Elise's mission letters

Bonjour mes amis!  Iaorana to'u mau hoa! Hello my friends!  I am now in Murrieta California! I still don't know where north is but ça va.  Speaking of directions, directions remind me of driving.... And speaking of DRIVING (nice Segway Sister Hatch) I was introduced to Socal by driving on the freeway. My trainer, the lovely and incredible and beautiful Sister Winkler, couldn't find her driving card which meant that it was I who had to drive us from Riverside to Murrieta. I was VERY scared because driving is not my forte, but it went well! I literally hadn't driven on a big road in probably a year but here I am!  Things are maitai roa (très bien or very good) here in the California Riverside Mission! It is amazing how much personal growth you can make in a week. For the first few days, I was kind of sad to not be speaking French or Tahitian. I KNOW I am where I need to be, but it is hard not to be speaking the languages that I have put so much effort into learning....

  Iaorana! Bonjour! Salut!  Ok, now that we have gotten the "hellos" all taken care of, I can explain the subject line. First:  Squash On Monday, my parents and I were going on a walk in our neighborhood. We saw the cutest older woman walking by carrying a squash on her shoulders.  Woman: "I think I have a boyfriend who is giving me squash!" Us: "Hello?" Woman: "My husband's deceased, and I think that I have a boyfriend who is trying to ply me with squash!!!  .... so I am just finding all of my widowed girlfriends to give them some squash. You should see the other ones on my porch!! I would have to drive to carry them!"  She made my entire week and I sincerely hope that all of her squash-giving-away efforts go well. Second:  Louse Eggs You may be thinking, "Tuahine Hatch, what a weird thing to say! Who would say  louse eggs ?" That is exactly what  I  was thinking. My mom and I were playing Boggle which gets a  little  int...

When you are learning languages where:  bird=oiseau (french) and  brother=taea'e (te reo Tahiti) you need a lot of vowels.  Bonjour tout le monde! Iaorana! I hope you are all having a wonderful week and surviving the heat well. It was yet again another awesome week and I am almost 8 weeks into my mission!  My family went to Colorado this week to help my taea'e Kyle move. I went to Richmond, Utah to stay with my aunt and uncle during the week. It was very very fun! I loved being able to mix things up, learn Tahitian somewhere else, and eat all of Jared's cherries. Shout out to Angie and Jared and my cool cool cousins Jessie and Annie.  I feel like my Tahitian has improved a TON this week! There have been several times where I will feel as if we have learned all the different sentence structures you could ever possibly need... and then we are taught a new one.  During one class, we broke off into small groups to prepare short lessons in Tahitian. I was w...