Photos

Heiva Week...

Well, this week flew by fast. There wasn't a whole lot of interesting stuff that happened either. Heiva is going on so work is slowing down a ton. I'm not sure how much we're going to accomplish during July but we'll see what we can do. Last year our mission President encouraged us to take advantage of it to find new amis. Last year I was on Takaroa and it was a little different, but we'll so what we can do on Tahiti.

There were just two really cool experiences this week:

One of my first days at Mataiea my companion showed me an inactive family. The two parents served missions, but do to some problems with other members, they stopped coming to church, and they are pretty sensitive. They have two daughters who aren't baptised, but they won't let them take lessons because they don't want anyone to force them to get baptsed. So at that point that we met this family it was my goal to get to the point where they trusted us enough to let us teach their kids.

So last week we were trying to find people to visit and I had a sudden impression to visit this family. We passed by their house and invited them to come to the concert. It didn't seem like they would show up, but the whole family came! Afterwards they wanted to talk to us, and I was excited because I knew they would let us teach their daughters. So we went up to them and they asked us for the number of an elder who is from france. Well, we almost got in.

On monday night we were going home and we got a phone call from the family again. This time it was for the daughter! She said that her daughter had a lot of questions that needed answers. So the next night we passed by, and we answered all of her questions. It was about life after death, but we ended up teaching the entire plan of salvation. This girl is only about eleven years old, but I've never gone that in depth of the Plan of Salvation with anyone ever in my life. She's so smart. So we're coming back tomorrow. We just have to be careful so t doesn't seem like we're trying to force her to do anything.

The other story is with Manava. We finally found her again. It was the spirit that led us all the way. When we talked to her again she said that "ça fait du bien de vous parler encore". I don't know how to translate that well, so good luck. We had a good conversation with her. We'll see her again this week. It turns out she's getting married in August, so the baptism might be good, just pushed back.

So the moral of the stories: Always listen to the spirit! It's definitely hard sometimes to know when the spirit is talking, but if we're always ready to act, even on the smallest promptings, we will do good.

Also I was able to go back to Faaa to see the baptism of Paul. So awesome! Those were some of my favorite experiences working with him, preparing him for baptism.

Alright, that's the fun stuff for the week. Je vous aime et bonne semaine!

Elder Lewis

"If we can make families eternal, it's worth every minute."

Well, We don't have much time today for emails, so I'll try to be fast. As usual, we've seen more miracles this week than we deserve. It's been a little hard this week to find new investigators. But we have found a couple good families, and each day we see their testimonies growing, and we're going to focus on that. It's no use trying to help someone that doesn't want help. It's sad that they don't want it, but there's nothing we can do. However, if we can make families eternal, it's totally woth every minute.

The lessons are so cool with Manava. In our last lesson, we came and she told us that she had a surprise for us at the end. We taught the lesson (in depth plan of Salvation) and at the end we started closing our books and she said "That's all?") So we reopened our books and started going into even MORE detail, I'm talking the book of Revelation and the Millenium and stuff like that. And She just soaked it up. And at the end, she presented her surprise. She and her friend (the member integrator) had spent the five previous hours making cakes for us. Yes!! You can't say now to a homemade cake, even when you're about to go to a pizzeria right after for dinner.

Poenui got an answer to her prayers. We haven't actually talked to her about it, but we heard from her friend that she couldn't stop crying because she felt so stongly the spirit. It's really interesting-she prayed the night that we first engaged her to do it, and she said that she didn't get an answer. We thought that she just must have not recognized the answer, so every lesson we talked about praying and finding the answer. And she's prayed a lot. She had prayed four times the first night alone, and plenty more sine then. But she felt nothing. And then this time, and she really felt the spirit. I don't know what changed, but she knows it's true now. Maybe it was that the spirit was trying to really test her faith, or maybe something else, but it's really cool that she got her response. And she already asked her dad, and he said it was fine if she wanted to get baptised. Everything worked out so well!

On wednesday we all said goodbye to President Bize, and on thursday the new president came, President Fox. We saw him at the missionary concert last night, but didn't really have the chance to meet him. We'll do that tomorrow. It's weird having a change like that, we'll see how that goes.

I have more things to say, but I've got to go. I'll try to write later, if not, next week. I love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Lewis

Random pics with my old DMP of Tautira

The baptism of Sefina

The baptism of Oliana

This was my last sunday. We took a picture with all of our investigators at the class of gospel principles.

More Miracles

Well, We don't have much time today for emails, so I'll try to be fast. As usual, we've seen more miracles this week than we deserve. It's been a little hard this week to find new investigators, but We have found a couple good families, and each day we see their testimonies growing, and we're going to focus on that. It's no use trying to help someone that doesn't want help. It's sad that they don't want it, but there's nothing we can do. However, if we can make families eternal, it's totally woth every minute.

The lessons are so cool with Manava. In our last lesson, we came and she told us that she had a surprise for us at the end. We taught the lesson (in depth plan of Salvation) and at the end we started closing our books and she said "That's all?) So we re-opened our books and started going into even MORE detail, I'm talking the book of Revelation and the Millenium and stuff like that. And She just soaked it up. And at the end, she presented her surprise. She and her friend (the member integrator) had spent the five previous hours making cakes for us. Yes!! You can't say no to a homemade cake, even when you're about to go to a pizzeria right after for dinner.

Poenui got an answer to her prayers. We haven't actually talked to her about it, but we heard from her friend that she couldn't stop crying because she felt so stongly the spirit. It's really interesting-she prayed the night that we first engaged her to do it, and she said that she didn't get an answer. We thought that she just must have not recognized the answer, so every lesson we talked about praying and finding the answer. And she's prayed a lot. She had prayed four times the first night alone, and plenty more sine then. But she felt nothing. And then this time, and she really felt the spirit. I don't know what changed, but she knows it's true now. Maybe it was that the spirit was trying to really test her faith, or maybe something else, but it's really cool that she got her response. And she already asked her dad, and he said it was fine if she wanted to get baptised. Everything worked out so well!

On wednesday we all said goodbye to President Bize, and on thursday the new president came, President Fox. We saw him at the missionary concert last night, but didn't really have the chance to meet him. We'll do that tomorrow. It's weird having a change like that, we'll see how that goes.

I have more things to say, but I've got to go. I'll try to write later, if not, next week. I love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Lewis