10/2/17 Raiatea Week 1 - Huahine Maera, Sister Nicholls, Street Art

Iaorana Tatou!!!

Ancient Sacrificial Rock
Lindsay doesn't get creeped out easily.
Perhaps that is why she can handle the bugs and crazy food, too

Last Preparation Day in Huahine
For my last P-day in Huahine we finally were able to go on the hike to see the Marae. I'm not sure how you spell that, but it's the place where they used to sacrifice people. Super cool stuff, and I got to lay on the sacrificial rock so that's awesome. We also saw a couple human skulls. And swung from a vine (no pictures of that special moment, sorry), so now I've had a true jungle adventure. You can just call me tarzan from now on. ;) I was super sad to say goodbye to everyone in Huahine(Pictures in earlier post), but the worst was saying goodbye to Souer Miller even though I will probably see her again soon. 

Living with a Tahitian Mami

So if you read my email last week you are all aware that I am now on the beautiful island of Raiatea, doing a whitewash (two new missionaries at the same time), and I have moved in with my "mom". Let me just give you a little more information about this whole situation. I HAVE TO DRIVE MANUAL, it's not too bad, but I've only ever driven with someone else who knows what they're doing, so we'll see how this goes. I live with a Tahitian mami in the house which is probably the best thing ever. She's super funny and I get to have the true tahitian experience. Like yesterday she was eating some interesting meat and when I asked her what it was she was actually eating turtle. I'm really looking forward to this. And because she technically isn't a missionary we can have pets. We may or may not have a dog named Beeboo. 

Tahitian Language Used More

So do you all remember how hard Tahitian was for me in the MTC? Remember when I learned I would probably never use it? I am one of the lucky sisters who serves in one of the only areas (for sisters) where they speak more Tahitian than French. Needless to say I can't wait for my luggage to get here on the boat so I can pull out my tahitian dictionary and brush up on all the Tahitian I've forgotten. ;) Mami speaks really good tahitian so we've been reading Te Buka a Moromona with her and that's been awesome. She also teaches us new words but I only seem to remember the insults... funny how that works. ;)

Sister Nichols and I

Getting to Know New People

Anyway, The whitewash has been going ok. It's been hard because we pretty much know nothing. We were able to meet a couple members at conference (which was awesome by the way) who will be able to help us out, and have been working a lot with DMP (our ward mission leader), so I'm excited! Soeur Nicholls is awesome! She speaks Tahitian so much better than I do thank heavens, so I think we're going to make it! 

General Conference in French/English

Conference was super cool! It was at 6:00 AM here, so we had to get up at 4:00 (Which was no bueno, but c'est la vie). It was really hard hearing it in English and then French over it because instead of translating the French my brain would try to hear the English instead, but over all it was really cool! 

"Really Amazing Street Art"

The Island of Raitea

More about Raiatea: It's super huge compared to what I'm used to! We live in a two story house which is so weird (I can count on my fingers how many two story houses I saw on Huahine) and  there are a lot more stores! There's also some really amazing street art which just makes me so happy, so you might get tons of that in the next couple weeks. 

Trusting in God

Anyway, that's pretty much everything I have for you all... It sounds like a lot of crazy things are happening in the world right now like hurricanes, shootings, and earthquakes, but it's amazing to know that God is in control. He knows everything and if we trust in him it'll all be better in the end! 

Love you all! Stay safe! ​