Mahina!

9/28/15

Iaorana tout le monde!

Well life continues to fly by here in Tahiti! Transfers are officially over and I am settled here in my new area of Mahina! It is a little bit closer to the city, but still probably about a half hour drive. I am on the opposite side of the island of Papeari and things are weird here, because it has not rained yet! The sun shines every day and we also have a lovely breeze that never stops! These are blessings! There is a beautiful mountain in our area and the view is stunning! I will try to take a picture for next week! People are nice here, but have more money. The first couple of dinners with families, I felt so out of place and not good enough to be in their nice houses. I do not know how things are going to be when I get back to America. We have a couple of good investigators, and will be on the hunt for lots more so keep us in your prayers! Change is always a scary thing in life because we cannot yet see the blessings and miracles that are waiting. We do not yet know who we are going to become, what trials we are going to conquer, and especially what people are waiting for the truth of the gospel! We are in a car which is kinda strange, because for the last 8 months I have been loving the bike life! Also in my last area where I never found a post office, I prayed to have one in my next area and there is one literally right next to our house! Haha God is good! 

When leaving Papeari, it was harder than I expected! The morning of transfers the phone never stopped ringing with members telling me thanks and that they loved me and that they already missed me. Its crazy to think that 6 short months ago when I first arrived in Papeari, I was scared and alone and going through some of the hardest times of my life with the lack of investigators, lack of self confidence, and differences with my companion. Now in leaving the same area we had so many investigators we couldn't even keep count, I learned to be brave and bold and to commit people to changing their lives on every occasion possible, and I learned patience and unity and lots more in both companionships. Changing is hard, it pushes and pulls us and molds us to be better! I am excited to see what God will make out of me in this new area! When we are obedient and do His will, He changes us without us even knowing! I have absolutely loved my first two areas on this mission! Loving people is a choice! And its a choice that saves us! So everyday, look for opportunities to love and to serve! The only consequences are being loved back and blessings poured down upon us! 

In this area, I have been called as a Sister Training Leader. This calling is a leader for the other sisters in the mission! I had no idea before being transferred, but I have strengths that others need! It has been interesting helping the other sisters through experiences that I have already had and through example and love! Things are new but the serving possibilities are limitless! I hope that I will be able to bring a little bit of Christs love into the lives of those I talk with and interact with each day, investigators, members, and other missionaries. In my interview with President Bize, he told me that this was one of the things he liked most about me. That I invite EVERYONE to come unto Christ!

The Church is true! Life is good! The mission is indescribable! I am sorry that this email was more informational than spiritual, but know God lives and loves each and everyone of you! He has a plan for each of us and as long as we are doing our best and living our life to the best of our ability in accordance with the principles and ordinances of the Gospel, He will reveal this plan before our eyes and we will find joy in rediscovering who we are! I love and miss you all! Have a great week! Make only the best decisions!

Love, Soeur Kofford

First baptisms in Mahina!

Change Changes Us!

9/21/15

Bonjour tout le monde!!

 I hope you are all doing well and that life is beautiful for you! It was an amazing week here in Papeari! Throughout the week we had investigators and members calling us with references! We met lots of new people and were happy to help them start to find their way to the best path that life offers! It is amazing learning about people and their lives and their experiences! As missionaries, people open up almost automatically and with the spirit, we have the blessing of being the best psychologists in the world! Using our medicine of the gospel and its truths! I am excited for these investigators and I know that God has prepared something amazing for them! On Friday, we also had the marriage of Bayard and Djelma with the baptism of this couple and their two oldest daughters that followed! What a dream! This is what every missionary wants to see! An entire home transfer into something better! It was such a happy day and their testimonies are so strong and touching! We got to know this family through their youngest daughter! She used to live in the city with her aunt and went to school there, coming home sometimes on the weekends. While she was there, Heinaiki took the lessons with the missionaries! Then, not too long ago the parents decided that their youngest daughter needed to come back and live with them. And then we showed up! We continued the missionary lessons and she was baptized a couple weeks later! Through the change in this daughter, the grandmother also followed her example and was baptized the same day. Then slowly one by one the other four members of this family decided to do the same thing! I know that this is the thing that Heavenly Father had planned for them! Everything happens for a reason! I love this family and am so thankful to have helped them find the truth! We also had a baptism on Saturday, for Heikeani and for Araia! These two young girls are very smart and learned and accepted the gospel quickly! We all need to be a little more like children, they are full of goodness! These two girls also opened the door for their families who also take the lessons right now and are working to change themselves to be ready for baptism! On Saturday for their baptism, we had a surprise visit from our Stake President and from President Sinjoux (a member of the seventy). This was way cool! They talked at the baptism and afterwards congratulated us for the success and miracles that had occurred during our companionship together! This was so cool! The spirit was so strong and I know that these men are priesthood holders called of God! We got transfer calls on Saturday night and things will be changing! My companion will be staying in Papeari and training a new French missionary! I am so proud of her and her progress! She is a powerful missionary! I will be going to an area called Mahina with Sœur Statsny as a Sister Training Leader! I already know Sœur Statsny really well and am so blessed to be her companion! I am excited for this change, but at the same time I am heart broken to be leaving my ward family of Papeari! Miracles were seen, good work was accomplished, hearts were changed, and eternal relationships were started! The Church is true and I am so honored to be here representing our Savior, Jesus Christ! I want to wear out my life in this work! I love you all and hope you will have a great week! Thanks again for everything! JE VOUS AIME!!

Love, Sœur Kofford

Araia and Heikeani's baptism!

Our Bishop, Stake President, and President Sinjoux of the seventy all showed up to our baptism! So glad to have such great support from priesthood holders!

Dream of every missionary! This whole family will be eternal one day thanks to this amazing gospel! The parents and two oldest daughters were baptized on Friday and the youngest daughter was baptized two weeks earlier!

Time Flies!

9/14/15
Iaorana Friends and Family!

Well it has officially been a year this week since I started on this miraculous journey we like to call a mission! I can honestly tell you that I cannot imagine my life without my mission! I have learned so much and life has such a deeper meaning now! This church is so true and I am so thankful for the knowledge I have found for myself in my life! I still love to say that as missionaries, we have the best job in the world! We get to study and unfold the hidden secrets of God, share our happiness with others, and invite others to Come Unto Christ! We had another great week! Naomi and Lucy were baptized! At both baptism services, their mothers (one who is not a member and one who is excommunicated) both said the same things! They said that even though their daughters are still fairly young, they have seen them change over the last little bit, when they first started the missionary lessons. Both mothers said that through the things they have learned and heard from listening in on lessons that the church can be nothing but true! These mothers do not know each other and the baptisms were on two different days and it was so cool to me to be able to hear the same things from both of their mouths! The thing that touched me the most is that they both said  that they wanted a better life for their daughters than they had lived themselves. We helped these women realize that it was never too late to come back to Christ in life and to start anew! Through Christ and His atonement, everything is possible!  With the teachings and the truth of this gospel, their daughters will lead a better life. Because they know who they are and what is available for them if they stay on the right path through their faith and obedience! We are children of God! We lived with Him before this life. He loves us and He knows us! I love thinking about things that we did with Him in this premortal state! I can imagine each of us seated with our Heavenly Father, our last personal interview with Him before our departure to earth! I know that in this discussion, we agreed to a great and marvelous work here on earth! We agreed to accomplish a lot and find who we really are and what we are capable of doing! As we crossed the veil to this mortal existence we obviously forgot all of these promises and agreements. But this is okay, because we are here to find them again! As long as we are living our lives to the best of our abilities in accordance to the principles and ordinances of this gospel, with God as our best friend . . . there is no doubt that we will find all of the items that were perfectly placed on our list of things to do in our premortal life! And this is where joy comes! Finding our new talents, repairing our weaknesses, and perfecting our imperfections! I know that these little girls have a lot ahead of them and God needs them to start preparing right now for their eternal destiny! So for you my friends and family, prepare yourselves now! Find your lists, put God at the center of your lives and witness the joy that comes through obedience and faith! God lives! He is in everything! I love and miss you all! Keep up the good work and be happy! Have a great week!

Love, Soeur Kofford

Last p-day! Beautiful view at Taravao! Passed lots of cows and grasslands getting to this spot and it made me think of the ranch! I miss that place and my grandparents so much!

Lucy's baptism!

Naomi's baptism!

Mission shirts! Matching on accident with Elder Smith!

Best Days of Our Lives!

9/7/15
Bonjour! 

Hello hello my wonderful friends and my perfect family! I love and miss you like crazy, but if I could choose I would not be anywhere else but in Papeari, Tahiti! Things are so good and miracles and blessings are flooding over us each and everyday! I know that God needs His children. He is calling forth the troops that will play a part in His army! He is touching hearts and changing lives! This week was great! On Saturday we had the baptism of Itia and her granddaughter, Heinaiki! The missionary discussions entered into their home through nine year old Heinaiki and soon interested the entire family! Itia explained to us this week that she has already had lots of experiences with the missionaries. All I can say is that I am happy that I was not one of those missionaries that had encountered her in the past hahaha! Itia is a new person and has completely changed! She opened her heart and accepted the life saving message that we have been called to share! When she asked us if she could see her husband that had passed away several years earlier, we were happy to respond . . . Yes! She has now committed herself to do everything she can to win this eternal life with her husband and her family! Her baptism was a beautiful experience! One that I will never forget! Now, like I have mentioned in previous emails, Heinaikis will be getting married on the 18th and baptized right after! What we didn't know is that Heinaiki actually has two other sisters! Surprise! They live in the city and came all the way here for the baptism on Saturday. When they saw the miracle of baptism, they immediately had the desire to do the same thing for themselves! So a couple hours later, we were at their house teaching them the lessons to prepare them for their baptism that will be the same day as their parents wedding! I love this family! With all of my heart! I cannot express to you how amazing it has been to see their lives change, to see peace enter their home, and joy enter their hearts! That is the amazing thing about this gospel. JOY! True happiness and joy are only available through the truth that is offered to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ! God is our Heavenly Father! He loves us! He knows us! And He wants the best for us! He will send never ending blessings if we simply put our trust in  Him and accept to change! It is only through this change that we will be able to progress and find who we really are! I know that God has something bigger and better planned for this family! They have a potential without limit! And they have just begun to taste all of the blessings that await! I know that God knows everything from the beginning! We are all being prepared in our own way for something bigger and better! I am happy to be an instrument in the Lords hands to help people find this great truth! So as you go throughout this week, try to be the person that helps the Lords work move forward! Be the person that He can count on! Be the person that He needs you to be to bring to pass immortality and the eternal life of man! God lives and this church is true! Thanks again for being such a great support! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers! Have a fabulous week!

Love, Soeur Kofford

Heinaiki stole my camera! Haha SMILE!

Baptism of Itia and Heinaiki!!! Such an amazing day! This has probably been the best day of my life and I will tell you why!

Love these little girls! They're honestly like my little sisters! They know the ten commandments better than the bible and pray and read their scriptures every single day!! They're just waiting for their parents to approve the baptism! Pray for Ravanui, Chloe, Terani, Aloe, and Hanalei!

And the Miracles Continue!

8/31/15

Iaorana!

Wow! I do not even know where to start! God is good! He lives! And He loves us! Staying another six weeks here in Papeari was not a mistake! We are finding so much success through diligence, obedience, and faith and I cannot even believe it! I go to bed at night and am just so happy! I have been better at praying now than I have in a long time, because I always feel like I need to be thanking God for our countless blessings! Heinaiki and Itia are getting baptized this Saturday which is so special! Itia prayed that if she overcame her fear of water and got baptized that her family would be touched and follow her path. And sure enough her son, Bayard, and his girlfriend, Djelma are getting married and baptized on the eighteenth of September! Their whole family has completely changed and I absolutely love them! We had our first lesson with them on my birthday, and this is the best birthday gift I could have asked for! We also received a reference from a lady in our ward, she is a little girl named Lucy! We taught her the Restoration and she accepted to be baptized on the 12th of September, also her parents accepted and signed the paper which never happens! Naomis baptism is on the 11th! She has been taking the lessons with other sister missionaries for quite a while and her parents would never accept her baptism. Finally she started coming to church in our ward and I don't know what changed but they accepted and she will enter the waters of baptism next Friday! We also met Jonas! His wife is a member that just started coming back to church! She is darling and I love her! Her husband was supposed to get baptized the same day as her a couple years ago, but fell into temptations. Now a couple years later, he does not smoke, drink, or do drugs. He is so ready and we helped him to see that! His baptism will be the 12th as well! Heavenly Father is a powerful man! He can move mountains if He wants, so it only makes sense that He can work miracles in changing hearts! This church is a church of miracles! The only thing we have to do is open our hearts and be touched by the spirit! We have to become as little children, innocent and humble. And when this change occurs, God can mold us into the people He knows we can become! We are capable of anything in life! With Gods help, everything is possible! Literally all we need to do is put our faith in Him and do our very best to obey! So if you are struggling in life, or may be in need of a little miracle, it can be done through God! He loves us and wants to help us! He wants us to be happy and to find success! And if we will let Him in, He will show us He is there! So put your trust in Him! I love our Heavenly Father, and again, I know He loves us! Try to feel this love! I love you all and pray for you and hope for you! Thank you for everything! Have a great week!!

Love, Soeur Kofford

We love serving in Papeari!

Papi Tautu!!

Baptism of Monoihere!!

A Huahine family found our house and came to visit! Love these people!

We See Better in the Light!

8/24/15

Iaorana my wonderful friends and family!

I love and miss you so much and still ask myself all the time how I got so blessed to be a part of your lives! We had another amazing week! God is good! We started out the week with the baptism of Doris and Teanau! These baptisms were both such miracles! It has not been very long since Doris joined another local church and thought she had found the truth and light in her life. Soon enough, a week later we show up on her door step and made her smile and laugh more than she has in years! She explained to us that she knew the church was true the moment she felt the presence of the spirit in her home. We shared the lessons and after prayer and fasting she decided to join the only true church on the earth today. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Her life has completely turned around. Then there is the story of Teanau. We started the lessons with her right when the companionship of Soeur Kofford and Soeur Shariatmadari commenced. She was living and sleeping with her boyfriend and also had issues with drugs. With the power of the Holy Ghost we asked her and her boyfriend to break up and committed them both to follow the Word of Wisdom. Sure enough, not too long after, Teanau moved out and Raimo is now preparing to serve a mission. Raimo also stopped smoking and drinking and it is amazing to me to see the light that came into his life and eyes! Teanau finally stopped smoking last week and was able to be baptized with Doris on Wednesday! Beautiful day! We also had three members of the 70 come and talk to us this week. President Robbins, President Sinju, and President Pearson! Their talks were amazing and I wish I could send you all of my insights and notes and everything I learned and realized, but I will explain the highlights briefly. They talked about the importance of the spirit in our life and being led and guided by Him! If you do not have the spirit with you right now . . . go do something about it so that He can dwell in your heart and in your mind and show unto you the things that you must do! I also loved the fact that in our premortal life, we agreed to come here to earth to accomplish the things we discussed with God before this mortal existence! Each of you have a huge potential with things that God needs you to do to help Him to prepare His kingdom! The Holy Ghost will lead us to these things if we will do our best to invite Him! Another important thing that we have to do is to pray to have Him with us! So do it! Pray constantly to have Him with you! I love the Holy Ghost and I know he loves me and I am so thankful for his presence in my life! I also learned the missionary that I need to be is an effective one. And to be an effective missionary we have to be guided by the spirit! I hope that I am being the missionary and person that God knows I can be! I hope that I am doing my best to accomplish my work here on the earth and become the best I possibly can! We had another miracle yesterday! A couple of weeks ago we started lessons with Djelma and her daughter Hanaiki! They were golden investigators and Hanaiki accepted baptism for the 5th of September! We then found that Hanaiki's Grandma had not yet been baptized and was actually really distraught about this! Her only issue is that she was scared of water! We fasted and prayed and sure enough she accepted to be baptized the 5th with her granddaughter. She was so happy about the fact that she could see her husband again that had passed away a few years earlier! Now we were just missing Djelma and the husband. The husbands name is Bayard and needs to change his life. He never really showed up when we would come for the lessons, but we committed him to come to church anyway. And yesterday . . . he came! Afterwards he let us know that he wanted what we had! He wanted the light! So if all goes as planned, Him and Djelma will be getting married and baptized on the 12th of September! God lives and He knows and loves us! He knows where we need to be and when, and he even knows what we need to say! In our life, sometimes it can be kind of hard to be following exactly and becoming exactly the person that we had agreed to become before. We see better in the light! With the light of the spirit . . . you will not find yourself lost! So search out this light! He is waiting to help you and guide you! I love you all! God is real and this church is true! Have a great week!

Love, Soeur Kofford

MTC buddies and our trainees!!

World famous teahupoo!

Love my companion!

Doris and Teanau's baptism!

La Vie est Belle!

8/17/15

Bonjour tout le monde! Je vous aime!!

Life is beautiful in the eyes of the missionaries here at Papeari! We continue to find success and happiness in serving the Lord! There are so many miracles waiting to happen and I see them happen right before my eyes each and every day! I also love seeing the lives of our investigators change and I am amazed how God enters into and changes their lives forever! Through God everything is possible and when we are being directed and lead by His spirit . . . true happiness comes about! For this week, Monoihere was baptized! Her story is a miracle! She was one of the first lessons we taught when I first got into this area with Soeur Faana. We had this one single lesson and after that she headed back to her island to school! When Soeur Shariatmadari got here, we were able to get to know Moniohere a little bit better while she was here for a weekend visiting family. Her sister is a member of the church but her baptism was not at all accepted by her parents. She had to wait to be eighteen, be out of the house, and then could make her decision to be baptized. Moniohere is sixteen and has taken missionary discussions already with her sister. We learned that she too had the desire to be baptized, but could not do anything about it because of her parents. So we all decided to pray and fast together and sent the permission papers home with her to the island, hoping that we would see a miracle. Sure enough, she called us saying that the papers were signed! We fixed her baptism for the fifteenth, the first Saturday she would be back here at Tahiti. So in the middle of all of this, her sister gets called on her mission to Australia, but had to wait for her visa and was stuck in our mission for a couple of weeks. When their mother found out that the sister was still here on Tahiti, she got really mad at the fact that she could not talk to her daughter and ripped up the parent permission form for Moniohere. We all prayed and fasted again and worked things out slowly with the family and Moniohere showed up here at Papeari with the signed permission slip! When the Elders had her interview, they told us after that they have never felt the spirit so strong and that she was the most ready person they have ever seen to enter into the waters of baptism. On my mission I have really learned the importance of baptism and also the importance of all the covenants and ordinances that we make here on this earth. We are not here to do nothing. We are here to find out who we really are, who we were before this life, our real heavenly potential. The door of baptism is how our investigators are first able to really taste a bit of this eternal happiness and love! I know that God lives and He has a plan for each one of us! He knows us individually and He watches us daily! He already knows the best things for us in life and that is why He gives us the opportunity to make so many sacred promises with Him! So this week, think about how special these things are and try your best to really be able to respect these covenants and stay worthy of His spirit and help! These things protect us, they enlighten us and bless us through everything! I am so thankful for this church and for our Heavenly Father who loves us! I know that everything is possible through Him with our faith! We truly can only limit ourselves! I love our Savior Jesus Christ and am so grateful to be able to change myself and become better through Him every day. And I love having the companionship of the Holy Ghost who leads and directs my life! This church is so true! I love it and I love you all!! I hope you all have a great week! You are in my thoughts and prayers!

Love, Soeur Heather Kofford

Moniohere's baptism!

Twinning it up!

MTC district flying high! Meeting the challenges and eating breakfast at presidents house!

Service!! Made 50 plates of food!