Texan in Tahiti

Bonjour tout le monde!

First of all, it is officially summer here in Tahiti and IL FAIT CHAUD (IT'S HOT).

On top of that, we didn't have the car for like most of last week so we were on bikes. It was good to be on bikes but our sector is just so big that we were like always so nasty and sweaty when we got to appointments. Haha and of course being as white as I am, I got a lotttt of sun. Don't worry mom, I wore sunscreen ( the second day lol) and we've got like 5 aloe plants in our yard so that was super nice. I am finally getting color so that's nice and I'm also developing some super great tan lines. My favorite is my CTR ring tan line. lol. When we were on bikes though, we ended up starting our days early and just stopping when we had a break to do our studies. It was cool because we found some pretty neat places right next to the water!

Now that we have the car back though, I've been driving more and more to practice. Which is super great and super scary at the same time. I definitely died 3 times in the middle of road trying to turn onto a "street" last Sunday. We really are protected as missionaries and I am SO grateful for that lol

Another part of my advancement in training is answering the phone and making calls. Which is super scary if you have never experienced it before because some people are hard to understand in real life and so when you put them on the phone- I freak out. Hahaha it's been mostly okay but I have a bad habit of throwing in random English words sometimes. "... C'est le faatamaraa avec vous tonight.. uhhh ce soir!" Hahaha Soeur Carter gets a kick out of it so for now, I'm in charge of the phone hahah.

So I have to share a funny story because it pretty much defines every night in our house. First of all- I HATE cockroaches. I am completely terrified of them. They're pretty big in Texas but they are HUGE here. And FAT. So I usually avoid going outside at night because they're all around our house in our driveway at night but occasionally one gets in the house. So last Thursday, there was one crawling around and Soeur Carter (being the BEST companion ever) goes and gets the broom to sweep it out. The only problem is that when she has the broom, all of a sudden it flies a little bit by the curtains. UMM WHAT. So we're both freaking out a little because we we're not expecting it to fly! (usually they don't) And so I'm already way up on the couch and she's like cautiously trying to find it with the broom. As soon as she sweeps over by the curtain, it flies up at her face. We are both screaming but luckily she turns away fast enough to avoid it. But THEN, it flies up again RIGHT in her face and of course, being the cool person that she is, she goes into ninja mode and somehow ends up laying on the ground. In the end, it ended up flying back outside and we were all okay. We did end up laughing for a good like 10 minutes though. GOOD TIMES in our little house.

The work is going pretty well, but we have so many amis who are just SO close to baptism, but they have these blocks. Most of them are because they're living with someone and they're not married or someone in the family isn't okay with it. We keep working with them though and keep praying that they can get over these blocks. We had a baptism (well two) this past weekend of a Mami and her daughter. They were baptized in Papara but the Soeurs in Maraa (Sr Taylor and Sr Moli) taught them because they're in Maraa during the week. It was a great service!

My first baptism is this week for Charles Willy!! He was also the first ami I committed for baptism so I'm really excited for this weekend.

We have Charles Willy this weekend and then Nuihau next weekend! I don't know if I've talked about him yet, but I will for sure tell his story next week or the next after his baptism.

Life is great here in Tahiti - ALWAYS full (people LOVE to feed the missionaries because apparently they're always scared we're starving to death or something lol) and always happy!

Thanks for the mail and safe travels to Colorado famille!

Beaucoup d'amour,

Soeur Taylor