Ua ūa rahi i te hebedoma i mairi a'enei
新年快樂! 🧧 Happy New Years!!!! Aka happy occasion to light more fireworks, celebrate long life and feed the lions 🦁
This entire past week has just been filled with so much rain it has been pretty crazy. So many of our lessons got moved to messenger video calls because of the weather and the cyclone that was hitting us 🌀. The heavy rain and strong winds definitely hit us and luckily it wasn't as strong as we thought it would be. The work continued and we also continued to get managing to get completely drenched ever single day.
Highlights:
- We were picking up our dinner from a family and then another family across the street was just like. "Haere mai tamaa orometua ma. A hopoi mai i ta orua maa, a amu i ta matou maa, e a haaputu i ta orua maa no ananahi" Eaha??? Te mau haamaitai I tera pō!!! Mauruuru te fatu no tera! Okay so the family across the street pretty much said, "Bring your guy's food over and just eat with us and save your food for tomorrow morning". We grinded the food they had and had such an amazing time talking with the family.
- Fighting the wind and rain to go contacting... We had the feeling to go and try do some contacting in this one area. After fighting the wind for 40 minutes we got there and then found a few families who had either never talked to the missionaries before or they took lessons but lost contact with the missionaries. MIRACLES!!!! ✨️
- Messenger Lessons... Wednesday was pretty much filled with messenger lessons because of how strong everything was. Three of our lessons were moved to messenger and we were privileged to have some members join us and bear their testimonies as well. A few other got moved to other dates.
- Zone Conference.... We had zone conference with Elder Wakolo a member of the Quorum of the 70. He shared some amazing insights about the importance of consecration, obedience and knowing our stuff and was just a Segway into his talk on Friday.
- During our zoom zone conference Elder Tingey and I got called on to recite something in English. The only problem is we haven't done the recitation in English for the past 18ish months. None the less we straight up butchered the Missionary Objective in English. Bwahahaha, we saw Elder Wakolo in person and he was just like "thanks for yesterday." Our mission president was just like, "Thanks for making me and Sister Tuahu laugh yesterday" Aiya 🤦🏽♂️
- On the boat ride back the ocean was straight up not in a good mood. The boat was rocking and rolling and at some points flying in the air. The Elders were all getting seasick while all the "Tahitian Pirates" were on the ship pounding packs on packs of Hinano Beer or downing bottles of wine. It was pretty amazing how they stayed up will on the boat ride. 🚢 I'll attach some pictures someone got from shore of our return state.
- TEHIVA FAMILY!!!! We were eating at one of our dinner appointments and I heard that they both served missions. It turns out that they served at the same time as one of my cousins over in Africa. They shared there mission stories we looked at some pictures and we even looked and some of the pictures from their dad's mission and it was sickkkk.
At the end of the night Elder Tingey asked if there's anything we could do and the dad was like "Yeah, rub my back/give me a massage". Elder Tingey was quick to say no and the guy was just like "But you asked?" He was of course joking but I thought I'd play along and was just like "Ahhh no worries, he can do it! I even got the mono'i (coconut oil) and went to my bag making like I was about to grab it out". We all just started cracking up at the house.
- Sunday was pretty chill, we did a little devotional where all the old missionaries and missionaries currently serving sang and shared their testimonies for the youth on Moorea. We got to our dinner appointment an hour late at 7:40pm and we just felt terrible 😬. They had steak, salad, chicken, sashimi, spring roles, and a whole bunch of other things spread over the table with deserts to come. Got to know them and their family and their stories. They had a cool model canoe and started telling me about Hokulea and voyaging ⛵️in the pacific and we had a great time. ⭐️ They even promised some poke at ever dinner appointment we have with them from now on like they did for Elder Kaopua. Blessings on blessings on blessings 🙌
Spiritual Thought:
"20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
In Adam we die but in and through Christ WE LIVE! The atonement of Jesus Christ is the answer to all! Through Christ we have a guiding lighthouse throughout the storms of life that lead us safely back to our Heavenly harbor. Through being baptized and receiving the gift of the holy ghost we have one of the very best navigators with us constantly and all we need to do is heed the promptings of our navigator and we will never be lead astray even when we might not see the stars or how we'll get through the storms of life.
Ua ite au e te atua mau e na roto te taraehara a iesu mesia e nehenehe tatou I farii te hau I teie oraraa e te oaoa mure ore I te oraraa I mua
"Vents favorables et mer suivants"
"Mata'i haumaru e moana mania"
"Fair winds and following seas"
Ua Here au ia outou... prenez soin de vous,
Elder Ellis
Link to my Google Photo's album. Go check um, go check um, go!:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/qErFS2eWV3pJGVEV7
