I have had an amazing week and the missionary work here is progressing well, especially thanks to the help of the members and their presence at our lessons. They give provide a lot of necessary validity to the truths we are sharing, and they give such needed common ground to our investigators. I feel like an average human being, but to our investigators, missionaries are like extraordinary humans (or just extraterrestrial) and the members we bring are people that they, on the more part, have more trust and confidence in.
On Tuesday this week we had a super lesson (I have been saying super a lot lately because it translates well, but I think I need to find a more refined word…) with Lorenza and we brought Alicia Toyon along with us. We taught the Plan of Salvation and it just went super! There’s that word again. Anyway, it’s amazing the joy that an investigator who actually KEEPS their commitments (reading the brochures/ Livre de Mormon, praying, studying certain topics) can bring to the missionaries that teach them. There are few things that compare to the simple joy that comes when an investigator says the three simple words, “Oui, j’ai lu” or “Yes, I read.” Later that evening we also taught another investigator, Michel Tuigana, a lesson on the same topic. He was responsive and attentive. He is usually slow at understanding the things we teach and his progression is slow, but that night it was like he was quickened, like the scriptures say, by the Spirit. He understood the plan of Heavenly Father.
On Wednesday we did a bit of “pàp” (porte-à-porte / door-to-door) in the lotissement of Gadji where our investigator Yori and his dad live. We met a Melanesian woman with the most fantastic purple red fro hair named Georgette. We had a lesson next door with her Wallisian neighbor, Malia Hélèna. Wallisians are an interesting contradiction; they are open, warm people and will invite you in, discuss readily any Gospel subject. Yet, at the same time, they are very closed minded. They are Catholic. They will stay Catholic. They will not budge. I can’t criticize them too much, because they are the most giving people I have ever met (and I am no judge). You walk up their driveway without any notice and they drop everything, offer you something to drink, something to eat, and then they will talk with you for the next hour or so. I can’t say that that would happen all too often in America, but when I return home I hope to stay true to the sweet way I have been treated, doing the same for others.
That night we ate at Mikael and Hélène’s, like we do every week. I walked around their garden with their daughters and taught them English nature vocabulary before dinner. Mikael came home with McDonalds for us.
Summer is going to be a haven here in regards to fruit. All the trees are flowering – you would simply be amazed by all the mango, papaya, and lechi trees here. I doubt I will even need to spend money on food during the summer with all the abundance that the earth is going to spill into our pantry.
Thursday we painted a house of an investigator of the elders up in Tontouta, next to the branch building. The wife chose a nice key lime green for the exterior paint. How lovely, eh? Not my first choice of exterior paint colors, but, to each their own, right? At one of our afternoon lesson, Soeur Pene came to teach with us and she showed us an article that was from an American newspaper. She said that her uncle’s son was in the article and it was saying how he had received his mission call to Tahiti. I looked at the article and the boy is from Hesperia. Small world.
On Sunday there was a sweet spirit in our sacrament meeting and a calming reverence. I hope it continues to be like that. Soeur Seiko spoke in that meeting. She was incredible. I admire her so much.
La fin. Love you.
Love,
Soeur Cummins
P.S. I wrote this to Mom, but I want to write this to all: please please please find the recent CES Fireside talk by Elder Bednar from May 2009! It's on lds.org - just put "Things as They Really Are" into the search box. I just read it and I thought of the family and my dear friends. It talks about how we abuse our physical bodies by spending too much time doing virtual things - it was interesting and made me reflect on how I want to manage my time on the Internet when I get back from my mission. It would be edifying for you to read it. Okay, that’s all for now from this little sliver of French paradise!
soeur seiko and I
soeur seiko et yori
