today we were at the city almost the whole day, I had to get my bike fixed, and we had to run a bunch of errands as well, so we got back super late....so I don't have like any time today. But everything is going well, nothing too big happened this week...our investigators are progressing well, and the work is going well here. We helped an investigator build a house this week for his daughter and son in law. It only took 4 days to finish it, a lot different than back home. That's about it for this week, hopefully next week I'll have a little bit more time. I love you all, and the church is true.
Elder McQuiston
Pic's: a pic with Are, us at Beach Burger, and us with our zone leaders, a party we went to next to our bishops house, me with a recent convert with a nasty fish he caught, me hanging out the window holding a mattress to help some sisters move
Bonjour tout le monde, sorry that I'm a little late today. All the missionaries at Tahiti are doing a choir tour around Tahiti next month, and so until then we're going to be practicing every morning at Papeete with all of the missionaries. It was pretty chill, I got to see my buddies that I haven't seen in forever. So for the next little while I'll probably be emailing later than usual.
Alrighty so for this week...
last Monday we din't really do a whole lot, we ended up just chilling with this semi-active member named Frank for like 3 to 4 hours, talking about life and stuff. Not the funnest day activity, but the was really touched and is cleaning up his life, which is awesome and makes it worth it for sure.
On Tuesday i went on a split with Elder Clements, one of our zone leaders. I went to their sector, which is destroyed, they have like no investigators, and their ward doesn't help them at all. We did like no lessons the whole day, they only had 1 planned. But what can you do, I'm glad I don' have to worry about their area haha. They have a car in their sector, which is complement n'importe quoi, missionary work in a car is way too easy. I'm so jealous haha
On Wednesday we saw a bunch of our investigators that are really potential. We have 4 fixed for the month of may for the moment, but we cold easily do 7 if things work out well and we work hard, that's our goal. We also have some excommunicated members that we are working with that are going to get baptized and come back to church next month most likely, which is awesome.
On Thursday my ninth month mark ended with a bang...we teach a 11 year old kid named Heiarii, whose mom is inactive, and dad is protestant. We were teaching him at his grandparents house that are all active, and his protestant grandparents showed up...they food out that he wants to be baptized o his birthday May 6th, and they blew up, yelling in his face that he will never step foot in their house again. Heiarii started crying. When things like that happen it's always super sad...so unchristlike. We're hoping we didn't lose that baptism.
On Friday we had our district meeting, and we had a choir practice with the zone after for our stake tour with the stake presidency. We had some good lessons after that, and found a really potential new investigator as well. We ate sushi and sashimi with this really cool excommunicated member namer M., which was my first time trying sushi, it's actually way good. I shoulda ate it before my mission, I was missing out.
Saturday was Cameron's baptism, which was awesome. The baptism was nice and simple, and the spirit was strong as always. He's a pretty cool kid, he really wanted to be baptized, and comes from New Caledonia, and is stagy with his grandparents who are members.
Sunday was super sweet. We did the first week of our stake tour, an so instead of going to our ward we were at the stake center at Papeari. We sang a couple songs, and the missionaries that were serving in those wards gave a talk.. We got finished in the afternoon, and then came home and did our weekly planning. We headed back to the stake center after that, for the easter fireside. It was super well done, and the spirit was super strong. We had an investigator there named M. who wasn't really potential and we were about to la fair, but she was extremely touched by the fireside, and she said she'll give us the final answer Wednesday if she's gonna get baptized or not.
Alrighty until next week,
Elder McQuiston
The first pic is of the sushi and sashimi-my favorite meal here probably, the second is from Cameron's baptism and the 3rd is a pic from our zone choir tour thing
La ora na tatou,
There wasn't too much that went on this week, it was a pretty calm week. On Monday tho we did something that was super fun....we went with the ZL ma to a beach that's in our area...and at this particular beach the ocean is super shallow, and stays way shallow for a long time. And the rule in our mission is that we can only go knee deep in the ocean, so we waded out in the ocean way far, it was pretty dope. Our recent convert Shirley also cut my hair...she did a pretty good job I'm not complaining, it was a lot better than paying 25 bucks to go tot the haircutters haha.
On Tuesday President Bize did interviews with all of the missionaries in Paea, Papeari, and Taravao. He was running super late, and we ended up waiting 2 hours for him at the chapel....and then when he finally got there we had about a 2 minute interview where he talked about baptisms. We also fixed a baptismal date with an investigator named Vaia, she's a little on thinners side, but she reads the book of mormon a ton which is awesome, and we'll do our best to get that baptism done.
On Wednesday we had a super good coordination meeting, and hopefully that'll motivate our dmp to do a little bit more work. We also met with cameron, this young boy that we are baptizing this week. We were gonna have two, but the other one we had to push back until May 6th because his dad's plane flight got changed.
Thursday was a super busy day, we didn't even have a single lesson cancelled. We had two really good lessons with excommunicated members, both of who came to church on Sunday. We also had a lesson with an investigator who looked up anti mormon stuff and tried to bible bash us and stuff...always my favorite lessons. We also ate way good sashimi for dinner, one of my favorite meals here.
On Saturday we had a big training for our bishops and DMPs at the stake center, done by the stake president. And then after it was done we went to the beach and ate some food to start off our fast for our stake. Also on Saturday by a miracle we found this investigator named noise by some miracle while we were on our way to a plan B, and fixed a lesson with him Tuesday, hopefully he shows up.
Sunday was pretty good, we had a lot of investigators at church. But really sad, one of our investigators that we just fixed a baptism with went and talked with her husband about the marriage and baptism, and he freaked out and kicked her out of the house. Super sad, she's super cool too. We're thinking we might go and try and talk with the husband with our bishop or something, we'll see what goes down.
Alright that's about it for the week, have a great week everyone!
Elder McQuiston
Pics:
The first two are from when we went wading in the ocean, and the second two are of my zone at the beach.
La ora na tout le monde! I'm pretty sure like every missionary in the world put that as their subject so I had to conform hahah. we had a pretty good week this week, and I learned a lot from conference.
On Monday after we emailed we were planning on going to the beach, but it was pouring, so we had to use plan B and we went to the chapel and played ping pong and little games with the zone.
On Tuesday morning we had a service project, cutting some manioc plants at a members house. Something crazy happened, while I was cutting the plants with a machete the machete slipped on the plant and hit directly into my leg. It was super sharp, and should have sliced my leg open, it really hit my leg hard. But by miracle when I looked down at my leg, there was nothing there. I know that it was God protecting me, and I'm super lucky and grateful that I didn't have to go to the hospital. And don't worry mom and Emerie, I'll be more careful next time haha. We ended that service project with some baseball with nonis haha kinda funny, nobody had ever seen or played baseball before.
On Wednesday we had a multilane conference, with the zones of Paea and Taravao. It took pretty much the whole day, but it was really good, I learned a ton. And the trainings that President and Sr Bize and the assistants did were awesome. Except on thing kind of frustrating, some sister missionaries got caught at the church doing emails at 730 at night after being there for over 5 hours...so now President Bize cracked down not the email time, so if everyone could shorten their emails down a tad that would be much appreciated hahah.
On Thursday we had a pretty good day, we did a bunch of really good lessons with some of our baptism potential investigators, and found a couple new investigators as well. We also had a coordination meeting at the bishops house...which was not productive at all. Bishop just talked the whole time haha we might need to change things up a little and do it somewhere else. But our DMP is a super cool guy, I really like him. And then kinda funny, we got a call fro the dzs that we live with that the assistants are coming, so to hurry and clean up the house. We cleaned the house super clean, except the other elders room hahah where we messed everything up super bad hahah. And then when the assistants went in their room they were like "what in the world is going on in here" haha kinda funny we had a good laugh.
On Friday we had a lesson with an inactive member who wants to quit smoking, an she said he's going to stop next week. We offered to fast with him, and then he gave us this super guilty look and was like "uhh...well no maybe in May or June." haha, I get the feeling the "next week" might have been a little...half hearted haha.
On Saturday we had General conference which was awesome, I learned so much. I really like President Nelsons talk about standing up for whats right, as well as Elder Cordon's talk about languages and preventing the gospel from bing lost in the home. I also really liked President Uchtdorf's talk about being a good leader/follower. We had a bunch of investigators there, and a ton of our investigators are really potential, and are doing awesome. This sector is super great, we have a lot of work to do here, a lot of people that are ready for baptism.
On Sunday I really liked Elder Rasbands talk, about feeling the spirit and acting on promptings the first time, and not second guessing whether it was ourselves or the spirit. I also really like Elder Palmers talk about charity and seeing people how the Lord sees them, and that hearts won't change without love. After church we saw an investigator who's named V. Last week she was like not really potential, a new investigator that wasn't progressing. But then on Saturday out of nowhere she showed up to conference on there own, and stayed for both sessions. Well turns out she read a bunch of the Book of Mormon, and prayed an received an answer that it's true. We read Mosiah 18:8-10 with her, and she wants to get baptized. That lesson was super cool, and the spirit was super strong. I love this work, and I know that it is the work of the Lord. I love my mission so much, and I'm so happy to be able to serve and give back my time for 2 years to the Lord.
Je vous aime!
Elder McQuiston
Pics:
The first is what our house looks like from the outside the second is a pic of inside our house, the third is from the conference multizone and the last one is a pic of us with a family from France
