Huahine Comes to an End!

3/30/15

We had another amazing week here on the beautiful island of Huahine. We still do not have our car so were obligated to ride our bikes every day. I do not know how many miles we rode . . . a lot! But I prefer our bikes so its all good! The only problem is that we cannot be as efficient and do all the things that we had normally planned. We really learned to use our time wisely and focused on the most important things. We find over and over again each day that when we are doing our best, God always finds a way to inform us of the things we need to do. A good example of this was yesterday. We had finished with church and had several lessons planned. We set out on our bikes and first tried to see Tila who was not there. After this we went to see Hinatea, Marcel, Tino, Tupu, and Patricia. Two hours later we stopped ourselves in the heat of the sun to take a drink and think about who God had prepared for us to see. There is always someone . . . we just have to find them. At this moment, I thought of Mohelanie! Normally her lessons are on Saturdays but since we had an activity at the church, we were not able to see her on Saturday. When we arrived we found her there seemly waiting to have her lesson! We then found that another one of our investigators, Henriette, was in the house talking to Mohelanies mother. So we had a lovely lesson with Mohelanie and right after with Henriette! This has been a good lesson that I have learned on my mission. If a lesson falls through or someone is not ready or does not have the desire . . . there is always someone else who has more of a need! I have learned to not think too much of canceled lessons and to just continue. To search out who is there and who is ready! The Holy Ghost truly is such an amazing blessing as a missionary! 

I also received my first transfer call this week! I will be transferred April 8th to Papeari, Tahiti! My new companion is Soeur Faana. She is Tahitian and that is all I know about her! I am beyond excited to move on and find the other miracles that my mission has in store for me but at the same time am very sad because I have grown to love life here on Huahine. This is my ward, the members are my family, our investigators are some of my best friends, the stray cats and dogs on the sides of the road are my pets, and everything else has just become home to me! I know that I have been here on the island of Huahine for lots of different reasons! The last four months have treated me so well! It is amazing to see how far I have come with everything. With my teaching skills, with the languages, and with me as a person. I love the fact that we have each new day to change, improve, and become more and more like our Savior. The Christlike attributes are a gift that God has given us. It is a blessing that we have the opportunity to study the life of Christ, the things He did, and the person He is. We need to constantly realize that we have weakness and keep the desire to improve. I love looking for ways to change! And I am excited to change and progress again in my new area! I am so blessed! I know that God lives and that He loves us! I know that we all have such a great potential in our lives here on earth! And that if we will live our lives for God he will help us reach that potential! Thanks again for everything! I love and miss you all! You are in my thoughts and always in my prayers! 

Love, Tuahine Kofford

Little Tahitian friends!

This is the trail we hike every Wednesday for the lesson of Maeva and Heiata! Micheline also just lives about a half mile up! So blessed! Pray for Maeva and her husband to agree to be married so she can be baptized!

Micheline made me this flower crown! She has agreed to be baptized but has to wait until after her marriage in July! I love Micheline!

              This is my second mom Soeur Vanina!

Biking it all day everyday!

Six Months Down!

3/23/15
It is hard for me to believe that I have already lived through 6 months of my mission! One third of my eighteen months has been completed. Time has flown by. Of course there have been the hard days, the hard weeks, and hard lessons, but I can honestly say that I love my mission. It is weird for me to think about my life before my mission. The things that I did and the things that I thought . . . haha the things that I thought were important. I am still me but I am a changed me. I truly consider my mission such a miracle and blessing because I have learned so much that has changed me for the better. I cannot imagine my life without my mission. Soeur Martin and I are doing really well! We run about two miles every day which is such a blessing as well! We have really learned how to work well and effectively together and have found lots of success in our lessons with our investigators. I truly do know that we have each companion for a reason. I have found that its kind of fun getting new companions, finding your weaknesses together and finding ways to overcome them together. With the same goal in mind, it is very possible to find success in a companionship. We have an investigator named Taui. Taui means change in English. He took drugs when he was younger and has been in and out of prison. He told us that he really wants to change his life. Because of the drugs that he took, he did not know how to read when we first started teaching him and it was nearly impossible for him to retain the things that we taught. It has been quite a few weeks now and I can honestly say that Taui is a miracle. For each lesson I wrote little key indicator words on sticky notes so that he could look at them and review them for the next lesson. We would also read for about ten minutes each lesson in the Book of Mormon. On Friday when we had our lesson, I was shocked to see that he remembered every step of the gospel, the Word of Wisdom, that Thomas S. Monson is our prophet, and much much more. And when it came time to read, he read fluently and understood the things he read. Wow. This was super cool for me to see. I truly do know that God loves every one of His children and is willing to help them change, progress, and grow if they do their part. Another thing that was cool for me this week was the fact that I read in Moroni 7 about charity. I want to study this Christlike attribute again but I learned a lot of things that I loved. Charity, as we know, is the pure love of Christ. This means to love perfectly as Christ does. He loves us all and knows us and understands what we are going through. Also, charity never fails. In Moroni 7 we learn that everything must fail, end, or die . . . but not charity. This is something that is constant, something that we can take with us. It is also a gift that we need to ask for through prayer. And it will be granted upon all of the true disciples of Christ. As I thought a little bit about charity this week, my life was better. Life is better with lots of love. I love loving the people I serve, loving my companion, loving the members, and loving Our Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ. So if it has been a long time since you have thought about charity in your lives. . . pray to have charity. Because loving perfectly as Christ does is the best way to love and charity never fails! I love finding new ways to improve myself each day! I love following the example of our Savior and becoming the best I possilbly can. I also love commiting people to follow this example and to be baptized. We are in Christs church! We are in the true church! And we are blessed for this! Thank you again for everything you do for me! Thanks for the love and support and prayers and everything! I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love, Soeur Heather Kofford

This is Sandrine! We fixed her baptism for April 25th! Please pray for her because she needs to get married first haha! But she is honestly so great! I love Sandrine and we literally have her lesson right on the beach! Paradise mission!!

It rained all day!!! We were literally soaked from head to toe when we got back to the house! This night I took the first warm shower since arriving here and we decided to be a little crazy and drink hot chocolate! Haha love Soeur Martin!

Another Great Week!

3/16/15
Iaorana friends and family! 

It was another great week here on the beautiful island of Huahine! We have continued to see lots of little miracles each day and enjoy the happiness of the gospel in our lives. We have two investigators named Maeva and Heiata. They literally live in the mountain and it takes about 15 minutes to hike to their house for their lesson. Their lesson is each Wednesday at nine in the morning and is one of my favorite lessons of the week! After each lesson they give us each two huge bags of Tahitian manderines and two big papayas! They are so nice and the spirit is always present there. I love being able to enjoy the creations of God here on Huahine. The nature is so beautiful and I am so blessed to be surrounded in it each day! Anyway, this week Maeva and Heiata accepted to be baptized in April! Yay! I am sad because I most likely will not be there for their baptism but it truly is amazing to see the hand of God in peoples lives and if they put in their effort, God will change them. We also had a miracle with Teiva and Florida this week! When I arrived here on Huahine, my second lesson was with Teiva and Florida. Honestly I did not understand a whole lot of what was said but bore a humble testimony and never forgot about this lesson. The weeks passed and we never found the time to go back and revisit. Finally two weeks ago I was prompted to just stop in and see how they were doing. They happily accepted a lesson for a few days later. Before the lesson they explained that they had been thinking a lot of the two young women who taught them a lesson a couple months ago and the good feelings they felt and they had actually talked and wanted another lesson. They also said that one day in the city they ran into a member and asked if he could send us in their direction again. I did not know about any of this! But wow! They were prepared for what we were about to teach! We taught the Restoration and the spirit was so strong! They had recently changed religions and had noticed the faults in their new church. They prayed and we were their answer. Later on in the week, they came to a family night and Soeur Martin and I presented a banner which talks about the Restoration as well as the Plan of Salvation. They loved this! At the end I made my way over to talk to them and Teiva turned to me, pointed at the banner, and said, that is true, I have found the truth! Wow! Such a great moment for me! I love seeing the lives of others change through the gospel! I truly do know that there are people out there searching! And those who search will find. I loved this experience and every experience like this. It is true that we have the hard days but it is choosing to be happy and appreciate the blessings and miracles when they come that motivates me and proves to me over and over that God is real, that His hands are in everything, and that He loves each and every one of His children. Never forget that we are children of God. We are special and He loves us! He has given us the best gift that we could ask for, His son, and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ we can have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, be purified of all of our sins, and have the opportunity each day to improve, to progress, to change, and to find true happiness in His gospel. The church is true! Let it bring happiness into your lives. If you will search, the blessings and miracles are there! Thanks again for everything! I am so blessed to have such amazing friends and family who love and support me! I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

Love, Tuahine Heather Kofford

Sister Martin and me emailing home on p-day!

Lunch on the beach with Hiti and her family!

The Grace of God

3/9/15

IAORANA friends and family!

I hope and pray that life continues to go wonderfully for you all! Thank you again for all of your love and support for me! I am so blessed! It was another great week for Soeur Martin and I! I honestly love my mission! You are told in life that it is better to find a job and career that you love because it will be easier to get up everyday and go to work if you love what you do! Well I can honestly say that I do love getting up everyday and going to work! There are the trials and hard things in everyday but there are also endless miracles, blessings, and tender mercies. God lives and He loves us. This week, I did a lot of reflecting on a certain scripture. 2 Nephi 25:23. It is only after all that we can do that we are saved by the grace of God. I have thought about this concept before and have even applied it before in my life. When we have tests in High School, we need to try to prepare ourselves the best we can and do all that we can to know the material in order to score well on the test and earn a good grade. And after we do all that is possible for us to do is when God will help us and assure the good grade. When I read this scripture this week I felt like there was something more to it. So I studied it out a bit and found that the grace of God is actually a power that He gives us to accomplish more than we ever thought we could. When we do all that we can and all that we know how and have faith in Him, He gives us the strength and power to do more and ultimately earn the reward. This week, Soeur Martin and I did just that. We used our bikes for most of the week because the car was with the other Sisters on the other half of the island. We literally climbed mountains to find that our investigators were not there. We had a really hard lesson with an interesting man who had all kinds of different beliefs about our church. And it was in English so I had to do the whole thing haha. We had quite a few minor trials that could have easily kinked our days. But we continued. We truly did do our best. And God gave us the power to continue and seek out the miracles He had prepared for us. We had another lesson with Teiva and Florida which was great! This couple was my first lesson when I arrived here and we did not have another one until last week. They were active in one church and recently changed to another. They told us that they knew something was missing and that they kept thinking of the two young women who stopped to share a message one day. They explained that they had been watching for one of the members of the LDS church to pass their house so they could ask for another missionary lesson. And sure enough, our paths were led that day to their humble home and they explained that we were an answer to their prayer. This was a cool experience for me along with many others! I truly do know that when we do our best, God will provide the rest! Never forget that in your lives! God is there! He wants what is best for each one of His children and He truly does know and love each and every one of us! Try your best to do your best each day and I know God will bless you! There are blessings waiting everywhere for us! The church is true! Thanks again for everything! I hope you all have a fantastic week! 

Love, Soeur Heather Kofford

Amelia was so nice and drove us back to the other side of the island so we would not be late for our lesson!

Meeting Sister Kofford

3/3/15

Dear Holly,

I wanted to share with you an experience that we had with your daughter just last week while we were on vacation in Tahiti. We had just traveled on the Paul Gauguin cruise ship from Tahiti to Huahine on Sunday morning. We decided to visit the branch and sat just outside of the chapel for Sacrament meeting, we found it interesting singing the sacrament song in French, but when it came to understanding the talks we didn’t receive any gift of tongues that day. We decided to leave before Sacrament Meeting finished, but were glad to see a Sister Missionary who had made her way out to introduce herself to us and not too long after her companion followed.

We learned how your daughter had spent extra time in the MTC with the need to learn both French and Tahitian, but now had been out on Huahine since she had arrived. Your daughter has such a tremendous spirit with her, as beautiful as the Islands were, we consider that moment meeting your daughter and her companion and being able to feel of their great compassion, kindness and desire to serve as one of the highlights of our trip.

When we learned that you live in Highland, just a jump over a little mountain from us in Draper, I told her how fun it would be for us to take a picture and let you know how well she appeared to be doing to us and how much we enjoyed talking to her. She mentioned that we were just the second group of tourists that found the way to the church since she has been there.

I think the picture tells the story of how we felt about Sister Kofford, her smile tells it well. My wife and I (standing on the right side) were traveling with her sister and husband, they are from North Ogden. It was a bucket list vacation that was made even better with us having the chance to meet your daughter and her companion.

Hope all is well with you and that this helps you to know that your daughter is doing well and carries a tremendous aura of good about her. I do think she found it fun to talk with someone that was so close to home. Please feel free to call or email with any questions.

Sincerely,

Randy & Laura Johnson

Dale & Janine Brown

Best Job In the World!

3/2/15

IAORANA friends and family!

I am hoping life is going wonderfully for you! I hope you are happy and smiling and finding the good in each day because that is the only way to live! Life for me has continued to treat me well! It blows my mind the miracles that I see each day and the happiness I feel each day getting to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This week we had another Miracle Baptism! Matai was an investigator that Soeur Hunter and I found through a survey about a month ago. She had already received the missionary lessons but did not yet accept the gospel into her life. We started to teach her again and she soon fell in love with the lessons and the spirit she felt when we taught. She found the truth for herself and started coming to church and all of our activities. The only problem holding her back from her baptism was that she lives with her aunt and her aunt would not let her continue to live in the house if Matai joined the Church of Jesus Christ. So Wednesday last week we decided to have a little talk with her aunt! We discovered that she was not the problem after all and that we needed to ask permission from her father. We found Romeo, the father of Matai, and to my surprise he was another potential investigator that Soeur Hunter and I had found through the survey. He accepted the baptism of Matai as well as the missionary lessons. Matai was baptized Saturday! We have so many miracles in each day it literally is impossible to write them all in the weekly email. From running into people on the street or literally being guided to people who have been prepared. We met another girl named Hereana last week as well. We shared a short message with her and arranged to have a lesson with her by a certain bridge a few days later. When we arrived we waited for about five minutes and noticed another lady about the same age as Hereana all alone. She seemed to be waiting for someone. We decided that she was waiting for us and we grabbed a Book of Mormon and went to talk to her! Her name is Sandrine and she was well prepared for the gospel. We have already had two lessons with her and she is progressing quickly! Our paths were directed that day, we met Sandrine through Hereana, and I am thankful that we listened to the spirit that told us to talk to Hereana even if she never showed up for her lesson so that we could meet Sandrine. I truly do love my mission. I have the best job in the world. I get to go out each day and talk to people, inviting them to come unto Christ. I love seeing others find happiness through the truth of the gospel and watching the lives of Heavenly Fathers children change. I also have grown to love the fact that I am always within sight and sound of an automatic friend. There is a reason that we teach the gospel in twos! I have chosen to love each of my companions and have been blessed with the friendships that have been formed! I am thankful for the opportunity that I have to bring souls unto Christ and am proud to be a representative of Him as well. As missionaries we have kind of a hard role to fill . . . we represent someone who is perfect in everyway which means we are expected to be perfect as well. This is infact impossible. But it is possible to improve little by little each day and be perfected in Christ! Strive to follow His example in your lives! He lives and He loves you! I hope you all have a great week! Thank you for your love, support, and friendships! I am so blessed! I love you all! 

Love, Tuahine Heather Kofford

Tauis lesson is always at the beach! I truly am serving in paradise!

Baptism of MATAI!

This is me every morning! I love Soeur Martin because she will run with me! We run well over a mile each day which has been such a blessing!