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!]