when elder zwick talked about the lion king.

look beyond what you see. 🦁

Dunkin for days 9/25/17

this week we broke our own records of fatigue. also i had so many dreams about going home. i dont like that but i cant not think about 6 more weeks... its all over. emotionssssssssss

ok actually its never over haha

thats something that keeps going through my head, that we do joke around about how you "die" after the mission but really in all honesty, the end of the mission is just a chance to start again a new life. its a chance to make a better world out of what youve learned, to spread the peace and love you know?

i just read an email from my dad about his memories from his mission that he dug up from the dust miraculously this week in some boxes. and those memories just got to me because ive had like the exact same experiences just with different people and places. maybe heavenly father gives us the exact same learning principle to every person in a different and creative and beautiful way.

honestly life is so beautiful.

we did some fun stuff this week like a zone car wash!! we got together with a ton of members and advertised outside with signs, danced around like idiots and washed a ton of cars!!! we invited the amis to come inside and be taught during the time that their cars were washed. it was so fun.

and two of my favorite peeps got dunked!!!! papa mino (first picture hes on the left and the other man is the dmp of oremu. i look like i have angel body guards or yetis or something) and then moana!!! that pic is his family, hes the one closer to the left with the flowers around his neck. he looks like mr bean lol

really the changes in their lives were miracles. i cant even believe god is so merciful to allow hearts to change from stone to... softness haha. just one person, just one good example can change so much in the desire of someone else. everyone has something to offer. love it. love it so much

ok gotta go love you all thanks so much

I'll never kiss again 9/18/17

howdy hoodly doo. hows errbody. good im glad.

WELL NOW

this weeek went through my fingers. it just slipped right through. i dont even know completely what happenedall i know is last week i tried to write an email and it never sent and then it got deleted so yeah. sinon ill try and remember what happened... all i know is that we woke up at 4:30 three different times and fasted txice and ran around like chickens with no head, thats all

in a brief rundown of things here are some facts

our ami steve who was supposed to get baptised two days ago disappeared. apparently he lives in the mountains and nobody knew where except for this lady who was in australia so we had to wait for her to come home to go see him. so he came back! but it was after his baptism was supposed to happen. lol he just escaped... we think he got scared or something. its super sad cause he was so excited before, and so ready. satan is strong so pray for steve

moana will be baptised this wednesday even though he cant remember anything we teach him lol. he reminds me of mmyself at school a long time ago when the teacher called on me to answer a question and my mind did this thing to erase all preknown knowledge i could have ever had so i didnt say anything, i just turned red

but he is amazing in his desire to change his life, and thats the most important thing. hes willing to do whatever he needs to to become a good example for his children and to follow jesus.

i chased a chicken out of our house.

theres another chicken in our yard who is missing a foot. she is a trooper, i really like to watch her cause she doesnt even let it stop her from strolling around the yard to find her little seeds to eat. its like acrually really motivational to observe her and her diligence honestly. her name is peggy

after my grandma and cause she has a peg leg

sr durrant fail of the week

we were eating pizza and chocolate one night with a recent convert and the elders, and one elder decided he would throw a chocolate kiss as high in the air as he could and catch it in his mouth. he succeeded. so my stupid competetive side kicked in and i wanted to try. my logical side didnt kick in to remind me im the least coordinated person in the world. so i threw that thing way high up there in the air and waited with my mouth open and i saw it coming! it was gonna land right in my mouth! but it didnt... instead it landed right on my bottom lip and crushed my lip against my tooth, causing great amounts of pain. as i stood there groaning i realized i was bleeding a lot too. my lip has been swollen for a day or two now

i got kissed too hard

we went to an activity saturday with our ward on the beach. man... if we had beaches in utah we would ROCK that girls camp hahaha

there was a relay race with many old women running around in circles with various clothing items, and tubes, its something my mom would have appreciated watching with me.

last monady we went to moorea, thats why i didnt send anything lol. it was rad. we saw dolphins and mountains and chinese tourists who made us take photos with them, it was so funny. i missed the asian tourists of yellowstone

last week i sat in something really bad. i think it was cat pee. we were doing a lesson at bishops house and i didnt do the chair check before sitting, then i felt something nice and different underneath me... i stood up fast and my skirt was all brownish yellow and it smelled BAD but it was bad bad bad. so iflipped out and i was like AHH THIS ISNT EVEN MY SKIRT!!! it was sr meloens skirt. i asked the bishops wife if i could go to their bathroom and she said yes. but the bathroom was one of those tahitian things where the toilet and the shower are in separate cupboard places...so i nonchalantly went right into the shower and closed the door, proceeding to directly hose off the skirt with the shower head until it was clean. when i opened the door to go back out, bishop was right in the hallway. he looked at me and i looked at him expecting to be reprimanded or i dont know what because i was just.. in their shower. but he just said "oh bonjour soeur durrant." just like it was normal that i was hanging out in there. the sad thing is this story is kind of normal in my life right now

we also bought a lot of car freshener and scrubed the seats because the skirt stunk up the car after also.

i dont have any more time or i would write more, i have a lot of things to say. sorry i didnt say anything spiritual today because i had a spiritual week also, it was so nice. lots of miracles. remember that there are no coincidences to your experiences and no excuses to not do the right thing :)

voila. have a good week until next time i love you

Mom's letter 9/11/17

hi momma! thanks for the letter! :) i just about farted a cable (thats a french expression that just makes me laugh so hard) when i read teeshys teeshyism. lol im so excited to see that girl.

ian told me his bday was good and didnt do anything crazy, just played football again. am i gonna be able to see a game??? im so sad if i dont... but its ok.

ajs photo brought another farting of cable. hahahaha he looks like a human version of happy theo.

promise we can go to another comedy show when i get back, i wanna seeeeeeeee

cool thanks for taking care of my school life... whew. kinda stressed about that one but all is well now :) thanks errybody

good ol danny burt.

nah mom just go do your hillbilly thing :) theres a reason why you are asked to do it. cause youre CUTE as tuthel may

i wanna come home but i dont want to leave tahiti. its a weird feeling. lots of emotions.

i didnt get your shoes! when did you send them? eh eh i love you

Que des solutions 9/8/17

Le 4 sept. 2017 12:14, "Audrey Anna Durrant" <audrey.durrant@myldsmail.net> a écrit :

gins. its been a while. sorry i stink at this group email thing

long story short ive been in orofero for 3 weeks now with sr meloen, shes from poitiers france (like in the southwest i think) and shes officially in the last 3 weeks

1 explained all of her favorite mangas to me

2 converted me to korean pop music (we dont listen to it she just talks about it. shes really persuasive ok)

3 taught me a lot of french and corrected my french

4 watched me as i ran circles in the yard

5 managed to acquire like 15 new stuffed animals

6 become a real pal. its sick having a french comp en fin, shes so funny i love her

7 drawn me like 21 pictures. shes really good at this manga thing though really

we finish the same day in 9 weeks so its nice having someone who understands and who i can just freak out with. we live alone just us two for right now in a nice little house of which the toilet didnt work for a minute but now it does!!! whew. we were in trouble for a second.

and honestly the first 2. 7 weeks were kinda rough and life is different here, i guess i wasnt as ready to be transferred as i thought. but then i had a realization this week that God has sent me to every single one of my areas for specific reasons that i found out later so why not this one too. so i chased away my bad attitude and all is well now :) and this week was nuts. we went on 2 splits, had a lot of lessons cancelled but met some really rad new peeps, and did just weird thingssssss i think ive never had such a weird week of all the mission.

blague thats a lie. but it was funny lol

-i translated pokemon cards into french for a kid who just.. needs to play his pokemon. ill try and send some pics of the cards they were so mega

theres a man in our area who is just insane. his name is Temeio (miracle in tahitian) and sometimes he wears a santa hat and rolls around on his scooter bike... when he sees our car, he comes right directly in front of it so i have to hit the brakes super hard as to not kill the man. then he makes me roll down the window and he talks to us about how he wants the lessons but he really wants to take us to the cinema and wont leave until we plan a lesson with him. so we do but then to protect ourselves from harm we dont go. but this week he showed up at our house to ask us why we didnt come and that was just scarzeyyyyy

so we got a lock! yay

it rained a cycloon on us this week. ive never been so cold in all of my mission.
but i love the rain actually and it is always better here because there are so many rainbows

one of the days this week i learned that God loved me. again. because we went a few days with not very much food and just ate a buttload of carrots cause thats mostly all we had. hahaha. but then a random person in our ward just called us and said he had a bag of cereal he wanted to give us. i still dont really understand how that happened but i was SO PUMPED because there were 2 boxes of SPECIAL KKKKKKKKK

shoutout to my mom kk. :)

we also didnt have any way to call people on our phone because we didnt have any more money to buy credit. but we somehow made it work and did some splits.

i didnt crash the car yet.. i might have grazed part of a porch but its not a big deal.

we crossed a river

we put our feet  in the ocean and watched some surfers

the best people ever taught me how to make sushi. heck it was a blasty blast. ive never eaten so much fish in my life. i think im a shark now

we fixed 2 baptismal dates of two very unlikely men... they are both so soso shy and dont talk very much but voila, the spirit does apparently. thanks spirit.

jennifer from oremu got baptised this week after many difficulties with the family it pulled through!!!! im so proud of her, shes 10 and shes just like my little tahitian sister. heck i love her so much. it was fun to go back and see that and see spencer my daughter

i read a talk this week that summed up something that i want to become. it was called "se soucier de chacun" in french... i think that translates to "to worry about each person." anywho its by joseph b wirthlin from conf general april 2008. he was talking about thomas s monson and he said (indirect quote)

"if it is flattering for him that many among the great and powerful men of this world know him and honor him, it is maybe an even greater homage that many of the most humble and modest call him their friend."

whoooooah. i just dun got really touched when i read that. i was just remembering all the friends ive made on the mish, the people who became more than just "a companion" or "an investigator" or "a tahitian lady." to me now this is my home, and these are my people. i hope maybe im tan enough to fit in with them now but if i wasnt, it wouldnt matter. because they taught me something i wont and cant forget: everyone is on the same line, we just move along this line together and God looks at us all in the same way: as his children and as his friends, i think, or he wouldnt love us so much. i remembered also something that one of my mtc teachers told us from what feels like 45 years ago, that we werent going out there to do anything extremely crazy; we were going out to make new friends.

because a true friend is someone who helps you be better and happier.

faarahi te aroha!!!! (spread the love) until next time

oh ps please everyone go hug my brother Ian its his birthday on the 8th!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY IAN

Que des solutions 9/4/17

gins. its been a while. sorry i stink at this group email thing

long story short ive been in orofero for 3 weeks now with sr meloen, shes from poitiers france (like in the southwest i think) and shes officially in the last 3 weeks

1 explained all of her favorite mangas to me

2 converted me to korean pop music (we dont listen to it she just talks about it. shes really persuasive ok)

3 taught me a lot of french and corrected my french

4 watched me as i ran circles in the yard

5 managed to acquire like 15 new stuffed animals

6 become a real pal. its sick having a french comp en fin, shes so funny i love her

7 drawn me like 21 pictures. shes really good at this manga thing though really

we finish the same day in 9 weeks so its nice having someone who understands and who i can just freak out with. we live alone just us two for right now in a nice little house of which the toilet didnt work for a minute but now it does!!! whew. we were in trouble for a second.

and honestly the first 2. 7 weeks were kinda rough and life is different here, i guess i wasnt as ready to be transferred as i thought. but then i had a realization this week that God has sent me to every single one of my areas for specific reasons that i found out later so why not this one too. so i chased away my bad attitude and all is well now :) and this week was nuts. we went on 2 splits, had a lot of lessons cancelled but met some really rad new peeps, and did just weird thingssssss i think ive never had such a weird week of all the mission.

blague thats a lie. but it was funny lol

-i translated pokemon cards into french for a kid who just.. needs to play his pokemon. ill try and send some pics of the cards they were so mega

theres a man in our area who is just insane. his name is Temeio (miracle in tahitian) and sometimes he wears a santa hat and rolls around on his scooter bike... when he sees our car, he comes right directly in front of it so i have to hit the brakes super hard as to not kill the man. then he makes me roll down the window and he talks to us about how he wants the lessons but he really wants to take us to the cinema and wont leave until we plan a lesson with him. so we do but then to protect ourselves from harm we dont go. but this week he showed up at our house to ask us why we didnt come and that was just scarzeyyyyy

so we got a lock! yay

it rained a cycloon on us this week. ive never been so cold in all of my mission.
but i love the rain actually and it is always better here because there are so many rainbows

one of the days this week i learned that God loved me. again. because we went a few days with not very much food and just ate a buttload of carrots cause thats mostly all we had. hahaha. but then a random person in our ward just called us and said he had a bag of cereal he wanted to give us. i still dont really understand how that happened but i was SO PUMPED because there were 2 boxes of SPECIAL KKKKKKKKK

shoutout to my mom kk. :)

we also didnt have any way to call people on our phone because we didnt have any more money to buy credit. but we somehow made it work and did some splits.

i didnt crash the car yet.. i might have grazed part of a porch but its not a big deal.

we crossed a river

we put our feet  in the ocean and watched some surfers

the best people ever taught me how to make sushi. heck it was a blasty blast. ive never eaten so much fish in my life. i think im a shark now

we fixed 2 baptismal dates of two very unlikely men... they are both so soso shy and dont talk very much but voila, the spirit does apparently. thanks spirit.

jennifer from oremu got baptised this week after many difficulties with the family it pulled through!!!! im so proud of her, shes 10 and shes just like my little tahitian sister. heck i love her so much. it was fun to go back and see that and see spencer my daughter

i read a talk this week that summed up something that i want to become. it was called "se soucier de chacun" in french... i think that translates to "to worry about each person." anywho its by joseph b wirthlin from conf general april 2008. he was talking about thomas s monson and he said (indirect quote)

"if it is flattering for him that many among the great and powerful men of this world know him and honor him, it is maybe an even greater homage that many of the most humble and modest call him their friend."

whoooooah. i just dun got really touched when i read that. i was just remembering all the friends ive made on the mish, the people who became more than just "a companion" or "an investigator" or "a tahitian lady." to me now this is my home, and these are my people. i hope maybe im tan enough to fit in with them now but if i wasnt, it wouldnt matter. because they taught me something i wont and cant forget: everyone is on the same line, we just move along this line together and God looks at us all in the same way: as his children and as his friends, i think, or he wouldnt love us so much. i remembered also something that one of my mtc teachers told us from what feels like 45 years ago, that we werent going out there to do anything extremely crazy; we were going out to make new friends.

because a true friend is someone who helps you be better and happier.

faarahi te aroha!!!! (spread the love) until next time

oh ps please everyone go hug my brother Ian its his birthday on the 8th!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY IAN

And this is for the fam 8-28-17

I was so happy to receive the news of... so many good things!! Haha :) new vets to help dad not be so messy at work.. gosh. The solar eclipse sounded cool. Apparently it was a huge thing there we didn't see a single thing in this side of the world ha. But y'all looked good with your glasses.
I feel like you're not sending pics of the pool room on purpose so you can surprise me or something.
Aj I wanna hear about your trip more if you have time!
Nicole how much schooling do you have left before you can become a math teacher? Are you gonna be like my piano teacher who became a piano and you'll get some math equations tattooed on your arm or something? #hypothagereantheory
Ian teesh frosty how is school?
Ian when does football season end? I hope I get to catch a game or two... a ton of new missionaries came this last week and they just graduated. It's really weird for me to think you'll be in their shoes next year and maybe you'll serve in Tahiti and meet them. That'd be cool eh?
Teesh you're looking good. Hottie. What classes are you taking and are the teachers good?
Frosty I can't believe you don't like quilting parties. You know the more you make quilts the more wife points you get.
And Ryan is group messaging you now with Sheri. What a sneaky kid. He's not even sneaky though. Quite direct. But I appreciate that I guess and I love his mom still so much.
My poor friends. I'm sad for Ben who got in a car wreck.please tell him he's great and I love him

That's all thanks 



Thé first photo is my posterity. Sr dumouchel (MY eldest. Canada. and her daughter Sr orme. Utah. Next sr basset from france the daughter of Sr Spencer. Utah. who is next to me. I have the biggest lineage of all the missionaries. We are the largest family still all alive. I am proud. Call me mami

Next photos are when Sr fox came to eat with us and a really rad family I love. And the parking lot where I am doing mail. Its raining really hard

French Fry 8-28-17

Hey mom if you could send this to whoever wants it when you get a chance, that'd be gracious. :)
Whelp first week in orofero went down. Sr Meloen speaks really good French, because she is French lol. And so I feel like I'm in training again and I've realized that I understand Tahitians much better than faranis. (French peeps)  but holy I love this spicy sista! She's hilarious and loves manga and Korean music and really random things.
We had a funny moment this week when she got a bladder infection and so we went on Ville to the doctor to get it taken care of. He gave her a medication that said she wasn't supposed to go into sunlight for 5 days.
Guess what we forgot to do.
It's hard to avoid sun in Tahiti, in our defense.
But even after just 10 minutes she got roasted!!! The poor French fry.
Other than that this week was pretty strange. We went on Ville a lot. Apparently being stl means you're just in charge of taking everyone in the car to make sure all is well and dandy in their lives. Transfers. I'm trying to adjust to new things and a new ward and new roommates. Luckily they are awesome. But we don't have a working toilet at this moment so every morning we wake up the other house of sisters with a little dance to use theirs...
But I pray every night and thank God for that toilet in their house.
Our dmp has tons of roosters and he does cock fighting (makes them fight for money) I'm not gonna say I'm not disappointed but it's somewhat funny that he chose that for his passion.
A new sister came here named sister O'Harah and she's my new best pal. She told me everything ive missed for the last 16 months.
Yikes it has been 16 months I've been out.
Soon Pia from Oremu was baptised on Saturday and I got to go back to faaa to see it. I think I cried tears of joy falling asleep that night because I was just so HAPPY!!! Soon is 1 month younger than I am and she's become one of my best tahitian friends. She's made some terribly hard and heartbreaking sacrifices to be able to follow Christ, and I honestly wasn't sure that she was gonna be able to do it. But I stopped doubting anything when she gave a word before her baptism. Her words will always ring as lasting memories of what I think of to be true from my experiences here:
"I Know God told me this is my path I'm supposed to take, and I know he expected me to go through whatever it took to get there. There is something that draws me here that I can't explain, except that I say it is of God. That is why I am choosing today to be baptised. To take the name of Christ on me and become a part of his people."

There are many reasons to do good things. There are many reasons we make up so we don't do them also.. haha.
But the only real reason we should need is simply that God told us to do it.
For me, it's logic. He knows approximately... everything! And he wants exactly the best life possibly possible for me, you, and every saint and sinner. He doesn't make a difference, he keeps his promises. Hes perfect. So why don't we just do what he says. No matter what that might take.
Thanks for letting me stand on a tall soap box. :) love you all. 

Not zorking! 8/21/17

internat not zorking. i hope youre all well but heres me and sr meloen :)

Out of heaven into Paea 8/14/17

hardest official thing of my life: leaving Sr Brooke Marie Spencer.
 

and all of the investigators in Oremu, on my little mountain that is full of concrete houses smashed together, millions of kites made from trash bags, smoke, steak frites, one heck of a view of the ocean, local remix music and a profound soul who is searching for something.

we gave that something to many and many gave it right back to me. such as the sisters in the house with air conditionings

im pumped because we have seen so so many miracles in the last few weeks, so many merciful sweeps that show that God loves us and everyone else!! hooplah. miracles that mean now we are just waiting for
some dates to arrive and get 6 people baptised: soon, deborah, mino, jenny, maud, teva and perhaps the daughter of maud and teva.

bummer is i left the sector. it was time to leave after 6 months quand meme but yipes... i dont like how i feel inside. i hate goodbyes.

since i havent written a good letter in a while maybe ill share a couple of stories about these people:

maud and teva are a cute CUTE young couple who we found because we were lost and looking for someone else and maud helped us so kindly. then we asked if we could keep coming back to visit her and she immediately saw the hand of God in that. she was like "sisters i know god sent you here you werent actually lost of course you can come back." so we kept teaching her and eventually her husband teva and they have two ADORABLE GIRLS who stole my heart. but then it came to the moment where we had to talk about baptism and they had a hard time accepting it... dommage people have such a hard time with that one thing. but even with their incredible faith in christ, their humility, and prayers, we couldnt get over that roadblock.

so we brought out the big guns

on tuesday night we had an activity and went to the temple. we walked around the gardens and explained with the members what the temple is, how to go inside, what happens inside, and about eternal marriage and families. the last thing we talked about were the words on the temple that say "holiness to the lord, the house of the lord" and very reverently but powerfully the spirit touched these people and they knew if they wanted Christ with them, not just for this life but in the world to come, they had to go inside with their two daughters.

and thus it will be.

i wish this computer would upload pictures.

but in the meantime, i am in paea now in the ward of orofero! im an stl and im driving a car. it looks as if i will die here. my companion is this sassy french sister named sister meloen, and ive loved her since i met her like a year ago. we started our missions on the same day so we might go to our graves as companions, wno knows? im glad to be here. the house is tiny and a bit ugly but on the bright side we have a cactus that i managed to hit with the car today. #haventdriveninawhile

and we have ac again!!!! whew

sr spencer is gonna train and im a proud second grandma. if there is anyone in this world who can train right after her trainer leaves her it is spencer herself. aka the granddaughter of spencer w kimball, as the tahitians say. that makes sense

some funny things i have seen in the past bit:

- we had three faatamaaraas in one day in order to eat with more members and none of the members actually ate with us. they did however send us 4 macdo muffins, take us to a fancy sushi place (to eat alone) and give us a box of chow mein. lol

- it rained super hard during a lesson and we were outside one a picnick table so we just panicked and made a shield of umbrellas to hide us

- every time we run at the park we see the same 3 chinese papis who wear tiny stylish shorts and walk around. but they dont seen to know each other

- sr spencer made me some french toast

-sr spencer made me laugh real hard for many reasons.

k i goota scoot along

i love you all please keep your toothbrushes away from your toilets 

sushi 8-7-17

we are making kites today and flying them in the rain there is no good excuse to not write other than i really dont have another computer to write on and they are making us leave in negative 6 minutes. thanks for listening. i really did have some good experiences this week and there is a transfer next week so this is prolly my last week in oremu. DANG i love my life a lot. 

i ate sushi at a really good restaurant this week MAN THANKS SO MUCH TAHITIANS WHO WORK AT SUSHI RESTUARANTS mom it made me think of you 

dad i read your letter about nephi making a bow about 50 times and also shared it with 49 people and we love you. you make me pee of laughter. 

ill send pics sometime 

aj that looks so swaggy in africa. hope you are not gonna cut your feet off