oh hiiiiiiii everyone,
so we had another super awesome choir practice today. actually, i found a way to make it through--every time the choir director does something that irritates me, i imagine him falling through a trap door. so rather than getting annoyed, i was able to laugh by thinking about him being like oooohnoooooo whoomp! (sound effect for falling through the trap door, duh). probably not the most christlike way to deal with the situation, but hey, we all have areas to improve on. anyway, our concert for the arue stake is on sunday, so that'll be cool. the concerts are always good, it's just the practices that make me want to rip my eyeballs out and throw them at someone.
ANYWAY. so i'm back in a companionship of three--soeur teheiura is with us now. she has been out of the mission for 3 months for health reasons and is now reintegrating back into the swing of things and got put in our sector because we have the car. this basically means that either me or soeur taie are getting transferred soon because we don't have enough sisters to have threesomes, especially since 2 are finishing at the end of this month. so within the next week or two we'll know what's happening. soeur teheiura is cool so far. she's pretty blunt, which can be funny, but also sometimes cringe-inducing. but so far things have been good--she's really humble and gives compliments often and sincerely, which is a nice change of pace. i'm sure this week has plenty of interesting experiences in store for our companionship. she's currently trying to talk to me right now but i'm not listening because i'm writing an email. but she's still talking, so as long as she doesn't catch on that i'm not actually saying anyhting other than "mmhmmm" and "huh", things should be ok.
oooh!! guess what!! i got to go to the temple here for the first time last thursday (and for the first time in 4 months). aaaah it was so good. i seriously didn't want to leave, but alas i had to. the temple is beautiful, as they all are. the session we went to was in tahitian, and at first i was like eh maybe i'll try it in tahitian, but then i was like yeah no way gimme those headphones. and i listened in english and it was awesome and beautiful and just what my soul and brain needed. i love the temple, and i love being able to teach our investigators about it and help them get there. aah temple.
so now let me tell you about one of the most demoralizing/horrifying experiences of my life thus far. if you're easily offended by stories that involve a missionary sittingon the toilet, i suggest you skip this paragraph. so anyway, last night, i was in the bathroom. first of all, you'll need toknow that the toilet is in it's own little closet that is like three feet by four feet. small enclosed space. anyway, so i'm sittingon the toilet, going about my business. and all the sudden i see a cockroach crawl under the door. andi'm like AAHHHHHHHHHHH! but i can't get up and run away BECAUSE I'M ON THE TOILET. so i'm trying to manuveur as much as possible to get away from the giant roach but can't really move because i'm in a toilet cupboard and not wearing any pants. anyway, i wish i could paint a better pictureof this but basically it involves me screaming, half naked, and my companions laughing their butts off. this is my life.
apart from harrowing experiences with toilet roaches, things are going well. we're working on nailing down baptismal dates for a bunch of our investigators. there are 3 of them that want to get baptized, which is awesome. but the thing is with people here is that a lot of them want to get baptized on a day like their birthday, or their parents' wedding anniversary. which are in may. or september. and we're like noooo that's too far awaaaaay. so we're working on that. but we have one investigator, a dad, who is really making a lot of progress andit's awesome to see the changes. his wife is inactive, but trying to come back. last week we had a lesson about setting goals for the new year and they both set the goal to quit smoking and drinking this year. when we wentto the lesson this past friday, he was like "man we had so many temptations today! all of our friends invited us to go drinking, even offered to pay, but we were like no we can't! and we thought about how the sisters were coming to teach us and we were like yeah we DEFINITELY can't!" haha. and they've started reading the book of mormon together too, so that's way cool.
anyway, i gotta wrap this up, but before i do, i would like the share a funny quote from the week. we were teaching a follow-up lesson to the babou kids about temple marriage and how they can start preparing now, and their mom, nas, was like: "yeah if you don't work hard in school, you'll have to marry a homeless person. and homeless people can't go in the temple." haha. so random. so funny.
anyway again, gotta go. love you all and i think you're great. have a good week!!
love,
soeur hansen
so we had another super awesome choir practice today. actually, i found a way to make it through--every time the choir director does something that irritates me, i imagine him falling through a trap door. so rather than getting annoyed, i was able to laugh by thinking about him being like oooohnoooooo whoomp! (sound effect for falling through the trap door, duh). probably not the most christlike way to deal with the situation, but hey, we all have areas to improve on. anyway, our concert for the arue stake is on sunday, so that'll be cool. the concerts are always good, it's just the practices that make me want to rip my eyeballs out and throw them at someone.
ANYWAY. so i'm back in a companionship of three--soeur teheiura is with us now. she has been out of the mission for 3 months for health reasons and is now reintegrating back into the swing of things and got put in our sector because we have the car. this basically means that either me or soeur taie are getting transferred soon because we don't have enough sisters to have threesomes, especially since 2 are finishing at the end of this month. so within the next week or two we'll know what's happening. soeur teheiura is cool so far. she's pretty blunt, which can be funny, but also sometimes cringe-inducing. but so far things have been good--she's really humble and gives compliments often and sincerely, which is a nice change of pace. i'm sure this week has plenty of interesting experiences in store for our companionship. she's currently trying to talk to me right now but i'm not listening because i'm writing an email. but she's still talking, so as long as she doesn't catch on that i'm not actually saying anyhting other than "mmhmmm" and "huh", things should be ok.
oooh!! guess what!! i got to go to the temple here for the first time last thursday (and for the first time in 4 months). aaaah it was so good. i seriously didn't want to leave, but alas i had to. the temple is beautiful, as they all are. the session we went to was in tahitian, and at first i was like eh maybe i'll try it in tahitian, but then i was like yeah no way gimme those headphones. and i listened in english and it was awesome and beautiful and just what my soul and brain needed. i love the temple, and i love being able to teach our investigators about it and help them get there. aah temple.
so now let me tell you about one of the most demoralizing/horrifying experiences of my life thus far. if you're easily offended by stories that involve a missionary sittingon the toilet, i suggest you skip this paragraph. so anyway, last night, i was in the bathroom. first of all, you'll need toknow that the toilet is in it's own little closet that is like three feet by four feet. small enclosed space. anyway, so i'm sittingon the toilet, going about my business. and all the sudden i see a cockroach crawl under the door. andi'm like AAHHHHHHHHHHH! but i can't get up and run away BECAUSE I'M ON THE TOILET. so i'm trying to manuveur as much as possible to get away from the giant roach but can't really move because i'm in a toilet cupboard and not wearing any pants. anyway, i wish i could paint a better pictureof this but basically it involves me screaming, half naked, and my companions laughing their butts off. this is my life.
apart from harrowing experiences with toilet roaches, things are going well. we're working on nailing down baptismal dates for a bunch of our investigators. there are 3 of them that want to get baptized, which is awesome. but the thing is with people here is that a lot of them want to get baptized on a day like their birthday, or their parents' wedding anniversary. which are in may. or september. and we're like noooo that's too far awaaaaay. so we're working on that. but we have one investigator, a dad, who is really making a lot of progress andit's awesome to see the changes. his wife is inactive, but trying to come back. last week we had a lesson about setting goals for the new year and they both set the goal to quit smoking and drinking this year. when we wentto the lesson this past friday, he was like "man we had so many temptations today! all of our friends invited us to go drinking, even offered to pay, but we were like no we can't! and we thought about how the sisters were coming to teach us and we were like yeah we DEFINITELY can't!" haha. and they've started reading the book of mormon together too, so that's way cool.
anyway, i gotta wrap this up, but before i do, i would like the share a funny quote from the week. we were teaching a follow-up lesson to the babou kids about temple marriage and how they can start preparing now, and their mom, nas, was like: "yeah if you don't work hard in school, you'll have to marry a homeless person. and homeless people can't go in the temple." haha. so random. so funny.
anyway again, gotta go. love you all and i think you're great. have a good week!!
love,
soeur hansen
