Iaorana!

We've had a busy weekend, filled with a birthday, no school - 4 day weekend, football, family visiting, General Conference and Women's Conference, and I can't believe it's already Wednesday and I'm just getting this posted!

 We got to video chat with Jordan twice this week!! He gets to video chat us, if he has time, on holidays and family members birthdays too! So we chatted with him on Thursday for Nicole's birthday, and Friday during his P-day!

We weren't sure if he was going to have time to chat on Nicole's birthday, but it worked out perfect because he called us right as we were about to sing Happy Birthday!

We got to meet his new companion Elder Giles! He is from Salt Lake City, Utah - but used to live in Paris France for a little while, so he is fluent in French. He didn't need to come to the MTC until now to learn Tahitian. 

  Jordan misses the missionaries from his district who left already, but he loves the new ones who came too! They also have so much fun together, and are all really excited about learning Tahitian! 

Here's a pic his district took at the Provo Temple before some of them left:

And a picture of Jordan with his new companion at the Temple together on Friday:

 On Friday, Jordan called after being at the temple with his companion, so he was still dressed up instead of being in his casual P-day clothes. I liked seeing him looking like a missionary! I was home doing laundry and Jared was upstairs doing his school work. None of the other kids were home. It was nice because I got to have a one on one chat with him by myself for a while! 

His new Tahitian name tag!

After a while, I went upstairs so Jared could take a break from school and say hi to him too :)

 He is doing really well, and feels so blessed to be with the group of missionaries he is with. They all get along so well, and are having so much fun being there and learning together. This week they started learning Tahitian, and Jordan says it's such a fun language! But so very different from anything he's heard, haha...there are only 13 letters in the Tahitian alphabet, and many of the letters make the same sound! Although he has only been learning the language for 1 week, he can already say several phrases and a simple prayer  - which he said for us and we recorded! 

Click the picture to listen!

  He told us that what he said in his prayer was, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the Holy Ghost. Please bless me with the Gift of Tongues. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." He said the phrase "the Gift of Tongues" is such a long and complicated phrase to say in Tahitian, they joke that you have to have the Gift of Tongues just to say it! Haha 

Here is Jordan's letter this week:

Iaorana! (pronounced: yo-rah-nah, and means "Hello!") 

 Iaorana! This week has been INSANE, we started learning Tahitian on Monday and it is SO CRAZY haha, it is nothing at alllllll like English or French, but it is SO fun to learn. We are all so excited and motivated to learn, we study basically 24/7 while we're walking to and fro and standing in line and stuff. It's crazy fun once we've started to understand some things. Elder Giles (my new companion) and I taught a lesson to our teacher pretending to be an "amie de l'église" (investigator) in Tahitian yesterday, and it was really hard to understand what she was saying, but we were able to introduce ourselves, pray, testify, ask questions, and share a scripture, so that was awesome! We have waaaaaayyy far to go, but being able to do all that in 4 days is not bad! God blesses His missionaries. If this work wasn't true, I don't know why I would see so many miracles in my life as I follow this path. It's not a self-fulfilling prophecy, it's not seeing patterns where there are none, and it's not just seeing what I want to see. The God of Israel directs His work.

Ua ite au e e parau mau i te Buka a Moromona, e peropheta mau Iosepha Semita, O te Faaora Iesu Mesia. Je sais que le Livre de Mormon est vrai, Joseph Smith est un vrai prophète, et Jésus-Christ est le Sauveur. (I know that the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith is a true prophet, and Jesus Christ is the Savior.) "I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, nor dared I do so." - Iosepha Semita (Joseph Smith)

I love you all, thank you for everything. Je vous aime beaucoup! (I love you a lot!)

Na na! À bientôt!

Elder King/Elder Roi/Otuafare Arii

And last but not least, Jordan being silly with his companion and some of the sisters.... Hahaha!