February 25, 2013

the gift of tongues (in real life.)

Ma chere famille!!

Je suis toujours a Paita. But! I´m gonna déménager sois a la fin de cette semaine ou sois au commencement de la semaine prochaine!  I'm still in Paita.  But I will be moving at the end of this week or the beginning of next week!  And I´m stoked. But I´m happy to be here in Paita for one more week. I love Paita. Il va me manquer.I will miss it.  But I gotta talk to Soeur Lamb for a bit last night and she´s as stoked as I am, even though we both fully admitted that we´re still n00bs, we know that we´re gonna work hard, be obedient, and the Lord will guide us towards the people that are prepared to hear His gospel. So yah, we´re stoked!! I cannot wait. Apparently there are four member families in my sector, so the first thing I want to do when I get there is go talk to them, introduce ourselves, and see how we can assist them in doing the work in Sixieme.(literally, means "sixth".  But that must be the name of an area there...?) Cause, I´ve come to a conclusion. This work is really the members. We are the teachers. But I believe that this work belongs to the members first and foremost. So yah, I´m stoked! hopefully I´ll be emailing from Sixieme next week. On verra.We'll see.

This week was good! Numbers wise, not so hot, but we worked hard and! We found great people to teach in the upcoming weeks! So, a successful week in my book. This week was a little exciting, cause Soeur Kailiponi was kind of very ill for a couple days, so we cooled it for one day. We did some teaching, but we stayed home in the morning for a bit. She´s crazy. Tuesday night, she´s like about to pass out she is so sick, and finally she says something. I was not very nice that night, mostly cause I was frustrated with her. And, actually, that´s the night that I cracked open my quote book. (Thanks mom! And friends that wrote in it! It was a little ray of extreme sunshine during the week! You all are the best!) but yah, so that´s how the week started out. By Thursday she was starting to feel better and Friday she was recovered. So, I´m glad she´s feeling better now, the little crazy.

Also, miracle of the week, there were several, but this one was the biggest. Yvonne, our investigator in Dumbea, has been taking the lessons for a couple years. She´s had all the lessons at least twice, maybe three times. And we´ve been trying to work with her for a baptism date. The issue is, she is not very confident in her testimony. She has one, that is for sure, but she thinks she doesn´t know enough and is just not very confident. And the issue of late has been that she needs to talk to her husband to get his consent. We´ve been inviting her and praying night and day for her to do this for about a month now, but she has been a bit scared, because she asked once in the past, and he said no. However, this week, as she was taking a nap, she had a dream, an out of body experience that she was like a baby, she felt joyful and clean and just happy! And someone said to her, "You have been baptized," or something like that. And she said she felt so much joy and just happiness! And when she woke up, she said she heard the Spirit say to her, "Go talk to your husband." So, she obeyed and she went and said that she needed to talk to him. And she said that the words that she said after were not hers. And I can testify that they weren´t. Because Yvonne is very gentle, sweet, shy. But when she spoke to him, she spoke with power and authority. She said that she needed to get baptized. That she would get baptized. Because she knows that it is the truth and she needs to go to the temple to do her work for her family. It was incredible when she told us this! The Spirit was there. And I wish I could have seen her say this, but I know that the Spirit gave her the strength and the words to utter. Because she couldn´t have done that by herself. I´m so happy! And her husband was speechless. He didn´t answer her, but we´ll see what happens. I´m excited for her! She´s so great! I will miss her when I leave.

We´ve been serving the members and trying to build confidence with them this week too, and that´s been going well! I love these members! They are fantastic, and Sunday, after church, I was talking to some amis(literally- "friends"; in English they say investigators)  and recent convertis, and I was looking around and I just had this feeling that the work is starting to pick up! Specifically with the members. They are helping and doing their part, and with that I know that we will have much success here in Paita. Oh I love this place. I will miss these people! They meet in the chapel of Tontouta, and I´ll be at Rivière Salée again after this week, so I won´t be able to see them much, but they are incredible! There are 4 families here that feed us EVERY WEEK. That is unheard of chez nous, I think. It´s incredible!

And finally, the subject line. While porte a porting cette semaine,going door-to-door this week we ran into SO MANY Futuniens and Wallisiens. So, I am now working on My Wallisien and Futunien. I´ll let you know how it goes. We actually spoke some Wallisien with people this week, cause Tomasi, a recent converti gave us a few phrases in Wallisien. And we learned some Futunien from an ami this week too. I LOVE LANGUAGES. And I hope to come home with more than french under my belt. Because I want to be able to share the gospel with these people in THEIR language! Cause in the scriptures, it says that will happen. And I´m a part of that. The best!!

Also, this week, just for random odds and ends, I am wearing a mu'u right now. I bought one last week! It´s purple and flowy and has flowers on it and is beautiful and I´m totes wearing it right now!! bahah. And also, I´ve discovered that I don´t like raking leaves. Cause I´m OCD, and it can never be perfect. Cause there are always leaves that fall again. 

Anyways, I love you family! Merci pour vos prieres! Sachez que vous etes dans mes prieres aussi!! Je t'aime plus que je peux dire!Thank you for your prayers!  Know that you are in my prayers also!  I love you more than I can say!

L'évangile est vrai!!

Love, Soeur Santos