Texan in Tahiti

Bonjour tout le monde!

Well today marks my 7 month mark. WHAT. Where did the time go?

But so anyways, this past weekend was like the best weekend EVER. It started on Friday when we had our mission conference with RUSSELL M. NELSON!

It. was. AWESOME.

Elder Callister, Elder Pearson, and Elder Tarati (part of the 70) came too with their wives and it was so inspiring and uplifting. We were all gathered in the chapel, waiting for them to get there when Soeur Sinjoux was searching for another sister to help put flower leis on the authorities when they came. I happened to be sitting in the most ideal spot and so she picked me! It was kind of last minute because she couldn’t find the other sister who was supposed to do it, so I wasn't really sure who I was supposed to give the lei to. We were standing in a line and the first to arrive is Elder Nelson. Totally shook his hand and greeted him and then we greeted all of the other authorities. I wasn't aware that the sisters were only supposed to give the leis to the wives of the authorities so I accidentally put mine on one of the 70. Haha, Soeur Rima leaned over and told me but because I still needed to give it to Sister Callister, I got to do it twice! Hahaha I think I stole Elder Taylor's opportunity to put it on Elder Callister... whoops! It was still really cool though that I got to do it twice :)

Our conference was really great and they all talked a lot about the Spirit and also the importance of the first point of Lesson 1 in Chapter 3 of Preach my Gospel- God is our loving Heavenly Father. Elder Pearson talked a lot about how important it is that our amis understand who they are before they can accept any of the higher principles in the gospel. I really liked Sister Nelson's talk also about how we are here to outwit the adversary. She talked about how we are given talents and how we are all capable to outwit the adversary and to help our amis outwit the adversary too. I could go on forever and the conference- it was so good.

Saturday was like the best ever too because Famille Tauhiro got baptized! Man- Seriously the BEST baptism ever. There is no greater joy than to see a family get baptized and start their progression towards being an eternal family. I was really touched also by their testimonies- especially Denny's testimony (the dad). In one part of his testimony, he said- Je pense que j'ai fait un bon choix. (I think that I made a good choice). It wasn't a Je sais (I know) or even a Je crois (I believe) but a Je pense- I THINK. It made me think back to Jeffrey R Holland’s talk about faith- ("Lord, I believe?" Something like that) Even though he hasn’t received a confirmation for himself that it was the best choice he could ever make in his life- he had enough faith to go forward and ACT and by doing that- his faith will grow and he receive this confirmation by his experiences after making this decision. He is such a great example for all of our other amis and I wish that the rest of them (who are scared to make the decision or feel like they aren’t ready (they’re ready)) would be like family Tauhiro. They're the best.

Don't know who took the photo or what I was doing but I thought it was funny.

Plus, Heirani is a cutie.

Tauhiro baptism.

Heirani is ready to come with us to lessons.

Big group photo. President Ariipeu is the man on the left who baptized them. He was the member who gave us the reference because he's best friends with Denny. His wife is in the middle.

Other than that- the work is going great. We have the baptism of Heipoe and Regis (brother and sister) this week who are 10 and 12. They're the cutest. And we fixed a baptism for one of my new favorite amis- Heilani for the 15th of March! (best day ever.)