Semaine de transferts...Nana Elder Isabell

Well this week we got the news that Elder Isabell is being transferred to Faaa, he's gong to be the new zone leader there.  This week was an enormous transfer, they balanced out the elders and sisters in all of the zones, which means that like a third of the areas were whitewashed.  And at least half of the zone leaders were transferred as well.  My new companion is Elder Boyd, he was the zone leader of Arue at Tahiti.  He started his mission at the same time as Elder Isabell, and is from Highland Utah I believe.  The transfer is tomorrow, so early tomorrow morning we'll head over to the airport, to send off Elder Isabell and pick up Elder Boyd.  It'll be super weird changing things up around here, but I'm excited for the things that I'll learn from my new companion.

This week was a little bit slow because Elder Isabell was still sick the beginning of the week, and the last couple days we went and said bye to everyone and took pictures with them, but we had a decent week despite all that.

Wednesday:  We did a lot of planning, and tried to fix some lessons for the next few days.  We also had a lesson with Karen, which was super annoying... She straight up said she knows the story of Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon are true, but she says our church is "just another church"...

Thursday: Nothing really noteworthy...besides a little lesson we learned hahaha.  So we were a the chapel, which as you're leaving there's a little corner and then a little hill.  We were a little late for our dinner appointment, and we were getting ready to leave.  I was putting on my helmet, meanwhile Elder Isabell was already ready.  He said, "we're late we gotta go!"  And head doff before I was ready.  I hopped on my bike and headed after him, and when I rounded the corner he was laying on the ground...hahaha  pretty funny i rode up and asked him if he was tired or something...luckily he didn't get hurt or anything.  But lesson learned, don't leave before your companion haha.

Friday:  We fixed Melodie's baptismal date...She's also at Ua Huka, and so we will just baptize her whenever we finally plan the trip for, as well as all of our other investigators who have their baptisms fixed at Ua Huka.  As of right now, there are five over there.  I'm a little scared that the trip won't be until after I get transferred...But I guess what happens happens, and at least they'll be baptized anyways, which is what is important.

Saturday and Sunday were our goodbye days, we went around and saw all of our friends here at Nuku Hiva.  We had 40 people at church on Sunday, which was awesome, especially  because they were almost all members.  The branch is really starting to pick up, a lot of people have become worthy enough to get callings, and we have a lot of inactive members that are coming to church every week now.  But there is definitely still more work to be done.

That's if for this week!  Thanks for all your prayers!  I love you all, et simon, until next week.

Elder McQuiston
Pics:  The family Butcher, us with the boys, the family Ah Scha and the family Ellis

Ua Huka part 2nd trip

Bonjour la famille!  Sorry I'm a day late, but we got permission to move our day back a day because we didn't get back from Ua Huka until this morning.

So first things first, my neck got absolutely destroyed when we went fishing last week, and it erupted the next day into blisters, which was way painful.  I got permission from Sr. Bize to leave my top button undone for a few days, because  if not I'm pretty sure I woulda lost all the skin on my neck.  We had to go on a hunt for some special lotion that is supposed to help it on Wednesday, and finally found it at some little pharmacy.  Not super fun...so message of the story is, wear your sunscreen when going fishing haha.

Side not on Tuesday we also had a lesson with a JW, and he kept ranting off about stuff during the whole lesson...so we ended up just having to kind of throw the lesson and bear our testimonies and leave.  And then during the middle of Elder Isabell's testimony the JW cut him off and starting going off about Atlantis, so we just said screw it and got out of there haha.   I wonder where that comes from.

Thursday morning we set out super early for Ua Huka.  The boat left at 5:30 in the morning, because supposedly the ocean is calmer in the morning.  Au contraire.  The ocean was crazy and the waves were huge and we were in this tiny fishing boat...it was so dope.  The boat ride was about 2 and a half hours, we got there around 8ish.

It turns out that there was a ton of opposition at Ua Huka.  The Catholic priest got way scared because of the baptism that we did the last trip, and dedicated a mass to bashing our church.  He told the people a ton of lies, for example that we pay people to get baptized and stuff like that, to try and scare people away from talking to us.  All of the active Catholic's believed hi, and tried their best to make it difficult on us.  All the inactive Catholics were curious why they did that, and basically flocked to us, we were like celebrities there, everyone talked to us and we did a ton of lessons, and even fixed a few more baptisms, which was incredible.  Those people literally know nothing other than the Catholic religion, which is super corrupt over there.  We tried to talk to one of the deacons, but he wouldn't talk with us because he was too scared that he "couldn't answer our questions, because he doesn't know the bible well enough".

Church went super well as well.  We had almost 40 people there, on an island with only 4 members.  We had our district leader there with us, as well as one of the branch presidency members, and they were in charge of the meeting luckily haha.  They gave callings to all of the sisters, and did some baby blessings as well.  We did a fast and testimony meeting, and the spirit was super strong, the people were really touched.

Well there's a lot more that happened this week, but frankly I'm done writing so I'll just leave it that.  Until next week

Elder McQuiston

Pic's of the baptism in Ua Huka and the boat ride over.

Bamboo fishing...

Bonjour tout le monde, 

Sorry I'm so late today, we went fishing this morning and it took pretty much the whole day.  It was super fun and we caught a ton of fish, even though they were all tiny.  Which was probably cuz we were fishing with a bamboo stick and a string just as long.

So first of all my new mission president got called, and this is the information President Bize sent us about him:  To avoid the rumors of Radio Cocotree and for your information, the new mission president who will come in July has been called.  They are Steven R. Fox and his wife Debra L. Fox.  They live in Provo, Utah.  Steve R. Fox teaches at BYU and has been Director of the Entrepreneurship and Technology program for two years.  Previously, he spent 18 years with Microsoft in Seattle.  President Fox served a full-time mission in the French mission of Paris from 1979 to 1981.  He has a license from BYU and an MBA from Harvard.  They have 5 adult children.

And just so you all know we're headed out on Thursday for Ua Huka on boat.  We have had a ton of struggles planning this trip, but we're hoping that everything is good and we'll make it there and back haha.

Funny story of the week...so last week I told you a little bit about Teahi, the 11 year old member that is super cool, one of my amis here.  He's a little out of shape as I think I mentioned.  On our way back from the hike we were on bike, and just as we got to the top of this hill we look back and to our surprise Teahi was still at the bottom, walking his bike up.  We rode back down and when we got down to him, he told us, panting, "when I am a missionary, it's by foot for me." Hahaha guess we worked him a little bit.

We had some trials this week.  The first one I kinda mentioned, planning for our trip.  It's been super rough, we've had multiple 15 minute phone calls and having to go visit people making sure everything will go well, and people lying to us blatantly...Super unnecessary and frustrating that we have to do all that.  We also had a problem with skype, we had to cancel all of our lessons over skype Tuesday and Wednesday because a member of the branch presidency said he had important branch business to do.  come to find out we forgot something at the church, and when we showed up he was playing video games on the computer...

Also this is kind of a trial but morso just funny.  One of us locked the bathroom door, but never shut it.  And then later in the day, the wind blew it closed, locking it.  We tried carding/breaking into our bathroom unsuccessfully for like half an hour, and man I needed to go.  We ended up having to call our land owner to come bring us the keys and let me out of my misery haha.

On the brighter side, we fixed a baptismal date of an investigator names Steven this week, for the 18th of Fevrier.  He's super cool, is 19, and wants to be baptized before he heads out to join the army.

We also had a branch party this week, for kind of a Christmas/New Years mix.  It went super good, we ended up having more investigators there than members.  We played a lot of games, and ate super well like always.

Well I think that about sums up this week...Hopefully I get the chance to email next week, it might end up being Tuesday instead, we'll see.  Love you all!

Elder McQuiston

Pic:  There's some of the branch party, some of fishing and also a pic of my way hot keen tanned feet

Joyeus Noel!

Merry Christmas everyone!  It was super fun to see all of you, and I'm so glad that everyone's doing great!  It was nice seeing a little bit of Christmas spirit haha cuz there's like none here.  And dad, don't worry the pinapo is on it's way.

Dylan's baptism was on Saturday, which was super cool.  He was confirmed yesterday, as well as ordained to the office of priest.  He's awesome, and it's really cool to see someone come into the fold.  Two more investigators fixed their baptismal dates this week, which was dope, if you're obedient blessings come.

We did a little bit of a secret santa that I told you all about yesterday, which was also really cool.  The smiles that lit up the people's faces made me so happy.  The people here don't have a lot, and they didn't have any other Christmas gifts for their kids.  Giving is what Christmas is all about, and it was really fun to spread some happiness.

We tried the hike again this morning, but this time we brought our guide, to make sure we didn't get lost.  His name is Teahi, a super funny 11 year old.  He talked nonstop the entire hike haha funny kid.  It was a sweet hike, and the view at the top was way pretty.

I don't have too much else to say this week, so happy new year!

Elder McQuiston

Pictures:  Dylan's baptism, with our branch president, and branch mission leader
some pictures with the kids we gave present to
Some pics from the hike

week: weird Marquisien relationships

Kaoha mes chères amis et ma famille bien-aime haha.

Merry Christmas everyone!  This week was my busiest week on the mission by far... We have a ton of investigators and teach them all like 3 times a week, and they're all progressing fairly quickly for the most part.

Hmm k Tuesday I finally finished the huge French study book they gave us at the MTC, so I've moved on to start studying Marquisien and Tahitian.  We had some solid lessons as well, and met a guy that is the brother of one of our members.  He is all wrapped up and in tons of pain, because  he was climbing some coconut tree and then the bottom of the tree caught on fire, and he caught on fire before jumping off and breaking his wrist and some ribs....Super sad.

Wednesday we couldn't find a ride over to Hooumi, so we had someone take us and our bikes up to the top of the mountain in between Taiohae and Hooumi.  It was a super fun ride down, we were flying...Probably not the safest thing but what can you do.  After our split at Hooumi with a newly reactivated member we headed back chez nous to the chapel.  We had a lesson with Carla, a 16 year old investigator at Ua Huka over Skype.  She's super cool, and had a super cool experience.  She prayed to find out if the Book of Mormon is true, and felt the spirit super strong, even brought her to tears.  She wants to be baptized, the only problem is that she's living with someone...at 16 years old!! That's the first weird relationship.

The other day...Friday I think we were playing soccer in the backyard with a member, just juggling and such.  Then his mom came out and we started chatting with her... which is when we found out the second weird relationship.  When she was 17 her husband had a kid with someone "very close to her", and then he left that person and got married to her.  Then she told us who the first person was...her sister!  What in the world...and turns out her sister is one of our investigators!  The relationships here are so messed up...and the kid is now 16 and is pregnant living with someone who is 21.  Weird stuff.

Well normally we have a baptism this weekend, but he's not sure if he wants to make the decision to follow the parole de sages, so we're hoping all goes well and he'll get baptized Saturday.  But we'll see.  That's pretty much all for this week...I love you all, until next week!

Elder McQuiston

Pic's:  A pic of me from a viewpoint on the way down to Hooumi, I love my helmet...Also if you look really close you can see some houses in the background...yep that's Hooumi.  And you can actually see the house we went to, if I was there I'd probably show you which one,  Hmm what was the third one... A pic of Taiohae I'm guessing?  The fourth was us with one of our dope Marquisien friends.

Beloved loved ones in a far far away land

Bonjour tout le monde!

We had a dope week this semaine, fixed two baptismal dates and almost died on some hike that turns out wasn't a hike and we found ourselves lost in some thick plants that were like head height way in the mountains this morning.

Alright d'abord Tuesday...actually I changed my mind I don't want to do a day by day.  Well sometime during the week we found two of our ancient amis and had a super good lesson with them both.  We talked about their goals, and then talked about what we can do and what they need to do to accomplish those goals, and they both recommitted themselves to keep their commitments and read the book of mormon.

We also did like 10 lessons over Skype this week with our amis on the other island, and we fixed the baptismal date for one of them!  So we're in the process of planning our next trip over there, which we hope will be the 3rd to the 10th of January.

Our other baptismal date was with the older brother of Kua, our recent convert.  He's 16, and was super touched by his sisters baptism.  When we had our first lesson with him, we found out that he had already fixed his baptism date for the 24th, which is tp we didn't have to do like anything, merci Seigneur.

We also did a split with our recently activated member Fr. Ah-Scha at Hooumi, a little valley like 45 minutes away by car.  It went super well, he used to be a ward mission leader a t Tahiti, and knew what he was doing.  He kept going off in Marquisien, and got all the amis we saw to promise they'd read the book or mormon and pray about it.

On Wednesday we found a new investigator names Steven, the nephew of one of the  members, who has 19 years.  He is way cool and our lesson went super well, and he said he already knows that it's true.  But that's just a side note.  The real story is he made us take a bunch of peppers off of their pepper plant.  When we got home I decided to pop one in my mouth, and turns out it's extremely hot and it destroyed my mouth, esophagus, and eventually my stomach.  45 minutes later I was still sweating and in burning pain laying on the tile.  I decided I'm gonna try and build a tolerance for them, eat one every week until they don't effect me anymore.

Sunday I played the piano and got wrecked, Sweet of prayer was my only saving grace.  But all the members were like astonished because nobody plays the piano on like the whole island, and there's like hardly anyone that knows how to read music either.  So yah they're making play every week from now on.

D'accord bon semaine tout le monde, je vous aime!

Elder McQuiston

Pictures:  The first one is probably the weirdest thing I've ever seen, we saw a horse on some shortcut we were on, and it was wearing a flip flop hahaha.  And then some pictures from our hike this morning, and a rock.

Watch out, I gotta deadly weapon!

Alright first of all thanks so much for the Christmas packageQ  That was a super nice surprise on Tuesday, and yep I couldn't wait for Christmas so I opened it a month in advance haha.  Thanks so much for the cards from everyone, and thanks mom and Emerie for the gifts, you guys are the best.  We got the news that me and Elder Isabell will be staying here for the next transfer at least, so I'll be here at Nuku Hiva for Christmas.

This week we put our new plan of really focusing on the members into action, with lots of success!  Already we have a few really solid investigators, and we had a baptism on Saturday!  We also reactivated a few members, and we've started to work with other members.

The baptism was super top, Kua is awesome and I'm impressed with her strength, in a town where she is one of the only members, at 14 years old.  She was confirmed on Sunday by Elder Isabell.  We found out 5 minutes before primary that we were going to be teaching it, which was a big surprise.  The kids are insane, and man do I feel for the primary teachers, I was fearing for my life at the end of church.  After church we had another lesson with Kua, and while we were there our DMB found his pain keyboard and gave it to us, so looks like I'm the new ward pianist, and I'm going to be practicing a ton at the house this week.

Today we had a super crazy day, which is why I don't have a ton of time, sorry everyone.  But I did find a super dope cassette, which I had to buy.  I'll send the pics.  We also gave a benediction to Roland, a man here that is paralyzed from a  car accident, who has a ton of faith and wants to be healed.  We gave him a blessing, which was a super cool experience, and the spirit was super strong.  By the end of the blessing, he began to be abel to move both of his eyes and see close up, and his mouth was working a lot better.   I know that the priesthood is the power of God, and that by our faith we can accomplish miracles.

I love you all, talk to you next week!

Elder McQuiston

This is the cassette I bought (bread-head), probably the dopest thing I've ever seen, and a huge part of the culture here, they were the weapons of the natives.  I had to buy it because it was the best priced cassette I've seen, and it was a pap I know who made it....Anyways yah watch out I got a deadly weapon 

 Pictures from the baptism

 A bellevedaire

Me with some water behind me