Iaorana, to'u mau hoa!

So! Today we will hopefully be getting our REAL flight plans! I can't believe my time at the MTC is quickly coming to an end. Just last week I was telling everyone that we've still got three more weeks, which let me tell you, is a long time in MTC time. But the English missionaries that came in this week finally will not be leaving before us! The district that came in with us left at the beginning of the week for Canada/Africa, so we are officially the oldest district in the zone. Which makes Soeur S and I the 'oldest' sisters in the zone. Wow, that's weird. Yay for Tahitians not staying 12 weeks anymore!

Not too much has happened this week, we've mostly just been focusing on learning the language(s) and attempting to teach in it. I'd say the most frustrating part (see title) is that since there is literally no word in Tahitian for 'sorry,' we can't even tell our investigators "Hey, we're really sorry we don't speak this language very well yet, because we have a really great answer to that question we just don't know how to tell you." If we can even understand their question, that is. It's been fun though! Our teacher (posing as our investigator) may or may not have been laughing at us a little during our struggle of a lesson yesterday. And our 'gold tag' investigator, Brian, who we use a mix of French, Spanish, and English with, was making fun of our phrases like "le meaning" and "le Church" (as opposed to the meaning or le signification). Oh, and when we were pretending to be investigators for Elder P and Elder H, I opened the door and Elder P exclaims, "Hey, how are you!? *face palm* I mean, um, bonjour!" So yeah. The struggle is real.

Tuesday's devotional was pretty cool, we had Elder Zwick of the Seventy come visit! The MTC gets the best speakers. The choir also sings the best songs. This week was an arrangement of "Precious Saviour, Dear Redeemer" and it's been stuck in my head all week. I don't even mind. It's a different tune than in the hymn book, and after than I don't know why anyone would ever go back to the original. Look it up on Youtube, I think it's by Brett Stewart or something.

Oh, and after the devotional on Sunday, we tasted the most amazing grape juice in the world. Chateau Markham is no ordinary grape juice, and sorry but you can't find it in stores. Brother Markham, one of the counselors in our branch presidency, has a vineyard in his backyard with some seventy variety of grapes from around the world. Apparently when they were starting this vineyard, they bought the houses all around theirs, sold the houses, and kept the backyards for their vineyard. They harvest them every year and make Chateau Markham. Calling it 'grape juice' doesn't even do it justice, but I don't want to call it wine because it's not alcoholic or anything. Anyway, it's a bit of a tradition that the Markhams have to sit the missionaries down, take them through Jacob 5 (the vineyard chapter) and then toast to missionary work with some Chateau Markham. Other than that... yeah, it's been a pretty chill week. Apparently Elder I is not coming with us to Tahiti, or just doesn't exist, because three of the Elders have now had dreams involving the all the others, except for Elder I. Well actually, Elder I was in Elder L's dream last night. It was about getting our flight plans today, only Elder I was the only one who didn't get his. Pauvre garcon.

But speaking of flight plans, we leave in ten days, so I'd better get packing! Sorry for the shorter email but there's so much to do!

Faaitoito!
Tuahine Ladd