conference de pieu

Last Sunday we enjoyed our first Stake Conference. Our ward provided the choir music with yours truly at the piano :)

snippets

Here are a few tiny glimpses of what's around us.

I have to laugh whenever I see a sign like this. Many such signs are situated right outside quite a few of our chapels, as well as by the temple. Talk about labeling! Nah, I'm just joking. They have these signs around almost any chapel - not just the mormon ones. (It just took us a while to figure that out...) 

 

My mom and I labeled this as belonging to David Beckham. That is seriously a soccer ball up there!

 

The trees going down these streets are awesome. {Most of these pictures here are taken in downtown Papeete}

Is this tree not the COOLEST?! There are quite a few of these ginormo guys down by the warf. 

 

This picture was randomly taken of our house before we saw just how cool that sky looks behind there.

 

We were lucky enough to step outside yesterday and grab an awesome picture of this sweet rainbow. Aw it's so pretty!

the iPod saga

This is my mini. Yep, that's right. Black and white screen, one of the earlier iPod models, basically a hunk-a-junk. He was a good bud while he lasted. Let's just say that age hasn't done too much for his physique OR stamina. After a hard days work, he was soon demanding up to FIVE day resting periods!  (That is unless being constantly fed with charging-nourishment... aka glued to the charger in my bathroom - since that's one of the few places where we have an American-like outlet.) Like, WHAT is the use of a once-a-week iPod?!  

 

Even before we left I knew it was time to get a new friend. (For many reasons. Not just the part where we were already preparing my mini's funeral.) One big reason being that 4 gig is nowhere NEAR enough for all of my music. (I'm a music junkie, remember?!) 

 

As many of you know, we left for Tahiti on my birthday. We had a cute little party in a cute little empty house with a few cute presents for me. One of which was (yay!) a cute new iPod video!

 

And there's cute me! (Totally kidding. This is me in la la land. I've looked a lot cuter. And a lot less shell-shocked. Promise.) (But at least my smile is genuine with excitement for this present, right?) Side note: I saw this same model of iPod here in Tahiti for over $100 more than what we payed for it. It's disgusting how expensive things are here!

  

Anyway, you know the story of our stuff... it didn't come for a long time blabbity blah blah... LONG story short I couldn't use my new iPod until our shipment came! (Uh, yeah. I had no music to put on it...) I had to quickly reconcile with my mini, ask him to forget any hurtful feelings that may have transpired and kindly ask him to continue working for just a little while longer. Until his replacement was ready. But he didn't need to know that... Apparently minis aren't terribly forgiving. He didn't let me live down any insult that I blew his way. His way of revenge was working thirty times worse than in Utah. (*whimper whimper*)

 

See the message it's sending me? That's practically the ONLY communication that went on during these last four months with each other. Some symptoms of failing health:

• Displaying a full battery, then yelling at me to "connect iPod to power" because it's run out of juice...
• Unplugging it after a full night's charge then SUDDENLY having a random fainting spell. It will cease to work until connected to power.
• While listening to a song, don't even THINK about pressing another button. It's will die. I promise.
• Occasionally, if the screen lied to me and said it had full battery when it didn't, then I could be entertained by watching the battery get smaller and smaller and die within twenty seconds. If I weren't so angry I'd find it kind of funny.

I could list more, but they definitely blend together finishing with that same classic message: "Low battery. Please connect iPod to power." When it did decide to be nice to me it'd work for thirty minutes tops. So annoying. (p.s. Forgive the shadow in the first picture - but I couldn't keep the mini on long enough to actually get a good picture...) 

  

ANYWAY. Don't mean to bore you, especially since there IS a happy ending to this story! We're not bitter anymore. I now have a new, exciting, and functioning iPod!

 

 

 

It's shiny silver-ness and amazing awesome-ness is more than satisfactory. Sure the blue color of my mini was pretty sweet, but the silver is just so sleek. And.. I kinda like the part where it's reliable.  I give it a definite thumbs up. And its video capabilities can keep me entertained with the best of youtube podcast, my lone episode of Mary Tyler Moore, and, of course, Dark Knight once that makes it to iTunes! (I guess I don't need to wait in line for a download huh...) 

 

what did YOU bring home from school today?

So I managed to get my hands on a copy of Breaking Dawn and I enjoyed my start-finish-book party with myself. (Opinions anyone? I know I'm, like, WAY incredibly late on the breaking dawn buzz... but the new movie's coming out next month, so twilight should be on some people's minds right?!) Anyway, I was reminded that I absolutely love being stuck in a good book.. and I wanted more! (Mind you, this is before our stuff came. So I was still... without.) Alas, there wasn't much I could do - I have no idea if there's a library here, let alone a library with English books. And then this fell into my lap: That's right. "The Cleveland Herbal, Botanical, and Horticultural Collections" by Stanley H. Johnson, Jr. Wait, come again? This is how it came about: I walk into school, at around 11:15. (I'm only a part-time student, so I go at odd hours.) One of the administrators approaches me and stops, searching for words. (They know I'm the "American" and so they try to speak English to me. Very kind of them.) He says: "Lauren." Me: "Yes?" Guy: "Uh, this yours." [holds out very thick book] Me: [eyes it suspiciously and gives him a weird look] Guy: "Um. Someone give me. It's yours." Me: "Um, no - not mine. Thanks, though!" Guy: "No, someone tell me it Lauren Smith's book. Last week." Me: "Student?" Guy: "Yes. Yes, student." Me: "Well, it's not mine..." Guy: "Not yours?" Me: "No, it's not mine." Guy: "Oh. Take it anyway! Thank you!" What he was doing with an English ginormo textbook/encyclopedia thing I have no idea. But I take the book, nearly dropping it with it's heaviness, and make my way to class with my new prize. I'm still wondering what it is. Once wikipedia couldn't even tell me about it OR who the author was, I gave up trying to learn more about it. I knew I was desperate for reading material when I was actually considering reading the thing.

Island Hopping

In the midst of all of this turmoil, we did manage to make it onto a plane for some island hopping.  Just one island this time.  Another Tuamotu called Rangiroa - the second largest atoll in the world.  Kinda nifty swifty.  This is our hotel! :)  Look at the pretty-ful flowers!

 

My mom with Arthur and Helene Perry at breakfast.  Which, by the way, was delicious. 

 

Yay!  Fish!  We took a speed-boat out to this little "aquarium" type place where there were bajillions of fish :)  We brought some bread and other such products to feed to the fish, and it was fun to watch them all swarm within five seconds and eat the food up in half a second. But beware the big yellow ones.  They are greedy-bully fish and will not share their food with any cute baby fish.  Stupid jerks.  We also saw sharks and dolphins playing in the waves, but they were far away so there was a lack of picture-taking-ness.  (Actually my dad was taking the pictures.  Go him :)  I was lazy.) 

 

This is the chapel.  Even though it's just a small one-room building -  it somehow seemed to feel just as luxurious as any chapel in Utah.  (Sorry, poor word choice.  Just as... accommodating? Yeah, I guess that's a better word.)  

 

Is this not the cutest baby?

 

One of the absolutely way-awesome things about this mish-business is how we see all of our Tahitian RMs in random places!  Like airplanes.  So anyway, this is one of them below. And he and the other guy took it upon themselves to give us some fish (as shown in photo). Like, to eat or something.  (Since we know SO much about preparing fish and digging out the bones and all that great stuff involved. Yep, that's the Smiths!) 

 

Some events of note: I did manage to give a testimony/talk during the Sunday meeting... almost completely in French.  My dad still helped me some. :)  But this is definitely good news.  I've improved from making a fool of myself on a daily basis - to a weekly basis!  Yes! *Applause* Soo... that was exciting.  

 

Also, I had one of the absolute greatest Tahitian feasts I've had since bein' in Tahiti.  Maybe the best.  (I tried to explain in detail to some friends, but they didn't think it sounded like their cup of tea.  Raw fish still doesn't appeal to everyone I guess. Huh. Go figure.)  But yes, it was absolutely delicious. And I seriously ate so much that upon standing up my legs literally could NOT hold up the extra seven-point-five pounds that I gained.  SEE!  That's what happens when you can't carry on an entire conversation with the people sitting at your table - you exchange the words coming out of your mouth for even MORE food going in!  Wow I need to learn French fast otherwise I'm coming home way fat...

 

We had an air-conditioned hotel.  I had a functioning iPod.  We didn't forget too many things at home... (it's inevitable guys - we're practically used to it.)  I took a swim in the lagoon - giving me a much needed chance to improve my tan.  And I also got to improve my language.  It ain't perfect yet folks, but I'm on the up and up. [name that artist!]  

A Tribute

  A little under two months ago, Sister Rosemary Mackay was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She was serving with her husband, Tom, as genealogy missionaries here in Papeete.  They returned home to Utah as soon as they could, in hopes to get proper treatment.  It soon became apparent that her time here was limited, and she was failing fast.  Thursday morning, she passed away.

  

One of the last things she did before she died was memorize and record "The Living Christ" for all of her grandchildren.  She knew exactly what the important things in life were.  Her great faith never faltered during these hard times.  She was a true example of service and love for others.  We feel extremely blessed to have gotten to know her for the short time our paths crosses.  She will always be remembered.  We love you Sister Mackay.

 

conquering the world, well, a macintosh - so the world

Here's a little tidbit of information about me.  1) I'm way super OCD about my iTunes library.  If there were awards given for the most organized library I would have gold.  Even my wish list is organized to the t~categorized by year, style & priority.  Cool, no? 2) I'm a music junkie.  Therefore this super organized library I speak of is pretty loaded. 3) I'm super possessive over my iTunes.  

 

The part where I said I'm super possessive doesn't mix well with the part where I lost my music.

 

I needed a solution.  And I needed one fast.  Having my tunes on my iPod can only do so much.  Due to some way-too-honest people at Apple... they like to make it near impossible to move things back to the computer. (Like, how untrusting can you get?!)  I do know quite a bit about macs.. but I was stumped.  I would open a few doors only to create more and allow my headache to intensify to the extreme.  Me=breakdown.

 

Okay Lauren, chill.  Stop freaking out.  Google's there for a reason.  There's gotta be something to help you.  It just might not be from apple.com.  Life isn't as dreamy as an apple commercial - and much to their astonishment - systems crash!  It happens.  And there really are legit reasons to want music off your iPod.  Promise!

 

Anyway.  Needless to say I searched elsewhere.  And I found an article written by another fellow human being who's system also bit the dust.  I learned a few new important commands-ness, found some hidden files and poof!  I had bunches of little mpeg files with funny names like ASD4J.  Turns out iTunes is, like, way smart - and it recognized all of my friends.  After spending a full day recovering music I came out with everything I started minus two songs.  I let it go.  Mission accomplished.

 

How's my headache you ask?  Present - but unimportant.  Moving right along.  How goes the other problems?  The second problem was fortunately solved before we even came here.  We stuck all of the docs on a jump drive.  It raised another issue though, that of we no longer have any word-processing software on this computer.  We ordered that yesterday.  Luckily the PC is probably better for Word anyway.  (Can't believe I'm saying that - but it's the one perk that thing has over Mac.)

  

Third problem: pictures.  Sadly there is no easy solution to this one.  I was really religious about backing up music... but for some odd reason it was off my radar to be backing up pictures also......  So all of those pictures are lost.  :(  We have our Tahiti pictures at least, but we're really sad to be missing others from throughout the years.  (Sympathy is accepted in comments) (Totally kidding.) 

 

Once we go back to the states we're hoping to recover the hard drive.  We know it's possible.  But we'll be patient.  And we'll back up everything starting now.  Lesson learned.  Next week I'm really hoping not to be so much of a computer bum.