Nous sommes arrives de Ua Huka

Bonjour la famille!

Well definitely an insane week for us, with a lot of crazy news and miracles.

Monday we had a family night with 27 people there!  We were really surprised to have so many people there.  We did a few activities and a lesson, and fixed lessons with all of the amis that were there.

On Tuesday we felt the first opposition.  The father in law of Marie came and told us we were going to have to move out of the house we were at, because he was really upset at Marie for getting baptized.  (Ua Huka is 99% Catholic).  We packed up our stuff, not knowing where we were going to go and headed out to teach our lessons.  Our lessons went incredibly well, everyone was super prepared for us, and we found a bunch of new amis that were really interested.  When we returned back to the house, we found out that the husband of Marie went and talked to his parents, and convinced them in tears to let us stay.  He's a super cool guy, and is also making a lot of progression.

On Wednesday we had a lesson with one of our new amis, and then her brother in law came over and started going crazy on questions and stuff, and talked about his beliefs on the purpose of animals and whether or not there will be animals int he celestial kingdom for half an hour straight...Mess haha.  But after that, another ami Marie set her baptismal date!  We were super surprised, and looks like we're going to have to make another trip over to Ua Huka soon.  We talked with President Bize that night, and he said he's strongly considering sending the missionaries to Ua Huka, so there's a chance that there might be a change here this upcoming transfer, we'll find out on Friday.

On Thursday before we left we had a fireside, and watched the Joseph Smith Restoration video.  We had 30 people at that one!  We bore our testimonies afterwards, and told everyone thanks for letting us stay there and stuff, the spirit was super strong and it was super cool.

Friday we headed back to Nuku Hiva, and once again we landed safely.  We tried to go and see a bunch of our amis here, and fixed some lessons with them.

On Saturday we had another baptism, the first baptism so far a Hooumi, another valley on the island.   It went pretty well, except during the confirmation the little girl's dad forgot to confirm her a member of the church, and at the end we reminded him, and there was just this little pause"...ah mess" and we re-did it haha.  The Frere that baptized his daughter was inactive when I first got here, and had a big problem with the parole de sagesse, and so we worked with their family, and now he's worthy and super active and happy, and his wife was called as Relief Society 2nd counselor on Sunday, which was super cool to see.

Yesterday at church we had a ton of amis de l'eglise there, and like everyone was there early and stuff.  The branch has grown a ton since I've been here, which is awesome.  We had a lesson with one of the amis after church, and she said she knows the church is true and wants to be baptized, and she's ready and wants to do it this week.  So looks like we might have another baptism this week too, which is awesome.  We'll see what goes down.

I love you all, thanks for the prayers, the miracles are coming!  Follow the commandments, say your prayers everyday and read your squirters everyday, and you'll have power over the adversary.  Until next week!

Elder McQuiston

 The Airplane we flew over to Ua Huka Island

  

Me and my Comp in Ua Huka 

 Our German Pancakes

Pictures of the Baptisms

Bonjour

Well Bonjour everyone, turns out we got permission to email from a members computer...so everyone thank sr. Ellis haha.  And I'm alive and well, I survived the crazy avion.

Alright well I'll start from the beginning...so last Monday we had a family home everyone with this inactive sister that was quite the character.  She's about fifty years old, and is divorced with three kids.  I went into the evening thinking that we'd do a nice lesson, but turns out she talked straight for abhor after dinner, and then just cut herself off and said, alright it's about time for you to head home!  Super funny haha.

On Thursday, Elder Cardon of the seventy was in our mission and did a mission conference for 8 hours, and all of the elders in the islands were supposed to connect over the computer  Welp our computer definitely didn't work, and we sat at the church for like 3 hours trying to fix it to no avail.  Bummer!

Friday was the big day, we headed out for Ua Huka.  We are accompanied by Sr. Ellis our relief society president and Fr. Butcher our dumb, who are both super awesome.  After the hour car ride to the airport we got the first glimpse of the airplane, and it was the smallest thing I've ever seen!  There were only 18 seats and we were right next to the pilot, super sketchy haha.  It was a crazy plane ride, super bumpy but only like 20 minutes so no problem.  Ua Huka is super pretty, a part of me doesn't want to go back to Nuku Hiva haha there's a ton of potential here.

Saturday was the baptism of Marie.  It went super well, we had like 20 Amis there.  I gave the baptism talk and Sr. Ellis gave the Holy Ghost talk, and then we headed out into the ocean.  Turns out the ocean isn't deep, so they had to go super far out and we had to follow to witness.  I soaked like my only clothes I have here, but hey no worries who doesn't love salty pantalons. 

Yesterday we did a sacrament meeting, thinking hardly anyone would be there because there are only 4 members on the island.  To our surprise there were 23 people there, and everyone was super interested and payed close attention, it was the first time the gospel has really been on this island, and the first baptism here.

Super cool week so far!  I love you all, see ya next week!

Elder McQuiston

Week...month 4 last week of it

Alright well last week started off pretty eventful...On Monday Elder Isabell quickly got wrecked by some illness and started feeling awful while we were at the church doing our emails.  We looked up the symptoms of Chikungunya, and his symptoms lined up almost exactly.  We called up a member that's a nurse, and she diagnosed him over the phone.  Chikungunya is really similar to Dengue fever, usually for a few weeks and is extremely painful.  Elder Isabell could barely walk it was really bad.  So we headed back to the apartment, and I called over a member to help me give him a blessing.  It was a really really cool experience.  E. Isabell asked me to do it, and in English.  The spirit was extremely strong, and after the blessing almost all of his pain went away, and his fever shot down (It was at like 102).  The next day he was almost completely healed, we were able to do all of our lessons and contacting as normal.

Also on Tuesday the boat came, and we finally got our stuff!  Finally some book of Mormons and some teaching materials...I also got my birthday package, which was AMAZING thanks everyone!  The maple syrup especially is killer haha we've been using that baby to it's fullest.

Wednesday was pretty interesting...We kinda had a little bit of an argument int he morning, and we forgot to pray before we left the house.  We had a couple lessons, and they were both super rough.  We didn't really have the spirit with us, and we were both felling pretty down.  We headed back to the house and had a really prayerful companionship study.  After that we headed back out and did a whoppin 10 lessons, all super good lessons with the spirit super strong.  Having the spirit with you makes all the difference.

On Saturday night we had  a fireside led by us, which went super well, we had a ton of the branch there.  Our goal was to unify the branch, so we mostly played a bunch of games.  We played the game where two people sit on either side of a sheet and you drop it and the first one to say the other persons name wins a point, as well as reverse charades.  They were both a huge hit, and we were pretty happy about it.

Well that's just about all for this week, sorry I don't have any pictures this week we forgot our card reader...And I'm guessing I won't be able to send much of an email next week, we'll see.

Love you all, talk to you in 2 weeks! (or next who knows)

Elder McQuiston

Dogs and Rivers...

Well shoot I forgot my journal today...So I'm basically done for haha.  But hey c'est pas grave, who needs that anyways?

Hmm funny stories for this week...I'm not sure if I already mentioned this story, but a few weeks ago we were riding our bikes across this river we have to cross to get to the chapel, and my tires totally slipped out on the slimy bottom, and I fell straight in the river, got completely drenched.

Another one, I got bit by a dog this week.  We were just walking down the road and some dog was asleep in the middle of the road, and right as we past it jumped up and took a chunk outta my leg...It was so unexpected haha I just yelled ow so loud haha but hey no big deal...I'll probably end up eating that dog some day, no joke hahaha.

So it was conference week this week!  We had a couple people come from the district, someone from the mission presidency, and like 10 members from Ua Huka and Ua Pou.  I met Marie Christine for the first time on Wednesday in person, and she's top, no worries about her.  On Thursday we went with the leaders and visited all the inactive members, which went great they were super funny.  The conference that night went great, and we had 64 people there!  That's almost twice as much as we have on a good week, which was incredible.

So Thursday I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday...and it almost worked.  Until some random missionary called the wrong number, and before he said goodbye he asked Elder Isabell to tell me Happy Birthday...and then Elder Isabell told everyone and everyone freaked out haha.  During the conference they mentioned me two times, then right after they made me come up front and sang to me in Marquisien, French and English.  Then they brought out this huge cake... 

Well there's the week as far as I can remember...but no worries if I missed anything I'll just throw it in next week.  Love you all!

Elder McQuiston

Oh and ps our trip is finalized for the 18-25...and I have no idea what we'll do for p-day, so it'll just be a surprise I guess haha

Note from mom:  Here's a story he shared from my email- Cool story from this week is that one day we prayed to know where to go and to lead us to find people like usual, and then we went out and worked for like 4 hours.  And in those four hours we never found anyone that we could have a lesson with.  But there were a ton of "coincidences", and we ran into a ton of people we'd been looking for, and a few people that wanted to schedule a lesson with us.  It was definitely guided by the Holy Ghost, and although we might not always have a ton of "success", the Lord knows what needs to be done and he'll make it happen, if we are being obedient and doing our best.

A pic of us with Yolanda, a Sr. from Ua Huka 

My Birthday Cake 

My birthday party after conference 

A view from an amis house