August 9, 2011

Aug 9

Iaorana eerrbody!

and now we meet again at this week's blessed pday. i'm still alive and preaching the gospel and stuff, so things are pretty good. tahitian is in full swing now, i'm teaching two "investigators" (aka both of my teachers pretending to be a person that they taught on their missions and i have to teach them), and then i have two french investigators too. so four total, and it can get purrrrty crazy sometimes. but obviously that's what i'm going to be doing in tahiti anyway, so it's not like i'm crying about it or whatever. it's going pretty well. i don't feel terrified every time i walk into a lesson anymore, which is a nice change. actually, sister sandoval and i committed one of our investigators to baptism, which was really awesome. even though it's not REAL, we still feel really invested in it, so we were working really hard to support him and stuff, and then we were like "sooo...wanna get baptized?" and he was like "yeah, i think i do." and i felt like such a goober because i was SO HAPPY that i just wanted to start crying. ha! dumb. but i held it together and just smiled really big so he probably thought i was a crazy person. anyway, so i teach my tahitian investigators by myself, obviously, since i'm the only one in the class. but it's going well. one of my lessons was like an hour long (which really isn't supposed to happen because that's way too long for anyone's attention span, but whatever), and it went really well and then by the time i got out i was like "holy crap. i just spoke tahitian for a solid hour." i probably didn't say holy crap at the time though. but it was cool. i didn't even think i knew enough words to talk for an hour. apparently i do. or maybe i was just saying the same things over and over for an hour. that's also a distinct possibility. regardless, my teacher told me "good job," so whether or not that was out of pity or genuine congratulations, i don't really care to know. so one of the days last week (monday? tuesday? who cares. they're all the same), i went to this presentation that a senior missionary couple gave, because they've served 3 missions in tahiti and i was just like transfixed throughout the whole thing. anytime someone talks about tahiti i eat it up. i'm so excited to goooooooooooooo! ahbleh. i haven't really heard anything about my visa, i'll probably start asking more when september rolls around. oh! funny tahitian word/cultural note of the week: in tahiti, a lot of the animals that are there now aren't really native animals. pigs are like the only animal native to the island (ok not really but for the sake of this example just go with it), so when other people brought other animals to the island, they would just use words they already have to name the new ones. this example would be more effective if i actually remember what the words were, but the translation is really where it's at. so a pig is "puaa", and a horse, being translated, is: "pig that runs on land," and a goat is: "pig with teeth." haha!

anyway, because the MTC has become a little monotonous (every day is the same, what? we can predict what we're going to eat for every meal based on the day of the week? yes. and it's not because of inspiration.), sister sandoval and i decided to take the advice of my friend nathan who told me that when he was in the MTC, they just made up stupid holidays for every day to make it more fun and interesting. one of our holidays was "scare the crap out of elder szuch day", in which we did everything in our power to make elder szuch scream like a little girl. it was fairly successful, and i think it strengthened our bond. and by "strengthened" i mean totally destroyed it by making him hate us. just kidding. he thought it was funny after we told him it was our honorary holiday for him. and then another day was "take as many awkward pictures of your companion in weird situations/positions and you're not allowed to delete any day." i might have hated that holiday. but it definitely made the day more interesting. our zone is finding other interesting things to spice up life, like making up nicknames for everyone. for example, this week, they're on a "hook" kick. so the elders have various "lost boys" names, and since i'm the oldest person/one of the token girls in the zone, i'm "wendy lady." oorrrr they just call me mom. which is funny. but then they started calling another one of the elders "dad" and i was like hey, i really don't remember having kids with him soooo one of us has to stop being your parent. this is how rumors get started in the MTC and people get sent home. ha just kidding. but seriously.

anyway, things are good though. devotionals and firesides have been really good lately (not like they aren't usually though)--we had gerald lund come speak at one of them, that was pretty cool. actually that was a funny fireside because i was sitting next to this elder who just stared at a picture of his (what i assume to be) girlfriend the ENTIRE TIME. i was dying. he would take it out, stare at it for like a full 5-6 minutes, put it back, and then like 2 minutes later, take it out again and start the process over. oooh elder. so precious. we went to the temple today and it was really great. it's so crazy how i can actually FEEL it when the people pray for the missionaries. i can't explain it very well, but it's like WHABAM! my heart feels good. and i feel good. i'm a big fan of that. i've noticed more and more that my ability to recognize feelings and promptings from the spirit is really increasing. like the other day in a lesson, we were talking about ether 12:27, and being able to overcome our weaknesses when we pray for help, and it was seriously so crazy--i just busted out this promise to our investigator that he would be able to overcome the temptations in his life if he would pray with faith for help, and as i was speaking, i felt the power of what i was saying. i honestly don't even remember what i said, but it's like i was on steroids or something. and i was like "whoa." and our investigator was like"'whoa." and then we walked out and sister sandoval looked at me and she was like, "whoa." obviously that doesn't happen every time, but when it does, it's incredible. it's funny how much a good lesson can make me feel like a bajillion dollars, and then a bad lesson absolutely destroys me. i dunno. i guess i'm just invested in this work. WEIRD.

thanks for the package this week, mom. those cookies were excellent and everyone loves you, but i love you the most, so their love is insignificant in comparison, just keep that in mind. i took a picture of the people in my district eating them with joyous looks on their faces, so i'll be sure to send that on. they are all singing praises of "the nance," haha. happy belated birthday to zoey twinkle toes, and happy almost birthday to erik! gaah. he's soooo ollllllllddddd it's weird! oh! i saw sean o'rourke in the MTC! i thought he was going to the MTC in england, but i heard his name get called over the intercom and i was like uhwhaaa? and then i saw him the next day. it was really funny, and cool. he's waiting for his visa to be able to go over there, so i'm not sure how much longer he'll be around here.

anyway, i'm almost out of time. i hope everyone is doing well and being happy and stuff. i love you and miss you and think you're the best everrrr. go read your scriputres and stuff. bye!!

love,
soeur hansen