Iaorana hoa mau e utuafare!!
The second week at the MTC has treated us well. I still love it here! Last Tuesday night, Sister Erekson and i were called in to talk to our branch president. We soon found that we would be called as the new Sister Training Leaders for our zone. This is equivalent to being a Zone Leader for an Elder. It is a little crazy that we were called so soon! ha we hadn't even been in the MTC for a week yet! But our branch president said that we are a powerful companionship and will bless the lives of many fellow missionaries. All of the Paris and Leon France missionaries left us early yesterday morning which was sad. BUT! we are getting 10 new Sisters and 12 new Elders who will be serving in France. Several of these missionaries are international which means they will be arriving tonight rather than the typical Wednesday drop off day. Sister Erekson and I have to put together a little devotional, gibe them a tour, and make them feel loved and welcomed here at the MTC. Wish us luck! The Tahitian language is coming a long pretty well. We can give several more lessons and do not need notes at all any more. We have been practicing to teach by the spirit which has been incredible. We have two new "investigators" who are Christian and Vetea. They are just our teachers role-playing, but it feels so real in the moment. M. Rusell Ballard came and talked to us last Tuesday night. I sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer with the choir. This was truly amazing! His discussion talked about: how the gospel is all about families, that promptings of the spirit will be available if we ask for them and if we LIVE for them, he also said that we all need to live our lives in such a way that if Christ calls upon us, we can answer by saying, HERE AM I, SEND ME. He said that as missionaries, we always need to make an effort to share what we know with others. He challenged us to "Get up and do your very best every single day." So that is exactly what I am going to do. A cool scripture I ran across the other day was 3 Nephi 12:48. It says that we cannot be perfect without our Lord, which is true. But as I pondered about that verse, I thought that the word "complete" could also fit the bill. It is also true that we cannot be complete without our Savior. So, as long as we truly are doing our best, God will provide the rest. Alright, so on a more upbeat note, my district and companion are easily the best! We are all so funny and literally crack ourselves up at times. Usually we are excellent at staying on task, but there are the occasions where we do get a little off topic. So we came up with a new method where if we have something random to say, we simply write it down on a sticky note to bring up later. Wow! Some of the things are hilarious. At one point, Elder Pruett randomly said, "Is khaki a color or a style?" I looked at him and sarcastically said, "Write it down!" So he started to write and looked up at me again and asked, "How do you spell Khaki??" I said again, "Write that down too!" So he began to write again when he finally looked up and said, "Forget it Sister Kofford!" I then proceeded to educate him on the correct spelling of the word khaki and we finished our conversation after studying. Haha! Another thing that happened was, while we were in a district study, we were all working together to translate Tahitian sentences in this passive/ non-passive exercise. So some background info: The word "nehenehe" in Tahitian can mean cute/beautiful or it can be used as the word "can" in a sentence to ask a question. So we all looked at this specific sentence for a long time and finally came to the verdict that it meant, "Cant the Earth?" We were all so confused! Eventually Elder Pruett realized the double meaning for the word and we were all enlightened by the new meaning of the sentence: "The earth is beautiful." The struggle is so real sometimes. But its a beautiful struggle in itself. Life is grand! Thanks for all of your love and support! Keep on keeping on and remember to smile and be happy because we have The Lord on our side! What could possibly be better than that?! I love you all and pray for you daily! Until next week! xoxo
--Tuahine Kofford
P.S. Some Tahitian words for the week:
Flower: Tiare
Cat: Mimi
Dog: 'uri
Horse: pua'a hora fenua (literally means "running land pork")
Steak: Steak haha
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