Week 14 - I Would Say I'll Never Miss Another Week, but I'm Not That Consistent

I should NOT miss weeks of emails! You've missed a lot. For one thing, I have started saying "y'all" thanks to Soeur Guthrie, and just keep telling myself that it's shorter, and that's why I'm saying it. We'll see how it sticks.

Let's see. I've tried tons of brand new fruits that I have no idea how to spell, like rombuton, monguston... It's an awesome way to make friends. Transfers are coming up. I'll update you on how that goes next week.

We had a soiree last night (fireside) for our amies to come to at the chapel. It explained the entire restoration, and it was a wonderful mix of talks and musical numbers, almost all given by the missionaries in our district. It was so great! Soeur Guthrie and I sang an arrangement of Joseph Smith's first vision to the tune of homeward bound in french and tahitian, and everybody loved it! They kept saying "Merci pour la chant, soeur!" and we felt a little bit like celebrities. But, I know the Spirit was there because one of the Elders walked up to us after and said, "That song was the key to the soiree. It literally just one of our amies over, and we think she's going to get baptized." It was really cool to see how powerful our talents can be when their in God's hands.

Speaking of God's hands: we see him in everything. He knows we can't make every single call we need to make, can't contact or stop by everyone, and so He uses every method to get us where we need to be. We see people and set up appointments everywhere, from the store, the beach, the side of the road, out the window of a car, at the chapel - there are amies every single place we look.

We got one of my favorite (are you allowed to choose favorites?) amies to come to church yesterday. Her name is Leila, and she's SO fun! She knows the church is true and I really think she'll be baptized soon - we just need to give her a little push in the right direction. She loved sacrament meeting! And she wanted to go to the Tahitian sunday school class, but asked, "are you going to understand?" I looked at her and said with a little smirk, "c'est la foi, ma soeur" ("it's faith, my sister) and she just cracked up. I love her.

Something I don't think I've talked about - we have a baptism pretty much every weekend that we can go to in our zone. Every Saturday, I've gone to someone's baptism, whether it's the other Soeurs and Elders in our zone or one of our amies (we've just had one). It's amazing! My testimony of the importance of baptism has grown so much because I've seen the joy in people's eyes as they testify of the importance of this ordinance.

My mom told me to stop sending paragraphs out every week, but I really do want to tell everything. I'll work on decreasing the reading load for everyone at home ;) 

(edit from mom - I did not tell her to stop sending long emails but that if she was busy it was okay to send shorter ones. So, hopefully, we'd always get something and not miss weeks, but also so she would know we love her and don't want her to stress. Communication barriers remain firmly in place.)

A final thing, though. It's really stood out in my mind the past couple weeks the importance of personal, meaningful prayer to our Father in Heaven. Saying my prayers is crucial to my happiness out here. I am side by side with Christ every day, and he needs to know how I'm doing. My prayers have become the way Gordon B. Hinckley describes them in Preach My Gospel: "As if we were picking up the telephone and ordering groceries - we place our order and hang up."  I've been really working on slowing down my prayers. If I say something, I wait a second before moving to the next idea I have, and let myself listen for a response in the way I feel and in the Spirit around me. I've found that I have another close friend that I can talk to at the end of the day, and that's my Father in heaven. He loves hearing about my day and about things I've been thinking about! So I guess what I'm saying is that I've expanded my prayers now - it's not just what I'm grateful for and what I need. I've placed new importance on simply talking with God. The power in that continues to change the way I work.

Je vous aime! Thank you for sticking through yet another twelve paragraph email. I hope you're at least learning a little from them.

Soeur Sperry

Photo Update

This is me, laughing and getting ready to eat a steak the size of my face and a whole plate of fries.

 This is the ocean, in the most peaceful moment of my entire mission.

  This is me in front of our chapel. It's actually one of the most beautiful buildings in our sector. What do you think about the palm tree shadows?

This is an avocado and a mango side by side. I want you to try and tell me which one is which.

 The beach, where we took a moment to study (and then found another ami)

And the most beautiful picture I have of this sector. Papeari is gorgeous.