Bonjour tout let monde!

There wasn't a ton that went down this week, so sorry for the kinda short email haha.  For the most part we just do a ton of contacting, and try and reteach as many of the people we contact as we can.  It's hard the work here, but we just do our best.  My least favorite thing that I hear here is Kaikai Meitai! It means bon appetite in Marquesan.  They eat soo much food here...I don't know how in the world they do it haha.  But I swear it's gonna be the death of me.  

On Wednesday we had a family dinner over at Louis' house, after a super busy day.  Elder Isabell was like dead tired after dinner, but he wanted to teach the lesson anyways.  It was super funny, he was dead tired and teaching a message that made no sense, in super bad French.  Louis on the other hand, was gone.  Out cold hahaha.  That left Louis' wife, a super nice mama, with French as her third language, trying her best to make some sort of sense of the lesson.  And then there was me, just cracking up hahaha it was so funny.

On Thursday we ended up teaching 2 teeming Jehovah's, how do you say that...Jehovahs witnesses?  And 4 Adventists...That one I have no idea what the English equivalent is.  But all of the temiogn and adventists are super stubborn, so those lessons were super tough haha.  

Friday was a super cool day.  Except for lunch.  We went over to Sr R's house, because her husband who had been training in France for 6 months just got back.  he made us Fafaru, probably the  most disgusting food on the planet.  They take a rotten fish, and let it sit for a week or so.  Then they take a fresh fish, and pour the juice from the rotten fish on it, and let is soak in for a couple days.  Super super gross, and it smells like straight rotten eggs.  But supposedly it's pretty popular in Tahiti.  After that we had a soiree familial in Taipivai.  Our DMB took us over there, but he took the whole family too, so there wasn't enough room in the truck.  So he threw some seat in the back of the truck, and we rode on that all the way over the mountain haha it was super fun.  The family night also went super good, we had a bunch of amis and inactive that came.  

Church also went super good, we had the primary program.  There were 7 amis there!  After church we had like a huge feast, and someone brought an enormous chocolate cake.  And we completely devoured all of it, all of the food was completely gone haha super funny.

Well I guess it wasn't that short after all hahaha...But I love you all, have a great week!

Elder McQuiston

Raw turtle and centipede's

How's it going everybody?  Everything's still going great here in Nuku Hiva!  We are pretty upset at the assistants tho, they didn't send us any of our stuff on the boat apparently, which means we have to wait like another month to get any of our stuff.. Mais c'est pas grave, we can make our last 3 book of mormons last a month, I guess. haha

On Tuesday we came to the bishopric meeting again, and it was so frustrating haha.  Everyone knows what the problems are and stuff, but no one wants to take the initiative to do like anything haha.  But there's not much we can do about that.  When it comes down to it we can do everything we can, but everyone has their agency, which is the story of the mission.  That night we had a super super good dinner with on of our investigators.  She made us like this three course meal with AMAZING poisson cru, sooo good.  Raw fish might sound gross, but this stuff is so good, even dad would love it.  You'll see when we come back to visit after my mission haha I'll get all of you eating fish.

We had a formation on Saturday that we made on missionary work, because there are a lot of members that want to help, but they don't know how.  So for Friday  we didn't plan any lessons, so we could go around to all the members, active and inactive an get them to our formation.  And it worked! We had a ton of people at the formation, people that we haven't ever seen at church before.  And it went really really well, all the members loved it and they were getting so into it haha.

Saturday morning we were in Taipivai and Hoomi.  And I was so dead haha, Elder Isabell got us three lunches.  I could not eat anything, I was about to explode.  But our third meal was definitely turtle, which actually wasn't too bad.  But it's interdit (not allowed) we found out after the fact, so we probably won't be eating too much of that I'm guessing.  It was pretty gross tho looking at my plate and seeing raw turtle flesh and bones haha.  Anyways.

Yesterday church went great and we had some great lessons and food.  But at our dinner appointment, on of the ladies yelled lift up your feet!  I raised mine up and looked down, and a huge centipede flew under my feet.  Super lucky, because centipedes are like the only dangerous thing here, and they are massive and bite everything.  It's probably inevitable that I'll get bit at some point, because everywhere is super open and we always take our shoes off everywhere, and sleep with our doors open  But anyways no problem!

Until next week!

Elder McQuiston

Kaoha!

The Marquesan is coming, slowly but surely.  Our ami with a baptism date Karen is  still progressing, and we're picking up the work here and getting a lot more amis.  

On Tuesday we did a lot of contacting without a ton of success, and had some lessons as well with our progressing investigators.  We also came to the branch presidency meeting, and we found out that we need our church attendance to be around 80 if we want a real chapel, and it's around 35-40 right now, so we have a lot of work to do for sure, and that's the goal of like all the members here, to get a real chapel.

On Wednesday we had a similar day, just taught a ton of lessons, and we taught english in Taipivai, which we do every Wednesday.  On Thursday we had a bunch of lessons again, but we needed a ride to take us to one of our investigators that lives pretty far away, and nobody could.  We decided to call our inactive dumb (diligent de mission de branche (branch mission leader)), and he got super excited and gave us a ride.  We went over to his house yesterday to talk about him being the dmb, and he got super excited and told us all these stories about when he used to be active as a dumb, and decided he wants to be active again and help us out.  He said he'll give us a whole day every week and drive us to Hatiheu or Aakapa every week, which is super dope we're way excited!

Mais sinon jeudi et vendredi were pretty normal as well, more lessons, contacting, stuff like that.  Except for Friday night, we had a pizza night with a nonmember family, and they taught us how to make pizza, which was way fun.

Saturday we spent most of the day in Taipivai, did some contacting and filled up our water.  We met this inactive member named rocky, and asked him if there was anything we could do for him, and he thought for a second and told us he wants us to teach him and his nonmember family the lessons, and that his brother was a bishop at Moorea.  We're super excited to head back over there and hopefully ca va bien passer.  We also gave Karen a blessing on our return, because she's heading to Tahiti for a little bit for medical reasons, which was a super cool experience.

On Sunday we only had 20 people at church!  Which was understandable because we had 4 families out of town, but still we should've had more than that.  La sainte scene is definitely our area of focus this week.  After church we went to an inactive member Jeff's house for his birthday party, and there were a ton of nonmembers there.  The food was like this grilled chicken and beef, and it was AMAZING, like one of the best meals I've ever had, so good.  We also played werewolf in French with them, which was way fun as well.

Well that's pretty much all for this week, I love you all and talk to you next week!

Elder McQuiston

The Quay of Taiohae bay 

The Petite Quay 

Some wild Horses 

The ceremonial thing in Taipivai where they did their cannibal stuff

Me with my bike as we headed down the mountain into Taiohae 

at an amazing viewpoint ofTaiohae 

A pic of the mountain with Elder Isabell in it haha 

The Taipivai Catholic church 

 The Tapivai Beach

Week 3 in Nuku Hiva

We had a super crazy week this week, tons of ups and downs.  Conference was super super good, definitely a highlight.  It didn't work well at first, it cut a ton, but we ended up getting it to work pretty good.  And one of the members brought their order here, so we got to watch it in English in the brace president's office, super nice haha.

Last day we just kinda relaxed, after emails we just went back to the house and relaxed and did some cleaning and stuff.  I had to make a new planner, which is crazy I'm already on planner 3!  (they last 6 weeks)  But my planner is pretty chill not gonna lie haha.  We have to reinforce them with cardboard and a cool picture from the liana or something and tape or else they get soaked through with sweat, which is pretty gross actually but hey no problem.

On Mardi we had like the worst day ever.  The boat arrived, which is called the Aranui, and it is half cargo and half cruise ship.  It's like the only way for people here to get anything, so like everyone has their family in Tahiti send them stuff on it, and a lot of people work with the tourists or whatever.  But in anywise, every one of our amis and members inactive cancelled their lessons, and nobody was home all day!  So there was basically nothing we could do all day, frustrating haha.  But on the bright side, I finally got my suitcases and my bike, so I actually have my clothes and stuff now!

The next three days went super well after that.  Merced we had a ton of lessons and did some contacting.  And then on Jeudi, we finally broke the streak here in Nuku Hiva!  For the first time in a year here, we have an investigator with a baptismal date set!  Her name is Karen, and although she's got a long way to go, she has the desire and knows that it's true.  We just have to keep her progressing, and make sure that she doesn't cancel.  And also that day, one of our amis that we've been doing lessons with that lives on Ua Huka, another island in our secteur said she wants to be baptized too, she just needs to talk with her mari about a date.  So that means we're gonna be taking a trip to Ua Huka for a week or so sometime next month, which should be super fun.  And then a week after that we'll probably head over to Ua Pou for another week, so Nov/Dec should be crazy.  It's crazy to think that there is only two missionaries, at Hiva Oa, within about 4 hours of flying distance from us.  

Saturday was pretty much all conference, and Sunday after conference we did some contacting and found some really good potential amis.

Pretty solid week, everything's super chill here in the Marquises, the word I have to use more than like anything is Moana, which means I'm full haha because they feed us so much.Anyways love you all, until next week!

Elder McQuiston

Me eating Lobster or something like that 

Me on my bike on our deck with my super funny helmet 

The best juice in the world, I'll never get tired of drinking that stuff 

Me drinking my juice in our house that is way too nice for us haha 

This is the planner I made for the next 6 weeks

Kaoha, meitai

I'm loving life in the Marquises! We had a super good week this week!  We saw a lot of progression with our investigators, and taught a ton of lessons.  We had a few really good lessons with the branch here as well, and hopefully we should be able to do a lot more splits and get a lot more references.

On Monday we had a super super fun pday...We went  fishing with the Bonno's, a non pracitquant famille.  We drove like 30 minutes to this secluded empty beach, but the water was super high there so we could' fish there.  So we hiked around the mountain basically in the ocean and got completely drenched from head to toe cuz the ocean was so crazy and splashing everywhere.  Free Bonno went insane, and was flying over the rocks killing crabs, super funny.  Then we were fishing, and all of a sudden Frere Bonno jumps in the water with his rod and starts fishing in the middle of the ocean, I have no idea what he was thinking haha he's crazy.  That night we had a faatamaaraa with one of our investigators Kevin, which was super weird cuz he's like the only American here at Nuku Hiva, and we just taught him in English.  He's a super good cook, and made us Spaghetti, a nice break from straight poisson haha. 

There's a ton a reyreys here, which is the Tahitian word for transvestites.  We have some that live on the botton floor of our house, and they invited us over for lunch on Wednesday.  It was super super weird, cuz they both kinda look like girls, but when they talk it's super low and manly.

On Friday we went to go on a split with Frere Hokusai, and when we got there he asked if we had dinner plans, and we told him no. He then asked us if we wanted dog or pig for dinner, which he had killed earlier that week.  We said pig haha and he went inside and came back out with a actual pig leg, with everything but the fur and went and threw it in the sink to defrost.  Then after splits we came back and he prepared it frolic two hours while we just sat there, listening to him and his wife yell at each other over the stupidest stuff.  Bad situation.  Then after all that the food was mediocre at best, and we hustled and ate and left.

On Saturday we were a t Frere Louis' house, our most recent convert here in the branch, although it's been like 8 months or something since his baptism.  We were eating this homemade ice cream sort of stuff out of these small plastic cups, and mine suddenly exploded, and drenched my shirt orange.  Super funny haha it was so bad.  But it's all good I have two more shirts...And we're hoping my suitcases come around Tuesday, but no one really knows haha.

Kotanui everyone, je vous aime!

Elder McQuiston

 Frere Boono fishing in the middle of the ocean

The view form Frere Louis's house 

Our Chapel 

Me waiting for church to start

I'm in the Marquesas!

Kaoha!

It's Marquesan now!  My first sector is Nuku Hiva, and my companion is Elder Isabell.  He's from Arkansas, and has been here for over a year.  His French is super good, which is super helpful for me to learn.  For the most part it's 100% French that I hear and speak all day.  The people here speak like the worst French ever haha it's so hard to understand.  Especially all the papa's' (grandpa's), they speak like super gruff low and lazy all the time.  The women are a lot easier to understand, they speak a lot better for the most part.  There is a lot of Marquesan that I don't understand, although it is really similar to Tahitian, but I'm not gonna worry about that until I'm a little better at French, probably in a few weeks or so.  The food here is super super good, fish and rice every meal for the most part.  The water isn't clean to drink, but there is like a spring where everyone fills up all of their water bottles that's supposedly clean (finger's crossed), and that's all we drink.  The population here is somewhere around 3,000 and we're the only two missionaries on this island.   There's also 2 missionaries on Hiva Oa, another Marquesan Island, and that's it for the Marquesan missionaries.  Normally when missionaries get sent here, because it's so different, they stay for like 4-8 months, so I'm betting I'll end up staying here for a long time.  It's hard because it's one of the most difficult sectors in the mission, the people here aren't nearly as receptive to the church or the missionaries, and the branch here is super small.  Idk how many members there are here, but there are about 30-35 active members.  We don't have a branch mission president (branch mission leader), which makes it super hard for us to get things done and use the branch.  But c'est pas grave!  We'll figure out how to make things work here haha.  I don't have my suitcases with all my stuff in them, they send them by boat.  So I'm living off of like 2 shirts and 2 garments hahaha but no problem.

Tuesday:  the plane flight over here was super long, but it wasn't too bad because we could sleep for some of it.  I read a talk while I was on the airplane, The fourth missionary by Lawrence E. Corbridge.  It is probably my favorite talk I have ever read, definitely mission changing and life changing as well.  It is focused on missionaries, but I encourage you guys to read it because you can for sure get things out of it.  Especially Ty, you need to read it before you leave on your mission haha.  We had a nice welcome at the airport by a bunch of zl's, the ap's, and a senior couple, bearing tons of necklaces.

Wednesday:  We all slept at different al's houses that night, and headed over to the President's house in the morning.  We had instruction and ate a bunch of food all day, and it was super fun.  After that we found out where we were all serving and who our companions were.  Because Elder Isabell was already here, I was on a split with the al's of faaa that night.

Thursday:  In the morning I had a flight at 6am.  I flew through Hiva Oa, we stopped there for about 40 minutes for the airplane to refuel, then flew to Nuku Hiva.  The plane was super small, and the airports were sooo small.  Elder Isabell was there on arrival, and we drove with one of the members for about an hour to one of the only cities here, Taiohae, where we live.  Our house is the most beautiful house in the whole mission, we're super super lucky.  We have really nice furniture, and such a pretty view of the ocean from our porch.  We taught a few lessons that day as well as Friday, which wen't alright, and our investigators are making some decent progression.

Saturday:We drove to Taipivai and fill up our like 50 huge water bottle with Frere Coco and his wife, an old couple that is super super helpful here and most of the support we get comes from them.  They feed us a lot and give us rides everywhere haha.  Then Sunday was church and we did some contacting that night as well, without any huge success.

The work is pretty slow here in Nuku Hiva as it is, which means there's lots of room to improve.  I really like Elder Isabell a lot, and we're like the first obedient missionaries here ever, I swear, all the members and inactive members and stuff keep asking us to do stuff like watch  movies and play poker and stuff, and they told us that all the other missionaries have done that in the past, all these traditions and stuff that we're not putting up with haha.  But don't get me wrong, I love it here so much, probably the prettiest place I've ever seen, the only thing comparable being Interlaken.

Je vous aime beaucoup!

Elder McQuiston

The house I stayed at the first night in Tahiti 

View from the first house I stayed at 

 A Chinese temple in Papeete

The mission home and all of our luggage!

The Temple in Papeete 

 At the Mission Home

 The small airplane I flew on to my first area

 The small airport

 another picture of the airport

 A few from our Island

 Me and Elder Isabel

 A view from our island

 Another view from our island

 The view from our house

A spider I found at our home

I'm in Tahiti!!

Elder McQuiston flew out to Tahiti Tuesday, Sept. 16th. We haven't received an email from him or his Mission President yet, but I did get these pictures off of his Mission President's Facebook page.  Grateful they take the time to post these pictures!  

Deep in thought :) 

All the new missionaries 

 First taste of Tahitian food

 The mission home

Some of my district at the mission home  

 Being picked up at the airport

My Batch at the airport