Mon Dernier Email Dans Le MTC (my last email in the MTC)

la ora na uo'u utuafare!

I can't believe it's finally my last letter here in the MTC!  I've been here so long...1/12 of my mission already.  I'm so pumped to finally be getting on a plane this week, just 4 more days!  (I know countdowns are bad on the mission but we couldn't help it, we're too excited to get out there).  Next time I email, a week from Monday probably, I'll be wearing a pareu in like the prettiest place in the world.

On Saturday I finally reached Alma in the French Book of Mormon, my goal before I left the MTC.  My Tahitian has gotten a lot better, we can teach lessons now in Tahitian without any notes or anything, and understand most of what our investigators are saying.  But it's definitely not super good, so hopefully my first area is French speaking so I have some more time to study Tahitian.

Elder Dayton has been having a lot of problems with his knee, so he prayed and felt like I should give him a blessing.  So on Sunday I gave him a blessing, and the next day his knee was feeling good enough to play Spikeball!  It's not 100%, but hopefully he'll be able to ride a bike without any problems now.  The gift of healing is real.  We also had a devotional by Chad Lewis (Dad will know who that is), and he conveyed to all of us the enthusiasm we should have for spreading the gospel and doing God's work.  He really stressed the difference that we can make on the Lord's errand.

On Tuesday we had the opportunity to hear from Elder Christofferson.  That was super cool to have an apostle come to our second to last devotional, and it was super cool.  He taught us a few things, for one it's more important to be trusted than to be loved by the Lord.   God loves everyone, but does he trust you to go out and do the work?  Does he know that you will be obedient and follow the promptings that you receive?  He also stressed our simplified purpose of teach repentance and baptize converts.  he taught about how all aspects of the gospel revolve around repentance and Christ, and our investigators need to know that that is what our message is.

Yesterday we had in-field training, where we learned a lot about how to work with members, use key indicators, and find people to teach.  We watched a video clip of one of Elder Bednar's talks, which really stood out to me.  He told a story about how two missionaries came to his house one morning, and stayed for about an hour and a half, eating breakfast and playing with his young son.  They then asked him for referrals, and Elder Bednar said that he would never give referrals to missionaries like them.  He said that he knew that they didn't get up on time that morning, or do the studies as they were supposed to.  He also told them that they had wasted an hour and half of the Lord's time that morning.  He told them the kind of missionaries that he would give referrals to, and told them what they should've done with that visit instead.  Three weeks later, the missionaries returned and followed his advice, and had a total different countenance about them.  They then asked for referrals, and he said he would love to give referrals to missionaries like them.  We are on the Lord's time, and there is no time to be wasting.

Well I'll talk to you all in a couple weeks, from TAHITI!

Ua here au ia outou!

Elder McQuiston  

My batch sporting our BYU ties for the BYU/UTAH game 

All of us with our Blue ties and Elder Bradshaw with his Red tie 

All the Tahitian missionaries 

Saying goodbye to all my buddies 

Wearing the Pareu from Elder Tetauru

Deux plus semaines!

To'u utuafare!

This week was so  much better with Tahitian thank goodness...Not that i'm good at it by any stretch, but I didn't feel completely helpless during all of our lessons, so that's good.  I had another super cool experience with the gift of tongues in our TRC on Tuesday.  Our first lesson was pretty normal, we understood very little of what he said, and he probably understood less of what we said haha.  But our second one was super cool, it was with a rm that got back a few months ago.  During our lesson, I understood almost everything he said, and I was saying words that I didn't even know, and remembering words that I'd only heard a couple times.  He said our Tahitian was amazing, even tho it usually is terrible haha, really cool.  It's comforting to know that the Lord will help me with the language if I'm doing my best and praying for the gift of tongues.  

On Saturday Elder Claflin and Elder Bradshaw were super sick, so I was pretty much stuck at the residence for most of the day.  I just studied the Book of Mormon in French and studied Tahitian all day.  Luckily though they got better pretty quickly, and they were only stuck in bed on Saturday.

On Sunday we were unassigned as zone leaders, and Elder Stainton and Johnson were assigned.  It was super cool, I got to host Elder Stainton his first day, and we're super tight.  He's from England and has the sickest accent, and is amazing at soccer.  They're both headed to Lyon, and all the Lyon, Paris and Tahitian missionaries leave on the same day, like 50 missionaries haha our branch is gonna be empty at the MTC.  Our devotional was pretty sweet that night, it was by the active director of the mission department or something like that, and he brought some missionaries that are in the district 3 that's coming out, as well as a convert they taught.  It was really cool hearing their experiences.

On Tuesday all of the Canadian missionaries left, so like Elder Yerke, Brenchley, and Hunker.  It was sad seeing them go, but they were pretty excited to get out there.  It's kinda funny , they were the first missionaries in our zone that came here after us and left before us.  Thursday we had a really cool devotional by President Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy.   He gave a super cool talk on how to improve our teaching skills, and the impact that we can make in the field.  He talked to the mission president of a missionary that the baptized and taught on his mission, and the mission president shared a journal entry with him.  He said that the missionary was the best missionary he has ever seen, with an incredible amount of baptisms.  He said that what made him a great missionary was not that he was a great teacher, or that he had a great knowledge about the gospel, but because of his attitude, his hard work, and his obedience.  That's something that all of us missionaries can do, and something that we can all improve on.  

Well that's pretty much everything exciting that happened this week...2 more weeks and I'll actually have a ton to email about!

Je vous aime!
Ua here au outou! (Le meme chose)

Elder McQuiston  

 Our whole Zone before the Canadians left

 With the new Zone Leaders, Elder S. and Elder J.

Again with the new Zone Leaders

Maururu no te horo'a o te mau re'o

la ora na!

K if I thought French was hard I was sadly mistaken.  French is like English to me, it's so easy, but man is Tahitian killing me.  It's soon difficult to speak and especially to understand...But for the most part they speak French in Tahiti, so that's super relieving.  We had a TRC with like the best Tahitian speaker in the world, who served his mission in 1960 or something like that.  There was another TRC member who taught the same old guy for TRC when he was in the MTC, and he said he really probably is one of the best Tahitian speakers in the world, he didn't meet anyone on his mission that spoke it better, even the people that only spoke Tahitian.  But one thing that old guy taught us was "If you speak Frech, the people will understand you, if you speak Tahitian, they will respect you."  So even tho most people speak French, I'm going to do my best to master Tahitian as well so I can connect with the people. 

On Sunday we had our devotional by the Nashville Tribute Band, which was pretty cool but they already came on the 24th of July and did the exact same devotional, so it was a little bit repetitive haha.  But that's pretty much as much real music as we get, so it was nice.  One of the members of our Branch President is Brother Markham, and he is like the most educated man in the scriptures I know.  And also he's super rich and travels all over the world, but the coolest part is that he has a huge vineyard where he makes his own grape juice.  On Sunday night he taught my district and one other about Jacob 5 and brought some grape juice, and holy crap that stuff is amazing.  It's definitely the best grape juice I've had and probably one of the best drinks I've had period haha.  But that was super cool there's a ton of really cool stuff in Jacob 5 even tho it's really hard to understand.  

We had to say goodbye to the other district on Monday that came on the same day as us that are headed to DC north and a couple places in Africa, and man that was super hard.  We have been super close, and their dorms were right next to us and stuff...But it made me super pumped to get out in the field.  9 weeks is so long, and I'm just ready to go haha.

On Tuesday we had a devotional by Elder Aceda of the 70, and that was super cool he is like the cutest peruvian old guy ever.  He was super super nice and humble, and shared really cool experiences about his conversion story.  His main message was to serve with ALL your heart, might, mind, and strength.

On Wednesday we did the orientation with all the new missionaries going to Africa, 21 total I think.  I can't believe we are still the zone leaders, it's been so long haha.  We;ll probably get unassigned next week I'm guessing, but we'll see.  But it's great, the orientations are always super fun, but all the running around gets a little crazy with the Tahitian that we are missing.  

Haha probably the funniest thing that happened this week was the other day someone sent Elder Dayton just a watermelon as a joke, so we spent like 15 minutes trying to open it.  Then we didn't really have any spoons or anything, so we just kinda went crazy on it with our fingers haha it was like the best watermelon ever, pretty funny!

Jusqu'a prochain semaine!

Elder McQuiston

 Me eating the best watermelon ever

 My bed without sheets because it's so dang hot at night

 Me downing Elder B's Sriracha sauce

A little bit of Tahitian

Bonjour tout le monde

Welp today is officially our last day of French...I do not feel like my French is good enough to go out in the field haha...It's weird to think that all the other French missionaries would be leaving right about now.  I'm not gonna lie I'm super pumped to learn Tahitian, it sounds super sick, but I'm way nervous at the same time.  It's nothing like English, and it sounds like it's pretty much pure vowels when you listen to it.  But apparently it's way easier than French when it comes to grammar and stuff like that, so we'll see.

We had our last day with Soeur Waldron on Saturday, which is kind of a bummer because she was really really good at French, but she went to Lyon for her mission so she wouldn't be able to help us out with Tahitian haha.  So Soeur Erekson is our new teacher, and kinda funny she also got taught by Soeur Cook (our other teacher) when she was in the MTC.  But she has way too much energy haha and she acts so Tahitian and uses a ton of it in her French.

Sunda was pretty normal for the most part... We made a goal during district meeting to only speak French the past four days, and it didn't go too bad... The first 3 days we pretty much did it but lost it a little bit yesterday...It's kinda sad that a few of the elders and sisters in our district don't really try too much, and they're really struggling, they haven't really improved the whole time we've been here.  But for the most part our district is doing great, and so is our zone.  We also watched 17 miracles, and it was a nice change of pace, but that one is so sad compared to Ephraim's Rescue for sure.

It's so hard for me to sleep so much here haha.   I always have a hard time falling asleep and I always wake up like an hour or so early...I wonder if my sleep habits will ever change haha we'll see.  We had a devotional on Tuesday by Sister Oscarson, and it was a pretty good dev.  She spoke on Elder Christofferson's talk on the current bush, a super good message that the Lord will bring us to our lowest so that we can become the people that we have the potential to be.  He knows the end result, and he knows how to get us there, we just have to trust him.  

The new Tahitian Elders came yesterday!  There is only four of them, kind of a big difference between that and our district of 12 haha but they're great, and it's fun to have some more missionaries going to the same place.  The French teacher that is in charge asked me and Elder Bradshaw to be like the example missionaries for a meeting that all the new missionaries went to on Wednesday...And there were like 536 or something like that haha.  We were super nervous, but it went pretty good and the spirit was super strong.

Hahaha so funny thing that happened yesterday...Our class was asking Sr. Cook a bunch of questions par rapport a Tahiti and stuff, like how often we have dinners with the members and stuff like that.  Elder Bradshaw raised his hand and started a question, then paused for a sec like he was thinking of a word or something, and asked Sr. Cook if everyone in Tahiti ate with their feet hahaha apparently he mixed the word fingers with feet haha pretty funny we were all dying.

Well, nothing else that I can really think of...So cya next week!

Avec beaucoup de l'amour, 

Elder McQuiston

My district with Sister Waldron (one of our teachers)

Me with Elder Ugbah in my district and Elder Tatauru form Tahiti

 Me and Elder Yerke

 My district with the other french district that came the same day

Me and Elder McKay

1 month in already??

Man it does not feel like a month has gone by... It's so weird cuz like thinking about all the things that I did the month before I left compared to the month I've been here... This whole time I've been here I've done the exact same things every single day hahaha but the time moves by sooo fast.

Well so here's a super cool story...Last day while I was playing soccer I hurt my foot super bad...I could barely even move it, and I thought it was broken for sure.  By the time I got back to the residence my foot was swelled up so big it could barely fit in my shoe, and I was super bummed out because I did not want to have to deal with that, especially with my classroom being on the fifth floor.  I decided I'd sleep on it to see how it was in the morning, but when I woke up it was even worse than it was last night, it was hurting so bad.  I decided I'd just say a prayer before exercise time.  When I got to exercise time I tried to play volleyball, but I could hardly even move so I just stood in like the same spot the whole time.  But it started hurting less and less, and by the time exercise time was over, my foot was completely back to normal and didn't hurt at all.  I have such a strong testimony that God answers our prayers, and with faith we can do miracles.

On Sunday President Holland came for a devotional...not Elder Holland in the quorum, but his son.  He's the president of UVU, and is a super good speaker, almost as good as his father.  He spoke on Joseph Smith and the restoration, and it was a super good talk, the spirit was so strong.  And then after he was done we watched Ephraim's Rescue, which was actually pretty weird watching not gonna lie because we never watch movies, but it's a super good pioneer story and it was tres chouette.

We had a skype TRC (trc is a lesson with a member that is native or fluent in French), and it was someone from Paris.  It was a super good lesson, and I was surprised by how well we could understand her and she could understand us.  The gift of tongues is really haha

Elder Anderson came on Tuesday for the devotional.  Two super good speakers in a row!  We are so blessed here haha.  He gave a great talk about missionary work, and the biggest thing that stood out to me was the advice "Be clean, Be obedient, and Be busy."  The first two are relatively easy, the rules are plain and simple.  But being busy comes down to us.  We are here on the Lord's time, not on our own.  Every minute needs to be spend doing something that will help build Zion and bring people to Christ, and when we do that we are blessed.

I love you all!

Elder McQuiston

Most of my zone at our nightly singing 

 My tags, French and Tahitian

With some of my friends at the MTC

Salut famille!

Happy Birthday Mom and Ty!  You're gonna be driving next week Ty haha that's crazy!  Don't total Lefty still tu plait, I've made too many good memories in there hah. Je blag you'll be fine.

Well life here as a zone leader is definitely a lot more crazy!  It's super weird having a phone on me all day, even tho it can only call the front desk haha.  We have to run around all over the place to tell all the missionaries stuff and have them call the front desk when needed and stuff.  We have to make the agenda for sacrament meeting and the assignments for priesthood each Sunday for our zone, which is like almost 70 people.  We also have to interview all of the district leaders every week, and give them counsel as needed.  There's also some other little stuff we have to do, but pretty much what sums up zone leader is a ton more responsibility, and absolutely no power hahaha.  But the craziest thing for sure was on Wednesday when we had to do an hour and a half orientation and tour for the 30 new missionaries in our zone, that was super crazy and important, hopefully we did a good job haha.

Yah that's super sad about Conner, keep him in your prayers and let me know how he's doing if you find anything out.  It was hard saying goodbye to the 46 missionaries this week, they've all been great examples and it felt so empty here without them until Wednesday.  Hopefully we can get to know all the new missionaries as well as the old ones, and hopefully we can still take them in soccer. (Tahiti DC never loses hahaha)

Hosting was super sweet on Wednesday, I got to host an elder from England that's going to Paris and is in our zone, and he's super chill and like 2 years older than me haha.  But after that I waited pretty much the whole rest of the time to see if I could get any of my friends, and at the very end of the time I was lucky enough to get Elder Skonnard, which was super cool and I'm sure it was comforting for his parents haha.

The French is coming along awesome, at least for me and a few more elders.  You can tell how the gift of tongues works according to faith and diligence for sure.  Besides me and Elder Bradshaw there's only a few more elders in our zone that will PVL (parlor vote langue), and will study their hardest during the study times, and there's quite a difference in our French verses theirs.  But hopefully they figure it out, or it'll be a hard couple years haha.

Love you all!

Elder McQuiston

 Just a buch of "nerdy" Elders

 class

 My new glasses and Elder Bradshaw

My comp's an artist

Elder McQuiston and Elder Skonnard

Fammm

Hey everyone!

Well somehow we're already the zone leaders here...Don't know how that happened haha.  Probably everybody else said no first ro something.  But yah looks like whatever French I already knew is all I'm learning because we have to do a bunch of other stuff haha...oh well tho.

The MTC is awesome, especially after you get in the flow of things.  After like a week or so the schedule is almost the same everyday, and you can just pound out the studying without having  to worry about too much. And also I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention that last week Elder Bednar made a surprise visit after the devotional on Sunday, and did a Q and A about the character of Christ.  It was super super cool, and I was like on the fifth row, so close to him haha.  If you've seen like pictures of him or anything that's pretty much what he looks like if you were wondering...

Yah well like 30 of the 70 missionaries in our zone are leaving on Monday, including the other Tahitian Elders...so it's gonna be sad to see them go.  I've gotten to know them pretty good, they'll be awesome missionaries.  And then on Wednesday we're getting another like 30 more, and we have to do like an orientation and welcome them and everything...no problem haha.

Thanks for all the prayers and support!

Elder McQuiston