Week 6

10/28/14

The sixth week here at the MTC was another success. I cannot believe that it has already been six weeks since I was dropped at the curb. I have learned so much and have definitely changed as a person. I have worked harder in these last six weeks than I ever have in my life. But the work has already begun to pay off. Along with working hard, I am extremely happy. I am more happy now than I have ever been before. Alma 36:24-25 pretty much describes how I feel. It says that joy is found when we are serving our Lord and laboring for Him. I have found this to be so true. I have experienced minor trials and many great joys. I know that as the mission progresses, so will these trials and joys. We will experience some of the happiest, most uplifting times in our lives and at the same time, some of the hardest. But it is in our extremity that we come to know God. I am so excited to see what lies ahead. In our devotional on Tuesday night, we learned about how to be the best missionary possible. The speaker said that if we want to return home from our missions worthy, we need to repent. If we want baptisms on our mission, we need to work hard. If we want the spirit to be with us, we need to pray continually. And if we want miracles, we need to repent, work hard, pray continually, and have faith. I loved this talk and have already been trying to apply it to my mission here in the MTC. D&C 31:3 talks about how we need to rejoice when the time of our mission comes. For me, the time is here. I have had the last ten months to think about my mission, I have 18 months to live my mission, and I have all of eternity to think about my mission. I will make the most out of the mission experience and strive each day to be the best person that I can possibly be. Along with the wonderful spirit that has been felt and the inspirational things that I have learned in the past week, we have also had some very good times. I have come to know that laughing is a universal language. We have lots of fun with the French Elders and laugh a lot. Our classroom got moved from 10M to 4M which has been a pleasant change. Our classroom is twice as big, the building is super nice, and lots lots more! It was Brother Honey's birthday this week as well. We got him this hilarious card from the book store along with some fuzzy gloves and candy. It was a good time. I try to play the piano for at least 20 minutes a day! I have really been enjoying this and regret not playing the piano more in my pre-mission life! The French language is coming along really well. I can already speak better French than Tahitian and its only been a week haha! Sister Erekson continues to rock my socks. She is seriously so good at everything and pushes me to work even harder so I can keep up with her. Our district is doing well. We have all grown so close and it is going to be a hard day when we have to say our goodbyes when we head out to Tahiti. I also love my teachers. I think it would be the coolest thing to teach at the MTC when I return. I love the MTC and I love being a missionary! I know that I am in the right place at the right time and that this mission will carry through the rest of my life! Keep enjoying life! Remember to smile and look for the tender mercies in every day! God gives us so many blessings, we just need to be mindful of them! I love you all!

Love, Sister Kofford

​Got 5 letters and a package yesterday! We LOVE mail!!

​Jumping pic with the zone! Fun fun!

​PHOTO SHOOT

​Our lovely district. And Sister Stevens.

​Sister Cordner!!

​Met an Elder Kofford!! Crazy stuff!!

​Respect the name tag.

​Trick or Treat!! Love the new skirt! Thanks mom!!

​Things took a wrong turn  . . . hahaha

​Decided to take a ride with the laundry!

​Take a moment each day to stop and smell the roses!

Week 5

10/21/14
I cannot believe that I have already been in the MTC for 5 weeks. Time really is passing by so quickly! Life has continued to treat me well and I still am loving it here! It has been a great week! We started our first day of French yesterday which was super awesome! It felt so good to actually know something. So far, I have known everything that has been taught. It has been such a blessing to be a little ahead of the game! It is funny to me because back in high school, I thought French was pretty hard. But now, comparing it to Tahitian, it is actually way easy. The sentence structure is closer to the English language and I already know a lot of vocabulary. So this has been nice. I am a little worried that I will forget everything I've learned in Tahitian over the next six weeks but Sister Erekson and I have made some pretty intense goals in regard to that. I think we will be just fine. So its been a pretty eventful week! We took Sister Stevens to her first dentist appointment ever! Haha crazy! Six cavities and four hours later we returned to the MTC. She handled this well and I have been reminding her to brush her teeth and floss every day. This was a fun little field trip for Sister Erekson and I though. As we walked in to the dentist office. We noted two small leather chairs. We both decided that we would prefer to sit in them as opposed to the other hard chairs in the waiting room. Soon enough we discovered that these very special chairs even reclined! Day made!! We then proceeded to read out of our Tahitian Books of Mormon and practice teaching each other lessons in Tahitian. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the patients that came and went. Two grown girls sitting in children's recliners speaking some foreign language. I am sure it was quite a sight! hahaha! Another fiasco that happened was, one of the girls in our zone got super sick a couple days ago. So we took a little trip to the ER at 2 in the morning. She still has some tests that need to be done but she should be fine. All of us Tahitian missionaries are having a good time. It is still fun to talk to the Elders from France. We continue to help them with English and they help us with our French. They are all super smart and their ability to speak Tahitian will probably far exceed ours any day now. They are super jealous that we will know all three languages when we get home though and they will still only know two. So a funny situation that happened was one day Elder Dargeunce came into our classroom to visit the other day. (This is normal behavior, they all have a hard time focusing without the help of a teacher and so they take little breaks and distract our class from time to time haha) anyway, so he was sitting there talking about something when he accidentally leaned back and his head hit the button that triggered the intercom system. The people at the front desk responded and asked what we needed. He responded, "Sorry it was a bad manipulation." I about died from laughing hahaha! The English is still a work in progress! Sister Erekson and I played a piano duet for a musical number on Sunday! It was super cool! I love playing the piano and am glad my parents made me stick it out for all of those years! I love the music at the MTC in general! We are always singing hymns in some kind of language and its awesome! In our district, we often sing Christmas hymns! Love this! As I was studying this week, I was reading in D&C 121 which is about Joseph Smith suffering in the Liberty Jail. I love these sections because I have such a great love for Joseph Smith and all of the things he sacrificed for this church. So in verse 41 it talked about several things. One of which is long suffering. As we all go throughout our lives, everyone of us is going to experience times of long suffering. This is okay. We made the decision to come to this earth to be tried and tested and to become more like our Savior. In order to become more like Him. We need to suffer as he did. This goes right along with President Monson's talk in Conference. We need to walk as he walked. So when these times of trial and tribulation come, just "take it because it will be worth it." Also this week I have been working on increasing my faith. It has been super cool because ever since I made this goal, it seems as though every devotional, lesson taught, and lesson that I teach is meant just for me. In personal study last night, I came across Alma 32 which talks all about faith. I have learned so much through all of this. I know that God will answer our prayers and will give us aid. We just have to be looking for those answers. John 8:29 talks about how if we do the things that are pleasing to God, we will never stand alone. He will always be with us. I know this church is true. I am so so so thankful for the happiness it brings to my life! Thanks for your love and support! Have a fantastic week! Je vous aime!

Love, Soeur Kofford 

This is how we tell the Sisters goodnight! They love their Sister Training Leaders!! Hahaha

​Had to get the Martha Stewart Catalog Cover Photo! Halloween Addition! Happy Hauntings!

​Object lesson . . . Inside joke! Also, note the toothpick in my mouth . . .

​We love our teacher Brother Honey! I made him a super cute flower name tag!! Isn't our classroom cute?! hahaha

​
We love to see the temple!! Elders struggle hard core at taking pictures, but hey at least they got most of the temple!

​So we are all currently wearing Sister Cambell on our shirts . . . her mom sent us like 20 of these?! We are still a little unsure but hey! We all match! hahahah

Don't you worry, I've still got it! SPLITZ!!

Week 4

10/14/14

IAORANA!! Wow! What a week! haha I seriously do not even know where to start! I guess the beginning would be an ideal place. So last Tuesday night we got a new district in our Zone! Nine Elders and one cute Sister. All of the Elders are from France except one from New Calidonia and Sister Stevens is from Vanuatu. They all speak about as much English as we do French so it has been a little bit of a struggle haha! But things are getting better. Its crazy how different our cultures are and it has been so neat getting to know them. They ask me to smile several times a day because they like looking at my teeth. They say I have "milk teeth" haha because they are straight and white. This blows their minds. They are all super funny in their own way. It has been fun helping them with their English and them helping us with our French! So its been good. Sister Stevens has honestly been such a blessing to us all. She literally came from such humble circumstances. The church provided all of her clothing for her along with personal hygiene supplies and much much more. She had never before worn shoes, been on a computer, or seen a digital camera. We have tried to provide her with everything she needs and I think she is finally starting to feel more comfortable in the United States. This has seriously been such a humbling experience for us all having her in our Zone and in our room. She has already taught me so much and I already have such a strong strong love for her. I gave her a little notebook and told her that she could use it for a journal to write down what she did that day. She liked this idea and asked all of the Sisters in our room if we would write her a note in it. We all happily agreed. At the end of the day she pulled me aside and said, "Sister, you write in my book first?" In her broken English. This almost brought me to tears. It meant so much to me that I already meant so much to her. Each morning I take her into the shower and turn her water on to make sure its not too hot and not too cold. I gave her some pjs because she did not have any. I just try to help her in anyway I possibly can. All of the Sisters in the room are so nice and giving. I cannot fully describe how Sister Stevens has changed my life. So on Sunday I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting. This was cool I guess. I was the first Sister chosen out of our District and new Zone which is exciting. I talked for 5 whole minutes completely in Tahitian about enduring to the end. Several people came up to me after saying that they did not understand a word I said but that they could feel the spirit that I brought into the room so this was way neat! It felt good! We had a great relief society on Sunday as well! The speaker compared drivers licenses to credit cards. She said that they each tell things about a person. She explained that if we ever get a ticket in life, that we can go to traffic school and erase it off our record. Similarly to this, if we mess up in life and make mistakes, the atonement can erase those sins for us, if we choose to repent. I thought this was a cool metaphor. The speaker also talked about how we were all intelligences before we were even spirit children. I had learned this concept before but obviously it never stuck. As intelligences, we were unique and individual. We made the decision to ally ourselves with God in order to progress. And then to progress even more, we chose to come down to earth to receive bodies and be tested. Cool. So sure enough, the other day in personal study, I came across the scriptures in the Pearl Of Great Price that talked about us being intelligences. I was not even really looking for this. It talks about it in Abraham 3 I believe. But the point of this is that I know that God will answer our questions. Super cool experience for me. Our Sunday night devotional was also so amazing!! It was a man that works in the media department of the church. He explained that the church has bought out several billboards in Time Square, several adds on facebook, and also on December 7th the church bought the big add on Youtube! So be sure to check that out!! It was just amazing to me of how much the church is doing and how many people actually view these adds and are converted because of them. Anyway, I am almost out of time but things are going well. Remember that "If you walk with God you will never walk alone." This church is so true and I am absolutely loving being a missionary. I am the happiest I have ever been in my entire life! I love the joy the truthfulness of the gospel brings! Keep it real my friends! Have an amazing week! 

Love, Sister Kofford  

                                                      We love love love getting packages!!!

                                                       Enjoying our drinks after gym one day!

                                           Our new companion from Vanuatu! Sister Stevens!!!

                                    New district! The Elders are from France and New Calidonia!

                                                       Our new zone! Love them all!!!

                                                              Reppin the AF swag!!!

                          Sister Erekson sprained her ankle, so we had fun with crutches for a few days!

Week 3

10/7/14
Hello Friends and Family! 

I have officially decided that the mission live is the best life! I truly do love it here at the MTC! I love this gospel and I love the happiness I feel through living it with such exactness. We got two new France districts last Tuesday which has been fun! It's fun to have sisters in our classroom building and also in our residences again! Megan Eliason is not in our zone but she is just three doors down in the residence! Also, Mckenzie Cordner is in her room as well. Way cool to see both of them! Jake Snell also came last Wednesday! Fun having a close friend here. Jaxon Carson from school is in our zone so that is neat. I seriously know so many people here and my district wonders how I do it! It is pretty funny! So basically General Conference was nothing short of AMAZING!! It seemed like everything was somehow directed to us missionaries. I got questions answered and totally felt the spirit. It seems like they talked a lot about the prophet and his apostles and how we need to follow them and also a lot about repentance. I guess I never truly realized how important repentance really is. It is important for us and important to those who we are teaching. Because no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God. I also loved loved loved Elder Bednar's talk. I loved how he said that our church is a missionary church and always will be a missionary church! So true! Also, the fact that as missionaries we simply want to share our knowledge and happiness that comes from knowing and living the truth. This is also very true. Well, Sister Erekson and I are still doing fabulous! We try to match our outfits everyday and get complimented frequently. Ha gym time is always an adventure, I continue to teach a little work out class to sisters which is fun! It is also fun being a Sister Training Leader. So many blessing come through serving others. We are getting another Tahitian district TODAY!!! Yay we are so excited!! They are all international and have interesting names. We highly doubt that they will speak any English but we will make it work! So! Back to General Conference! Do you remember Elder Kacher of the seventy who addressed us?! Well he served his mission in Tahiti and actually came to meet our district a couple days prior to conference! So cool! Ha we had no idea that he would be speaking and all about fell off our chairs when his name was announced! Also, Elder Martinez who talked in conference as well has a son here at the MTC. And the day that he talked his son happened to be sitting right in front of us! It is amazing to see all of these cool connections that occur here at the MTC! So our district is continually progressing with the language and gospel study. We have this week and next to learn what we can of Tahitian and  then we will be moving on to French. Crazy that we have already been here for three weeks! Time flies when we work hard, have fun, and feel the spirit. A couple funny things that have happened in the past week: I mixed up the Tahitian words for eyelashes and eye glasses and went around in an exercise telling people that I liked their eye glasses when they weren't even wearing any! The Tahitian missionaries were a little confused but the other missionaries had no idea what I was saying anyway so all is well! Ha another thing was when Sister Erekson and I were in our TRC, she told the investigator that she passionately kissed the Book of Mormon instead of saying that she loved it hahaha! This was funny! The struggle is always real, but it makes things interesting and funny! We still laugh all the time and keep an upbeat attitude in our class which is good. BUt we also make sure the spirit is present. Things are great. Life is great. I really do love being a missionary. On the days when i do find it a little hard to wake up and do the same day over and over, I just remember how blessed I am and that this is the least I can do to give back to my Heavenly Father and show him how much I love Him! I love this gospel. Remember to do a little better and be a little better each day! I love you all! Thanks for everything!

--Sister Kofford

Week 2

9/30/14
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

 

Week 1

9/23/14
Iaorana friends and family!! Life is simply splendid here at the MTC! I cannot believe that it has already been a week! Time flies when you are having fun and keeping busy I guess! And let me tell you, we are definitely keeping busy! The day we arrived our first class was a language course. I walked into the classroom and immediately realized that we were not learning French. For a second I thought I was in the wrong place until I noticed my name "Tuahine Kofford" on the wall above my desk. Yes, we are in face learning Tahitian first. Our teacher (Orametua Hapairai) kept saying the words: "Iaorana" and "Maita'i roa" to me. Quite loudly and repeated himself several times. I was completely lost and frankly had no idea what he was saying. So I replied "Je ne sais pas!!" which means "I don't know" in French. He laughed. But this was not funny. I soon caught on and learned that these two phrases meant "Hello" and "you're doing well?" haha I had to laugh when I realized they were such simple things. My companion is amazing!! Sister Erekson is so amazing and smart and pretty and fun and funny. We have the best of times together. On our second day here, we were out on campus practicing our Tahitian by introducing each other to fellow missionaries. At one point, she introduced me as "Sister Jesus Christ." haha I quickly corrected her and we laughed so hard. Right after that, I introduced myself as "Sister Erekson." The struggle was real. When we arrived back to the classroom, our teacher had us do some role plays in preparation for teaching our Tahitian investigator. Our lesson started out great. We were making some small talk and things were going well. All of the sudden, we both got stuck and didn't know what our teacher was saying. After about five minutes of intensive struggling we both looked at each other and said: "Oh!!! His name is Teri'i!!!" Yes, he was telling us his name. We all laughed so hard. My district truly is amazing! The other Sister's names are, Sister Campbell from Georgia and Sister Arbuckle from Canada. They both have great things about them. We have a trio of Elders in our District. They are all super smart! I know that we are all together for a divine reason. It has now been a week and I can successfully pray, share my testimony, and teach lessons in Tahitian!! . . . Without notes! It is amazing! It is not a very complicated language except for the fact that all the words sound the same, K's and S's are T's, L's are R's, and R's are D's. Haha it is quite the adventure! But we are progressing at rapid rates! Our district is in a Zone with all of the Leon and Paris France missionaries. When we got here they tried to impress us by talking in French all the time. I think they were pleasantly surprised when Sister Erekson and I replied positively with our French. Most of my district has at least a little bit of a French background and we can all basically carry a conversation with the France missionaries. These missionaries leave in a week though and then we will be the cool kids on the block! Which is good! We attended sacrament meeting with these missionaries and everything was in French! I love singing French hymns! So so beautiful!! The spirit was so incredibly strong! Sunday was an incredible day in itself! We got to see the Ogden Temple rededication which was amazing! Just imagine 2,500 missionaries all waving hankerchiefs and shouting hosanna in unison! Wow!! I also participated in the choir. We practiced Joseph Smith's first prayer and we are going to sing it later today in a devotional that will be broadcasted to all of the other MTCs! Cool cool! The temple walk on Sunday was also a highlight! Love the Provo temple! And to end the day we watched The Character Of Christ Talk by Elder Bednar! Exactly what we all needed! Hmm I don't know what else to say! Just know I'm doing well and I'm happy to be serving! I love waking up everyday, putting on my name tag, and going to work. It's still a little surreal that I am actually here in the MTC but it is becoming more and more real each day! I love this Gospel and I know that it is true! Much love! 

--Tuahine Kofford

Provo MTC

9/17/14

Provo Temple

9/17/14

Getting set apart as a full time missionary

9/16/14

Heather's Farewell Talk

8/31/14

Family Pictures

8/18/14

Mission Photos

7/21/14

Going through the Mount Timpanogos Temple

7/18/14

Papeete, Tahiti Mission

April 30, 2014

Opening the call

Getting the mission call!

April 30, 2014