oh hey everybody!
exciting things happened this week. first of
all, it was thanksgiving! we organized a little feast with some of our
investigators and our DMP and his family. we didn't end up doing it on the
actual day of thanksgiving, because they didn't have friday off like good ol'
america, so we did it on friday. remember how i've never cooked a turkey in my
life? and how everyone was like "soeur hansen...we thought you knew how to
do this..." because turkey isn't exactly the most common thing here in
tahiti. there's not even a word for it in tahitian--they kept calling it the
"big chicken". haha! it was so funny to watch them open up the raw
turkey and be like uhh...what the heck are we supposed to do with this? anyway,
it all worked out in the end and we had a nice little thanksgiving with turkey,
mashed potatoes, rolls, and pie and stuff. and we had to have rice, because
tahitians have to eat rice with everything otherwise it's not a real meal. when
i told them what we normally eat for thanksgiving they were like, "soo...what
do you eat the rice with?" and i was like "...there's no rice in
thanksgiving." and they were like "...no rice?" it was a hard
concept to grasp. but i decided to ahve a little bit of a multicultural
thanksgiving and include rice in the menu. hopefully i can get pictures to you
soon, but i forgot my camera cord today so no pictures of thanksgiving. there's
a really funny video too that we took, but i don't have it with me either. so
you'll all just have to imagine. anyway, i hope thanksgiving was wonderful for
everyone. i'll admit, i felt a little homesick thinking about everyone around
the table eating mom's good thanksgiving cooking. although, i am proud to say
that everyone LOVED my rolls. weena (dmp's wife) even wants me to teach her how
to make them. weee!
also exciting thing: i had my first baptism
with our investigator that we taught start to finish on saturday! ariinui is
one of the brothers we're teaching--he's 15. actually it's pretty cool that he
got baptized, because when we first started going to his house, it wasn't even
orginally for him, it was for his older brother, and ariinui would always go
into his room and not come out. but then one day he came out and sat through a
lesson and we asked him if he wanted to receive the lessons, and he was lik
yeah i do. what? ok! since then he has made so much progress. the baptism was
really good, and i was so happy! he bore such a good testimony at the end too,
i was even a little bit surprised. he remembered so much from the things that
we taught him and he spoke with such confidence and surety. (is that a word? i
don't even know.) i felt proud and grateful for the chance that i had to teach
him. we have more baptisms coming up on the 16th and the 31st, and possibly one
or two others for december or january--we're still trying to work with our amis
to get them there. getting amis to commit to baptismal dates is an awesome and
terrifying thing all at the same time because you want them to do it, and when
they do, you're really happy, but then afterwards you're like oh crap now satan
is gonna work super hard on them to try and stop them from getting baptized. so
we really have to pull out the big guns to help protect our amis, haha. but
watching the transformation that happens once they commit to getting baptized
is really amazing.
this week, although there were many exciting
things that happened, was also a super weird week. we called it the week of
"cacaboudin." what is cacaboudin, you ask? roughly translated,
grumpy. cantankerous. ill-humoured. bleh. yeah. bleh. i think that sums it up
pretty well. here's an example--on tuesday, we had 8 lessons planned and we
were stoked because we had set a goal for 30 lessons total for the week. guess
how many of those 8 got canceled? SEVEN. seven lessons fell through in one day!
guhhhh! it was the worst! and then the rest of the week was just weird.
everyone was in a weird mood, our amis were cranky and flaky, me and s. taie
were cranky, dmp and his wife were cranky. everyone was doing their cacaboudin!
it was the worst! but this week is going to be better.
i've been reflecting a lot lately on the idea
of happiness, and how we can be happy. admittedly, the reason for this
reflection is because i often find myself feeling unhappy, and i'm not sure
why. i'm trying my best to be obedient and to work hard, to pray aallllll the
tiiiiiiiime and to read my scriptures, and to try and serve people, basically
to do all the things that i know will help me to be happy, and yet, there is
something missing. i kept thinking to myself, "ah maybe when i get
transferred i'll be happy, maybe when i go to a different island, maybe this
maybe that..." waiting around for happiness to hit me in the face or
something. i came across elder uchtdorf's talk from the general relief society
broadcast, and i think it was exactly what i needed to hear. he talked about
choosing to be happy now, and not waiting for the "golden ticket"
like in charlie and the chocolate factory. if we just open our eyes, we have so
much to be happy about. and it's true, i really do have a whole lot to be happy
about.
anyway, i was struggling to keep my head about
water, bogged down by discouragement and loneliness, when the words of the hymn
"count your many blessings" came into my mind: "when upon life's
billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost,
count you many blessings name them one by one, and it will surprise you what
the lord has done." i decided to say a prayer of gratitude, and instead of
asking for things, to just say thank you for the things that i did have. it
probably sounds super cliche, but as i prayed, i felt a warm peace wash over
me, a sense of satisfaction and happiness. i finished my prayer, and looked up
with a smile. i know that things are still going to be hard--missions are super
hard. everyone told me that it would be, but i didn't understand what kind of
hard it was oging to be until i got here. i know it will still be hard, but i
also know that this is the thing that is most valuable for me to be doing right
now. and i have a lot to be happy about.
i'm going to end there because my time is
about up, but i love you all and miss you! i hope everything is going well back
home. oh and i'm the worst at writing letters, but i made myself the promise
that i was going to be better, so expect some hand-written goodness from me
soon! love!
love,
soeur Hansen
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