Episode 12: Hotel California

Bonjourrrr tout le monde, bonne année aussi!!

This week I played a lot of my new favorite game, "Is It A Giant Bug Or _____" (enter literally anything else in the blank space). Some fun examples from this week were:

- dark spot on a wooden bedframe (could've been a cockroach)

- wad of string on my bed (could've been a spider)

- scrap of paper being blown away by our fan (could've been a flying white cockraoch, which probably don't exist, but you never know in Tahiti)

- faraway pen on the floor (could've been a centipede, still traumatized)

Sometimes the game gets turned on me though. Like when I went outside at night (always a mistake) and thought I saw a bunch of scraps of garbage on our porch but in reality it actually was like 9 big cockroaches 

Once again we visited the Manutahi's this week, AKA the Elon Musk cat family. At this point it kinda just feels like I'm hanging out with my aunt and uncle. Soeur Thelin and I roll up to the house and see soeur Manutahi on the couch yelling answers at a french gameshow. Frère Manutahi was still cooking dinner -- which was an amazing curry by the way, finally something with spice -- and were like "frère can we help you with anything?" And hes like "no no nooo! You guys just sit down right there, eat this chocolate, and help my wife answer the questions". And then he proceeded to point to the couch and give us a box of expensive chocolate. We didn't really know what to do after 20 minutes so we awkwardly sat and planned our next day

On New Years Eve we had a barbecue party with our friend Matai and our member Sava. At the end of the party Sava whips out his guitar (which has a giant mahimahi fish painted on the side of it, it is a *sick* guitar) and, knowing that Sava is a fan of The Eagles, I ask if he can play Hotel California for us. He immediately just starts shredding out the tune like it's nothing. It made my whole week hahaha

I read this super bomb talk by Elder Uchtdorf called "Missionary Work: Sharing What Is In Your Heart". I liked it so much I made it the topic of my talk in church on Sunday hahah. Anyways, one of the quotes I really liked was "But remember, the Lord has never required expert, flawless missionary efforts. Instead, 'the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind'.”

This is a really great reminder not only for me, but for all church members! Actually, if you read the talk, it's not necessarily directed at full-time missionaries, but church members at large. So don't take it from me, take it from Elder Uchtdorf! But seriously, this is a great reminder. You don't need perfect efforts to participate in missionary work. I make dumb mistakes pretty much every 20 minutes and they still let me wear the tag! So I promise you that any efforts you make will be blessed. The Lord loves effort, and all He requires of you is a heart and willing mind; with that, He can make you into something amazing as you strive to work in His name. 

We saw a lot of tender mercies and miracles this week as well. Matai came to church again, a lady gave me water when I was like dying of heat outside on our bikes, all of our lessons went amazing on our split this week, and so much more! God is always looking out for us whether we feel it or not. However, when we're looking for miracles in our lives, we'll find so many throughout every day; much more than we'd find if we were just waiting for them to happen to us. 

That's about all for this one -- I hope you all have a great week! Faaitoito, bonne chance!

- sœur snuggs <3

Photos

1. pretty sick view

2. my 3rd month mark surprise featuring soeur thelin

3. lovely little rainbow