26 August 2013 MTC, Provo, Utah, USA
Ia ora na, toute la monde!
This will be our last
week studying French, and we start Tahitian on Thursday! Can't belive I'm in
MTC week 6 already, we've hit the half way point so fast! I'm super excited!
I've already started memorizing the purpose en Tahitian, A ani manihini i
te mau taata ia haera..something..Mesia na roto..some more things...Tareaha
(Atonement), tatarahapa (repentance), bapetizoraa (baptism, pronounced
pah-pay-ti-toh-rah-ah)..then I can't remember the rest but its a start. We were
walking back from the temple today and we were all talking in french, and there
were some elders in front of us. One of them heard us talking french and asked
if we spoke french. Instead of saying the usual oui, mais un peu (yes, but a
little) I just responded with oui. He just kinda went off in french, and I just
kinda understood 90% of what he was saying! It was awesome, we talked in french
most of the way back. Turns out he grew up in Tahiti near Faa'a, that was why
he accent sounded familiar to me when he asked if we spoke french. He had some
funny things to say. Apparently, some of the outer islands are still super
sketchy, as in practice rituals still sketchy. He asked me if I liked raw fish,
which they eat a lot of. Then I asked him about fafaruu the fermented fish
dish. He looked at me and said, imagine a toilet stall someone forgot to flush,
then intensify the bad smell by 100x, and you may get close to what it smells
like. Not exactly looking forward to it now! However, the conversation really
increased my spirits on the subject of my language acquisition. I thank the
Heavenly Father everyday for blessing me with the gift of tongues!
Also, we learned
this week people eat dog there as well. As in- well, looks like we hit this
stray slightly diseased dog..let's eat it! I guess the dog isn't always
diseased, sometimes it was their house pet! Talk about a different perception
of dogs! More on the subject of dogs. Our teacher Frère Rony told us a story of
an enemy he made in tahiti. He said he was going to an investigator's house and
he saw their dog charging at him. So he bent down to pick up a rock to try and
scare it off and in his words, "at that moment that dog decided we were
arch enemies". He had to kick it hard as it charged at him, and it ran
away. He said later in the lesson it charged into the house randomly at him and
tried to attack him again. Every time that dog saw him after that it would
charge at him, he told us one time it jumped and but into his thigh while he
was riding his bike and he had to try to shake it off for a few seconds...
Sounds like the dogs will be fun...Also he said the missionarries call the
stray dogs "Le dinosaur!" because they are all gross, make awful
noises, are incredibly diseased, and hardly have any fur. I asked him if we
needed to worry about those, but he said they don't have any life left in them
to do anything. Apparently dogs weren't a problem until the french government
outlawed killing them, which was fine and dandy for France proper...but for
tahiti not so much.
Really excited for
this Tuesday, I think we are getting another general Authority! My challenge
for all of you is to read 2 Nephi chapter 31, and try to see how many times you
can find the missionary purpose- or the doctrine of Christ- spelled out! It's a
wonderful testimony of our work!
The Lord lives and
loves you!
nana
Elder Molinari
