First of all I apologize for the short email last week, pday was super crazy. The whole zone came over for pday, even the missionaries on the islands next to ours. We had to take care of all the groceries and housing for ten missionaries here, as well as their emails and the activity. It was super fun, but it's nice to have that over with. We had a great week this week, although it was a little sad. We had transfer calls this week, and Elder O. got transferred to Taravao, back at Tahiti, and he left this morning. My new companion is Elder Firuu, a Tahitian from the island of Maupiti. He is nearing the end of his mission, he has 2 transfers left, as with Elder O. This will be the first time that I serve with a Tahitian missionary, I'm hoping that he will be able to help me improve my Tahitian skills.
Tuesday we had our zone conference here at Raiatea. As usual President and Sister Fox flew down, as well as the assistants, and we picked them up from the airport. We had a great zone conference, we focused a lot on improving our missionary skills. President also talked a lot about obedience, and he gave us a list of a bunch of new mission rules. I'm happy about it, more rules means more blessings!
Wednesday we had a great day at Vaiaau, the branch in our area. We had a lot of lessons planned, and amazing enough, not a single one of them was cancelled! I'd like to give an update on the S. family that we found the other week. They are doing awesome! We had another lesson with them, and both of them were in tears at the end. They are keeping their commitments so far, and they are both progressing. We are going to get our stake president involved as well in the fellow shipping effort because he works with them and lives really close to them.
This week we had a really cool experience with the priesthood. One of our investigators asked us to give their baby a blessing because she was sick. I did the anointing and the baby was not having it. She was crying super loud and it was super hard to hear what I said. My companion started giving the blessing and it was even worse. The baby was crying so loud and we could barely hear anything. But during the blessing my companion said, "may the spirit of peace and joy be with you". At that exact moment that my companion pronounced the word peace, the baby stopped crying and didn't make another sound for the whole rest of the blessing. That was a really cool testimony builder for me, I know that the priesthood is the power of God, and that priesthood blessings can have an immediate effect according to our faith. I also really felt God's love for children, I know that he loves each one of them so much.
I'd like to add my testimony that I know that the spirit guides us. There are of course conditions, we must keep our baptismal covenants and stay worthy of his companionship. I know that if we focus on the Savior and we seek diligently the inspiration of the spirit, he will guide us in all that we do. I really focused on recognizing the spirit this week, and I was blessed to be guided towards families and people that needed to hear us, and the spirit made me more apt to teach with power and authority in our lessons. I pray that we all may seek the spirit and his help in our daily lives, we cannot take that blessing for granted. I love you all, and have a great week!
Elder McQuiston
Pics:
some pics that my companion took while we were driving, and then the pics from the airport.
Hey fam!
I'm doing great out here, and we had a really good week! We have some baptisms coming up soon, and we had two marriages this week. Leadership council was also sweet, got to meet up with the crew. Almost ran over a chicken this week, woulda put Kelly up to 1 cat, 3 chickens, and 2 birds. I don't have a ton of time today because we hit the dodge ball hard today. I love the mission and I'm hitting the grind hard!
Elder McQuiston
Pics:
Some pics with the promo when I was at Tahiti for the leadership council, and then a pic of the two marriages I went to.
Hellooo Everyone!
I had a great week out here in Raiatea, I hope that yours was the same! I'd like to wish a birthday shoutout to Grandpa McQuiston, you've been a great example to me in my life, and all the memories that we have made together I will cherish forever! Sorry for all the birthdays that I've missed haha, I haven't forgotten about you just the date haha!
This week went by super quick, we had a lot of weird stuff we had to do this week. We had to get stuff from the boat, had a few stake meetings, had to take an Elder to the airport, and we were forced to sleepover at Uturoa twice. One of those nights we did profit by having taco night, which was so good! We nailed those tacos, you'd be proud mom :).
We had some cool things that happened this past week, one of which is about a couple name Bettina and Terii. They came to Vehiarii's baptism and were really touched. They both really want to get baptized and have set a date for their marriage and baptism. And have started coming to church.
Speaking of Vehiarii, we went on a split with him this week, and he shared a super cool message and testimony, he's doing awesome!
We had a miracle happen this week, when we were trying to find some investigators with our dmp in the branch at Vaiaau. We were kind of in the slums at Vaiaau, we don't really have any solid investigators at the moment. While out searching, we prayed together and really asked God to help us find someone ready. A few minutes later DMP told us we need to go see the C. family. He lead us there, and told us that it was his son's professor, and that he had never been there before. We went and did a first contact with them, and the spirit was extremely strong and they accepted for us to come back. It is a family of 4, and both of the parents are professors, which in a small branch where no one is educated and they all fish and farm for a living, that's a pretty big deal. We went back, and the lesson went extremely well. The dad said that he now believes God and he said a prayer for the first time in his life, and was visibly touched. I know that God led us there, that it wasn't a coincidence and that they needed to hear this message at this time. Pray for them!
I love you all, bonne semaine!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: from the hike, and a pic from taco night.
Hey fam!
Sorry, I don't have a ton of time this week because we are going on a hike, and then playing some beach volleyball. We had a super cool week this week! I'm so happy to see Paul and Vehiarii get baptized! Vehiarii's testimony was so powerful, he really is so converted. There were a ton of investigators that came, including his mom, and they were all so touched.
I gotta throw in a funny story because it made me laugh for like an hour straight. The other day we went to a store, and coming out of it there were two different gates in the fence that led to the parking lot. My companion was ahead of me and he took one and I took the other. I went to the car and turned around waiting for him, and he stopped and started looking around, then turned around and went back in. A little confused, I turned around and followed him. It turns out he had lost me and was panicking. He wentbackk to the worker in the store and asked him, "have you seen my best friend?" in his panic hahahaha. I was standing right behind him, and the worker a little confused pointed to me standing right there. He was so embarrassed hahaha good times!
I love you all, have a nice week!
Elder McQuiston
Pics from the Baptism:
Hello Everyone!
It's been a while since last time since I didn't write last week, so I've got a lot to tell you all! Itw as so awesome to see everyone last week! Everyone looks like they are doing great and man, Brin is getting so tall, super crazy! Its also weird to think that I will only be skyping you guys one more time...time goes by too fast!
Ok, so for the rundown of these last two weeks. We had some huge miracles in the missionary work this week! With Paul we were super guided by the spirit, and teh Lord helped us to find out what was keepign him from getting baptized. And he's going to be getting baptized this Sunday morning!
Vehiarii is super sweet, and he'll be getting baptized Saturday morning. These will be my first two baptisms here at Raiatea, I'm super pumped. We aslo had three other investigators that acepted the baptismal invitation, and will be getting bakptized in the next coupe of months, if all goes well.
We had a pretty crazy week last week, with Christmas and taransfers. Last Wednesday we had to spend all day at the city, drivng people around, waiting for delayed airplanes, running errands for the Christmas party, etc. We fit 7 people in the tiny missionary house at Uturoa Wednesday night, with all the mattresses there was literally no walking space. haha good times. Thursday was our zone Christmas party, which was super fun. We played a lot of games, did a gift exchange, ate pizza, shared some messages and watched Moana, which was super good!
We also did a lot of caroling this Christmas. On Friday after our district meeting we went around all of Raiatea and went caroling to all of the investigators in the district. On Christmas day we went to the hospital and sang to the sick people that were hospitalized for Christmas. It was so cool to see the joy on all of these people's faces as we sang about Christ, the light of the World!
Random good news, I got my Christmas package the other day! It was super great! Thank you all so much! Also some other good news, I got a 424 in Yahtzers, Christmas miracle!
A few funny stories from these past weeks: One mornign we were studying and an inactive member called us outside. We went out and started talking with him, and he amem over to stash his backpack in our house. We were understandably a little hesitant, and he then proceeded to tell us that he was goig to go beat up his daughters boyfriend and that there were gonna be cops there so he needed to keep his backpack full of weed, which was all he had to survive. We told him that there was no way we were stashing weed in the misisonary house...watch out for backpack stashers!
We also got attacked by a dog that was nursing some puppies the other day. It came savagely runnning at us What does my companion do? He grabs me and pushes me as bait to the dog while screaming and hiding behind me hahahah. Luckily I sacared it off with some savageness of my own and no one got hurt.
Last one, we went over to an investigators house, and the husband came out, super drunk. Luckily he wasn't the violent drunkard, but more of the hippie kind. He was saying the funniest things, and would not leave us alone...he then sat on the couch behind us and took us in a interview one by one hahahah. He started crying in my companions interview and I snatched a quick pic. Don't drink kids.
I love you all so much, have a good week!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: Random pics, Zone Christmas party,Mobbing in the truck, Hymn book gave my away, a pic of caroling and some nature.
