Iaorana tatou!

First of all, sorry about last week, it was our last choir practice before the concert last night, so it went long, and plus it was transfers! So by the time I got to my mail, p-day was almost over. Speaking of transfers, I have a lovely new companion, Soeur T! She's Tahitian and awesome, but more on that later.

As for the other week, nothing too big and exciting. We knew that transfers were coming up and Soeur D would soon be leaving since she spent six months in Matavai. We got the official call on Friday night, and she is now Sister Training Leader of Faaa! (not far from Papeete)

Talking to my family on Mother's Day was obviously a main highlight! It's a blessing to see that they're doing well, and plus I got to meet Joe, my future brother-in-law! And I got to say hi to Quigley, even if he didn't say hi to me ;)

As I said Monday we had our last choir practice, at which I met my new companion! Sister T is from Faaa, and she served the beginning of her mission at the St. George Temple Visitor's Center in Utah. She came back after a few months because of health issues, namely her knee, but last September she re-entered the mission field here in Tahiti. As of last week, she was pretty sure she would just finish her mission here in Tahiti, but last Tuesday President Bize called and said that Church Headquarters had approved her to return, but it was up to her to make the final decision. And she had about 6 hours to do it. Finally she called him back that night and said she would return. But she told me later that all of Wednesday she felt confused and worried if she'd made the right choice. Finally, she called President to say that she would stay, and she felt immediately better; that, my friends, is the Holy Ghost. As it explains in the Doctrine and Covenants, "But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought..."

So Soeur T will be staying with me until further notice! (i.e. one of us is transferred) She still has her knee problem, so we've had to make some adjustments since she can't ride the bike too much. That along with it being my first time leading the secteur made for a stressful week! It's a good thing I'm surrounded by very patient people, because most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing. I learned a lot though. For example, it's often best to just go out and do something rather than staying home and worrying about how you're going to do it. I'm not saying you don't do your best to plan before hand, but there's a difference between planning and worrying. Personally, I unfortunately do a lot more of the second. I'm working on that.

Take for example last Thursday. We only had two lessons fixed, when on others days we often have lessons almost every hour. So I honestly had no idea what we should do. We did our first lesson that morning, and on our way home to finish our studies, I saw T and C, two of our investigators. I asked if we could meet them later and they seemed a little hesitant, but said that I should call that afternoon. We did our studies, ate, even helped some neighbors rake leaves, and afterwards I tried calling them and some others to fix a lesson but nobody was answering. Finally we decided on my last resort, street contacting. We got ready to go and said a prayer, and as we were saying the prayer, T called back and said that we could meet them at the church for a lesson! For me, it wasn't unlike that one scene in The Best Two Years when the investigator finally calls back in the middle of their prayer.

Last Saturday we ran into the missionaries! Haha we met some non-denominational Christian missionaries on the street, one from New York, one from Atlanta, and one from Switzerland. Apparently there's a whole group of them here for a few weeks for a program. We had a good talk with them, and it was interesting to preach the gospel in English for once! We might talk to them again later this week.

Yesterday we had our first concert! All the missionaries on the island have been practicing for the past few weeks, and now we're doing the island tour of all the stake centers. It's a lot of fun and a great missionary opportunity. The theme of the concert is the Light of Christ. I've got to go now, so all I'll say is that it's pretty fun to hear 60 Elders singing "J'irai, je ferai la volonté du Père!" with all their heart. Go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded!

Love love love you all!

Soeur Ladd

Iaorana tatou!

We had another rainy week last week, and it will continue this week apparently. It's nice in some ways: it's not as hot, and everyone stays home so it's harder for them to avoid us. However, there are a million moustiques when it rains and someone had the brilliant idea to make a solar powered hot water heater, so that we have hot water when it's hot, but cold water when it's cold. ;)

As I was looking back through my planner over what we did this week, I remembered a few times where I've thought about the light in our eyes. The first two times were with investigators that were very close to baptism, but things came into their life, we don't see them for a while or they make certain choices, and when we contact them again it like we don't recognize them. There is something that gets lost between the time when they were sincerely learning about the gospel, studying scriptures, praying, attending church, etc., and the time after they've consciously or unconsciously pushed those things away. The best way to describe it is that the light is gone from their eyes. The third time this idea was mentioned, however, was last Saturday. We were explaining the importance of the Book of Mormon, and after Soeur D had finished explaining and bore her testimony, the investigator smiled and said, "you know, your eyes shine when you talk about these things, like you're about to cry!" She also pointed out that all the Mormon missionaries she sees are always so happy and friendly, rain or shine we're on our bikes just riding along and saying "Iaorana" to everyone we pass. It reminds me of that old story about the BYU Center in Jerusalem. When the Church was getting permission to build the center, they had to promise that the students wouldn't proselyte their religion. One of the city leaders said something like "oh, we know they'll obey the law and won't preach, but what will we do about the light in their eyes?"

Other highlight of this week was our awesome Zone Conference with President Bize. I haven't got much time left to talk about it, but it was awesome and I learned so much! Soeur Bize is very much like our mom out here, throughout the conference, she made comments like, "find something to laugh about every day", "always keep chocolate at the house," and "take your medicine!"

Have a great Mothers Day everyone, especially all you missionaries and families of missionaries!

Ua here au ai outou,
Soeur Ladd

Iaorana tatou!

Formal apologies again for last week. P-days at busy busy busy sometimes. Like this morning! Six sister missionaries showered, dressed, and out the door in 30 minutes flat, that's an achievement. The H's, a senior couple, did an activity with our district this morning for our exercise, so we got back to the house at the time when we were supposed to be leaving for our choir practice downtown. 6 sweaty missionaries, 2 showers, half an hour, and only 15 minutes late (thats below average for the Soeur D and Ladd standard), that's what I call teamwork. In other news today, I saw a pig the size of a cow!! If any of you know me and my affinity for pigs, you'll understand that that pretty much made my day. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, but if I see him again, I'll be sure to let y'all know. Anyway, back to this week. Tuesday we had exchanges with our Sister Training Leaders, so Soeur Daniels spent the day in the car with Soeur A while Soeur R and I got slightly drenched on our bikes. C'est pas grave. It was a lot of fun, and apparently I won't be totally lost in our secteur if Soeur D gets transferred.

Other things that happened this week:

We had interviews with President Bize, during which immediately after the prayer he said "Teach me the first lesson in five minutes. Go." So that was fun.

Also during my interview he suggested that I practice French by reading the Book of Mormon out loud with a pencil in my mouth. He told this to my companion afterwards (the other sisters were present too) and so guess what Soeur D does in the middle of district meeting the next day? When Elder B, our Zone leader, asked me to read a scripture, she taps me on the shoulder and puts her pen in her mouth. So I start laughing in the middle of the scripture and all of the elders just look at me like I'm crazy. Ça faisait honte.

We found some really cool new investigators! Well, actually he found us. We were at the beach looking for someone we'd fixed a lesson with but wasn't at home. A man came up to us and said he had a question for us. I'm still not quite sure what his question was, something about marriage and divorce, but we talked for a while (he did most of the talking) and were able to fix another lesson with him. Anyway, point being, I think he and his daughter, possibly his son, are a miracle just waiting to happen. T and C are two awesome investigators that were on track for marriage and baptism, but then they were gone working at a festival downtown for three weeks. We finally had lessons again with them last week, and while we had to push back their date indefinitely, I know that they'll be ready soon. It's interesting because they told us that when they came back, they weren't sure if they even wanted to get married anymore. They also told us that they hadn't read their scriptures very much while they were gone. Even just in one week, they've realized what a difference regular habits like that can be. I often share a scripture in 3 Nephi 18, verse 18:"Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." It's so important to realize that the simple things like prayer, scriptures, and church attendance make all the difference.

I don't think I ever got a chance to share a quote from General Conference that especially touched me. It comes from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, the last talk of conference:

"If we give our heart to God, if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do the best we can to live the gospel, then tomorrow—and every other day—is ultimately going to be magnificent, even if we don’t always recognize it as such. Why? Because our Heavenly Father wants it to be! He wants to bless us. A rewarding, abundant, and eternal life is the very object of His merciful plan for His children! It is a plan predicated on the truth “that all things work together for good to them that love God.” So keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever." How great is it to remember that Heavenly Father is always cheering us on! He just wants us to be happy! He wants us to have success in keeping the commandments and progressing, so certainly He will help us every step of the way.

Je vous aime trop! Faaitoito!

Tuahine Ladd

In case any of you still thought that a missionary's p-day (preparation day) was supposed to be relaxing or something, that's a myth. In other words, I've got about 5 minutes to write this.

Felicitations to Kylie and Joe for their engagement! I suppose they just couldn't wait until August 2nd of 2017. Oh well ;)

As far as numbers go, it was a bit of a rough week, but I'm not too worried about it. I have a feeling that we have a lot of promising work ahead of us, once we can get out of this little rut we've been stuck in. Also, I was a little bit sick last week, which may have been part of it, but I'm feeling better now. Just a sore throat and fever, which went away with medicine. So no worries ;)  [editor's note: that 'no worries' is for mom, the worrier]

Friday night may have been one of the craziest nights of my mission. Sorry, I feel like even if I did have more time I wouldn't be able to accurately describe it. That might be an after I get home story. Let's just say we may or may not have helped save a family from falling apart. #missionarywork

Sorry. That was really vague. I mean everyone is safe and let's be honest it was Heavenly Father who did any saving, right? So that's all you need to know. Mwahaha.

Other note from this week: it is really, really hard to hide stuff from a companion that you are with for pretty much 24/7, unless you have to go on a split or exchange. It's even harder when you're not at all a good liar and she is a walking polygraph (note to mom: i can't for the life of my English remember what that word is for the lie detector test thing is so please edit that out and put the right word in thank you. Or else that is that right word in which case leave it) [editor's note: she got the word right, but I thought her note was cute so I left it in]. But despite all that and the commandment to not bear false witness, we succeeding in throwing a surprise party for Soeur D's birthday last night. The other sisters we share a house with did most of the planning, but it was my job to make sure we were there at the right time. She loved it!

Speaking of the right time, I'm really really late so I've got to go. So so sorry! Love you all!

Faaitoito!

Soeur Ladd

Soeur K returned to visit Soeur D and Soeur Ladd (thanks for sharing!)

Happy Conference Weekend!

General Conference is the best, it's basically like Christmas for us missionaries. more on that later though.

Tuesday started off strong, we'd decided to make a new goal that we'd leave everyone we talked to, ami de l'église, nouveau converti, peu importe, with at least scripture and a prayer. Et voilà, one of the first investigators we talked to on Tuesday said she didn't have time for a lesson right then, but we begged her for like 2 minutes to share a little scripture and after a few minutes she finally said yes. And we had an awesome hour long lesson with her! Soeur D shared a scripture she had read that morning, and it was exactly what she needed. Funny how that works, huh? The Church is true!

The other main news for this week is the son of our ward mission leader (DMP, or Papa). He's been kinda sickly and not himself for about a month, and they took him to the doctor several time, but the doctor said it wasn't a big deal, he'd get better soon, and gave them some medicine that didn't work. Finally last Tuesday they took him to the hospital and it turns out he has RAA, a heart problem. He and Maman (DMP's wife) flew to New Zealand last friday for surgery. They'll be gone for about three months so he can recover. We just got the news about an hour ago that the operation went well! But it will still be hard over the next few months as he recovers. And for us too, without Maman around! I'm not even kidding, Maman and Papa are our adopted parents here. So just send some prayers this way for Tauaroa! Conference was awesome, comme d'hab! It was also very early, 6am. But better early than days later for the translation. I especially liked a talk from Elder Hallstrom of the seventy, who talked about God as our loving Heavenly Father. That's actually the first principle of the first lesson we teach. And for a good reason! That knowledge can guide us in our life if we let it.

As usual, the members are going to kick me out soon because I've spent too long writing. Je vous aime! Continue to study General Conference! I know if you listen with a question in mind, you will receive the personal revelation that you've been looking for.

Avec amour,
Soeur Ladd