Family! Friends! Relatives! and Strangers!
This is officially my last email from the United States of America. Goodbye civilization. I leave on Monday morning at 6:15AM and from their the adventure starts! I fly to Hawaii and then Fiji and then to Tarawa:) This week...actually past two weeks...have had some amazing, but challenging moments. In Kiribati the word for study is: kamateaikau -- which the literal translation is: to make things dead. Hahah, whoever wrote the language knew that whoever would be studying it would feel this way! Hahaha. The language continues to be a struggle, but I've got to laugh at it. Nothing translates exactly! You use imagery for everything...it's beautiful! Examples: 1. To ask if you married you say, "Do you have a balance on your canoe?" 2. The word roof is: "Turned Heaven upside down and placed on top of a house." 3. To ask if you're smart you say, "Do you have a lot of ripe coconuts on your coconut tree?" Hahaha! It makes it hard to translate things, because they just don't see the world as I do. But I love how the people view life...:)
My spiritual thinking of this week includes this: F-A-I-T-H.
From the moment I got to the MTC I knew that I would learn this language by faith. As I've been here for five weeks now it's interesting to see how my knowledge of faith has changed. To sum it up simply it's this.
1. By faith I can learn a language.
2. I need faith in myself, faith in the Savior, and faith in the Holy Ghost to share my message.
3. Faith without WORKS is dead. I've got to be putting in my full efforts.
4. It is only AFTER the trial of your faith that you will receive a witness of the miracles of Christ.
When I first got into the MTC I thought that I would see miracle after miracle..that I would open my mouth and it would be filled with perfect Kiribati sentences. That never happened obviously those expectations are a little unrealistic but what I have learned is that the Holy Ghost will never give me hard earned experiences; I've got to get them myself, that's why miracles on a daily basis aren't realistic. I will not be given words I do not know. Missions are meant to be hard...wanna know why? (And now we segway into my next "thinkings" of this week...) BECAUSE CONVERSION TAKES EFFORT. This week I've studied and stuidied conversion because a passage of scripture hit home in Luke 22:32 Jesus speaks, "WHEN thou art converted, strength they brethren." The definition of conversion in the Bible Dictionary is: "Denotes changing one's views, in a conscious acceptance of the will of God.....it changes the natural man into a new creature of Christ" I love this definition because it is everything that a mission has been for me. Everyday I am given oppurtunity after oppurtunity to choose between conversion and the natural man Examples include: 1. Will I get up at 6:30 or snooze a couple of times..? 2. Will I use my language study time effectivly, or will I let my mind wonder? 3. Will I love my companion, or will I choose to be irratated and frustrated at her?
Standing as a representative of Christ is very real, and there is a lot of pressure...but those moments when I can feel the joy that Christ would feel when the Spririt comes swoooops in and the whole room is FILLED with the Spirit....beyond description.
Much much many much love,
I kokoaua bwa e koaua te ekeratio aio.
Sister Johnson
--sj
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