Chère famille et chers amis!

Well yesterday I finished my second planner, in other words it's been almost 12 weeks!

One highlight of the week was the baptism of T - if you think you know what a golden investigator is, you don't because you haven't met T. As I understand it, the first time the missionaries met him, he came up and said, "Hey, I'm going to be baptized on March 1st, can I take the lessons?" "Um... Sure! That would probably be a good idea!" That was a month or two ago, and last Tuesday the day (his 20th birthday) finally came. The week before as we were finishing up the lessons he said "I'm just fiu of waiting for my baptism!" He was baptized by his best friend, K, which is the reason he is such a model investigator - he was so well prepared by the members, K and his family, that we had hardly any work to do. T is already preparing for his mission, and A (our ward missionary and basically best friend because he works with us so much and brings us food when we're busy but hungry) predicted that he'll be stake president in about four years.

On Saturday we had an awesome lesson with la famille T - they are an adorable family that was baptized together about 5 months ago perhaps. 8 baptisms at once! That lesson was one of the moments when I get reminded suddenly of "yeah, I live on an island and I'm basically real life the Other Side of Heaven here." We're sitting on the floor of their half built new house/hut about 10 yards from the sea, just after sunset, singing "Sercret Prayer" by lamplight (as a general rule that's the favorite hymn of Tahitians) with a humble little out-of-tune choir of one big family. All of the children knew it by heart. That's one of the happy little moments that you never quite forget. These past few days were certainly a light at the end of the tunnel after some craziness. Literally - the sun is coming back after weeks and weeks of rain!

My advice for this week would be Moroni 7:33 - with faith, we can accomplish all that Christ asks of us. Whether it be overcoming an addiction, like many of my investigators and recent converts, or learning to love a new culture and language, or having hope even when it seems everything is going wrong, the light at the end of the tunnel is always the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As I said last week, that's how hope is even possible anyway!

I know this email is short but hopeully last weeks discourse will make up for that. Ua here au ia outou! Faaitoito!

Tuahine Ladd

[editor's note: she included these descriptions, but attached no pictures!]