Iaorana tatou!

Hope you all had a great week! We're doing just fine here in Uturoa, and what's more, we have a baptism this Friday! On our way to our lesson with P last Tuesday, we stopped by Frère A's house (P's cousin) to 'introduce my new companion' but really more to subtly mention that we were going to see P and ask if he could come too. The plan worked, and I'm glad it did because Frère A is a sneaky genius! P had never directly said yes when we asked him about baptism, maybe he had said otherwise to Frère A, but at the end of the lesson Frère A suggested that the four of us could fast and pray together to know what day he should be baptized. Notice 'what day' not 'if' he should be baptized! Saturday we ate together to start our fast, and when Frère A asked P if he had thought about a date, he said "Friday?" We were not at all expecting a day so early and for a while I wasn't sure if he meant this Friday or just a Friday in general, but yesterday we had another lesson with him and we confirmed it for this Friday! Prayer, fasting, and working with members really works miracles.

Wednesday was interesting. We spent most of it looking for references that the Elders had given us, but they both lived on the other end of our secteur (not sure if I've explained but our secteur is about 13km long and we live at the very last street on one end which makes it a bit stressful to go to the other end because we have to either bike for an hour each way or find members to drop us off and pick us up). Like all Tahitian directions, they were very vague: His name is Tahe, white house near the hotel, no gate, and a dog. (His name is not Tahe it's Tetahio, and he lives next to a restaurant a good distance from the hotel, and he doesn't actually live there, he was there for vacation) Also Manea, the house between the bus stop and an empty field not far from the Uturoa sign (we found it but it was like half a kilometer from the sign).

Anyway lots of fun other stuff going on, including me teaching piano classes in French when I don't even know how to teach piano in English and French music vocabulary isn't in my dictionary, as well as our Jehovah Witness friend nicely turning down my Book of Mormon because if she took it she would burn it. Yeah she's an interesting character - basically a Tahitian Ebenezer Scrooge-type old woman who lives on the mountain and looks down at all the other people in the neighborhood and their wicked ways. But I love her.

I'd better go but I love y'all lots!

Soeur Ladd