Week 25 - Baptisms! Bettyna and Pierre

1. Joyeuse Pâques! I hope you've all had a wonderful holiday with your families, and I hope you've taken a moment or two to think about Christ this weekend. He lives! And He loves us!

This week, we had two baptisms! It was wonderful - our amies Bettyna and Pierre were baptized. No, they're not married, and no, they're probably not going to be. (Every single person we tell about our amies ask if they're a couple. They're not)

Bettyna the second on the left. She's a mami who has around 10 kids, and lots of grandchildren. She has a big house where she lets all of her family come and go as they please. She started the lessons a little while ago, and loves reading the Book of Mormon in Tahitian. She delights in the commandments of God - I didn't understand what that really meant until I met her. We started teaching her about the Word of Wisdom, and as soon as we told her that it was a commandment of the Lord, she said, "Awesome! I can change that, then!" She is an absolute ray of sunshine.

The one on the far left is Pierre. He lives with his brothers and his mom still, and was taught a while ago, when for whatever reason the missionaries stopped doing lessons with him. We found him one day, sitting at the beach, after praying to find someone who was ready for the gospel. He was the only one there. As we started teaching him the lessons, we realized he already knew everything! He loves coming to church and was ready for baptism long before we met him.

(Such a happy day!)

Not tons of other news. We went into a part of our sector that we'd never been in before, and ended up climbing a mountain. We didn't find many new amies up there, but we found some pretty amazing views...

And this really pretty flower:

We taught one of our amies this week who is pretty isolated and doesn't receive a lot of visits. Usually when we visit, we don't have a lot of opportunities to actually speak with her. But, this time, we brought the video of the Restoration. She's always been kind of back and forth about the possibility of a true church, so it was very powerful to see this story in action. In fact, after she watched it, she was speechless. She just thought it was such a beautiful story. The Spirit was powerful as we testified of the truth of Joseph Smith's account.

Other than that, all is well! Working hard in the rain (we got soaked to the bone multiple times this week. It's not easy - in the morning, it's clear and beautiful, and by the end of the day it's thundering and pouring) .

(a selfie from Easter. All the members loved that I put flowers in my hair for the holiday. They think I'm so weird, haha)

Have a wonderful week!

Soeur Sperry