Hello everyone, elder Makinsane dropping in for a quick update from Tahaa. We had a pretty good week today, it started out a little rough but ended up coming around great at the end.
Most important things first, I'll give you a quick update on my good friend Jean Claude. He's probably my favorite investigator that I've taught, he has enormous faith. He told us that if he prays and talks to God face to face he would change religions, but wouldn't in any other case. I really am inspired by his unconditional trust and love. In his words, "we cannot trust the spirit, because the earth is spinning on an axis, and we are on the earth, and there are evil and good spirits spinning around our hearts constantly." What profound counsel. I would like all of you to ponder about that quote, and if anyone could interpret it I'd like to know what it means.
I decided I love training, it's so fun. The funniest things happen like everyday. For example, yesterday during our faatamaaraa, we were with a family of like 6. For some reason the family was trying to explain the words to slap and to hit in Tahitian to Elder Kerr. He wasn't understanding anything. So they all started acting it out and talking at the same time, and Elder Kerr was so scared just looking around at everyone with no understanding. I probably should have bailed him out, but I was laughing too hard it was too funny.
On a more serious note, we did see some miracles this week. I'd like to bring the family Mousing of 6 back up. We had another lesson this week, the first one for a couple of weeks Fr. Mousing wasn't really interested in our message, but a few days ago her had a feeling come over him to pick up the book of mormon. He started reading it in the evening, and was so enthralled in the book that he didn't see the time pass, and read all the way through the night until dawn. He had a list full of questions for us, and was super interested in our message. He wants us to stop by as frequent as possible. Yesterday part of the family came to church for the first time, and loved it. That was a super cool experience, one that you like find in the Liahona. I have a super big testimony of the book of mormon, and we need to read that book every day to be able to combat the difficulties of our life and to always have the spirit with us.
I love you all! Have a great week, hold to the iron rod!
Elder McQuiston
Pics:
A wild pig we found wandering around not tied up, a pic of the protestant church, the marriage that we went to, the chapel 10 minutes after our meeting was suppose to start and a pic of our chapel.
I had a pretty good week this week. Tuesday I went on a split with Elder Taylor, which was way fun we had some way good times, and some good laughs. Kinda funny, we were contacting a reference and I was sharing the first vision, and then I asked Elder Taylor to explain what Jesus responded to Joseph Smith, and turns out he was zoning out and said, "uhhh...idk" hahaha pretty funny, not the response I was expecting. We had some pretty good lessons tho, and Elder Taylor didn't have his bike yet so he was on this bright pink beach cruiser and almost went down a few times, funny stuff.
We started teaching this family of 6, and they are progressing nicely, yesterday they went and took their names out of the protestant church. I think that I might ask president to let me stay another transfer if they keep progressing, they are pretty cool.
Thursday we had a way funny lesson with this Adventist named Jean Claude. He is like the most sincere lesson, and the lesson went way good actually, the spirit was way strong and he was loving it. It came to the prayer, which I gave. All of a sudden during the prayer I hear this "mmmmmm, aaaamen." I resisted any laughter and continued, and then it came out again. and again. He amened my prayer 6 times haha, so funny. I love Jean Claude. But yah that was pretty much our joke for the week at the house.
I'll skip to Sunday where I was asked to help with the genealogy fireside for Tahaa. Luckily the Lord had me serve as a consultant before the mission, that way I was able to help those people who haven't mentioned family history for years apparently.
This Morning we went to the Motu with Fr. Tehiva, which was so much fun. He took us on a tour of a huge villa that a Canadian billionaire is building, the owner of one of the hotels here. So pretty...
I love you all!
Elder McQuiston
pic's: a picture of our fridge and a Tahitian interpretation of my name haha, picture of Motu with Fr. Tehiva, and more pictures of cuz Tahiti is dope.
la ora na home!
I had such a good week this week, between the super good conference, and the new son and grandson.
So last Monday we spent pretty much the whole day rearranging the house to make room for two more elders, getting them beds and somewhere to put their clothes and stuff. I also worked for a while on my bike, that thing has definitely seen some better days, it is barely rolling. And then Tuesday we just had a fairly normal day, we went and saw a bunch of investigators.
On Wednesday we headed over to the boat to pick up the new elders. My new companion is Elder Kerr from Bountiful, Utah, he's pretty sweet and I'm excited to raise him here in Cumorah. Elder Arrington's new companion is Elder Taylor, Braxton Taylor from K-town. Before the mission I knew him pretty well, and we definitely went on a bunch of double dates and stuff. It is super weird to be in the same house with him, but it's way chill, houses with four are the best.
I worked my new companion pretty hard this week, we had a ton of success. We found a ton of new investigators, and were able to get a lot of investigators to come to conference. Conference was so great, I felt a little bad for the other three though, because we had to watch it in French and they understood like nothing and were definitely nodding off the whole time. I got a ton out of this conference, I went in with a few questions, and I got the answers for all of them. My favorite talk was probably elder Cook's talk, I have really been working on becoming more humble, and his talk was awesome. All of our investigators that came loved conference as well, they really felt the spirit and found answers to their prayers as well. I have such a strong testimony that those men are called of God, and that this is really his church.
That's pretty much it for this week, I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!
Elder McQuiston
Pic's: with our new district here on Tahaa
Dear loved ones,
Well transfer week is this week...and I'm going to be training again. They are splitting our area into two, and sending two new missionaries. Me and Elder Arrington are both going to be training, even tho my son hasn't been finished his training yet haha. So I'm basically going to be training three elders at the same time. We are all going to be staying int eh same house here, which is gonna be way fun. I'll keep you guys updated on who my second born is next week.
On the work level things are going alright. Kind of a bummer, we were supposed to have a baptism on Saturday with our 16 year old investigator. She passed the interview and everything, but a couple of days before the baptism I wasn't really feeling right about it, and we went and talked with her sister, who finally told us the truth. Turns out she has been lying to us the whole time, and she got in big trouble for prostitution as a minor in Tahiti and ran away here in Tahaa to get away form the law. Definitely a big problem...so yah super sad, but at least we found out the truth before her baptism.
On Wednesday the zone leaders came down here to Tahaa to do a split with us, and I was with Elder Omorodion, my old companion. It was nice being with him again, we had some way good lessons and some good times together.
There honestly isn't too much that happened this week...oh ya one thing, this family flagged us down while we were riding our bikes at Hipu. Turns out it was the mayor, an communicated member of like 10 years. He just wanted to talk about America and stuff, and then I changed the subject and just called him to repentance hahah so funny what the mission does to you, I definitely wouldn't have had the guts to do that before the mission.
Well that's pretty much all for the week, nothing too exciting. I love you all, talk to you next week!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: The first is a pic of some coconut slushes we made, the second is a pic in the wild with my sexy helmet, the third is a pic of us studying at the church, the fourth is a pic of me with Elder Cottle from the MTC and the last one is a pic of the sunset
We had another great week here at Tahaa nut. We had a way good start to week with the motto, and the rest of the week was no exception. A lot of our investigators are really progressing, especially the Kavera family. They are a family that we recently found a couple of weeks ago. The husband has been coming to church for more than a year now, but hasn't really accepted the missionaries because of his wife. A couple weeks back I felt the impression to try and find their house to talk to the wife, which is what we did. She was a little bit tough at first, but let us come back. Now a couple weeks later we just did a lesson with the whole family, and the mom was almost in tears talking about how much she feels the spirit when we come over. They are the first family that I've really taught as a whole, with both parents and the kids. Voila the little update on them.
Besides that the work is going well, we have 3 bapstisms fixed at the moment. 2 of them we fixed this week, when I did a split on Wednesday. My son went over to the other side of Tahaa with a Tahitian elder, and his companion Elder Puluiuvea from New Caledonia came to our sector. We had a pretty good day together, he's a pretty good elder.
On Friday when I woke up I was felling super sick to my stomach, I'm pretty sure that I ate something bad the night before. My companion knew just what to do, and pulled out some weird organic medicine stuff that was supposed to flush out my intestines. The bottle said that I needed to take 10 of the huge capsules, I decided that 4 was more than enough. Lemme tell you something, BAD IDEA. My stomach felt like it was going to explode for about 15 minutes of excruciating pain. And then all at once I hustled outside and everything erupted out of my stomach. I think that might be 2 or 3 times the amount that I've ever thrown up before. That definitely wasn't the desired effect, but it kind of worked in a way, because my stomach no longer hurt. The down side was that I couldn't eat anything after that, so I was super weak all day. But we worked hard all day.
I barely ate anything for dinner, but Friday night we were asked to do an emergency fast. Probably no the best idea, but I decided to do it. And on top of that Saturday we had a ton of biking to do...let's just say getting near the end of my basically 48 hour fast I was not in too good of shape, I might've almost collapsed. But hey I made it to the end, tapea paari baby.
Well that's basically all for the week, today we took the early morning transport boat to Radiate for a zone activity, so I'm doing my emails form over there, and I'll send my pics in a separate email. I send you all my love from Raromatai!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: A pic from our boat ride last week, A pic of a hotel on the island, me with my coco, some fish that we caught and one that I took from Raiatea.
We'll we actually had a way good week this week, we worked extremely hard, and the hard work payed off. We had a lot of success, some good laughs, and a way dope pday this morning, but I'll get more into that in a sec.
Last Monday we had a little ant problem...apparently our whole house is overridden by ants, and I think that they are lookin to expand their housing quarters. When I came back home there were more ants than I thought possible in our dressing room, carrying hundreds and hundreds of larva and putting it all in my clothes hamper. I don't mind though our house is big enough to share, and they clean up after us well.
Tuesday we ate burgers and fries for lunch.
Wednesday we found a bunch of new investigators, and went on another split with our bishop. We found an 11 year old that lives in a member family that isn't yet baptized.
Thursday we woke up to 6 missed calls from Bishop, and when we called him back turns out he just wanted some help installing a new photocopier. I love him so much, he's the funniest guy. After that we went and did a service project weeding up a field to help an inactive member plant himself some taro. And we also had ward council meeting that evening.
Saturday we started teaching a new family, who loved the lesson, and invited us to come back. That was kinda a big deal because the dad has been coming to church for the last year, but hasn't been able to let the missionaries come over nor been able to get baptized because of his wife. We tracked down the house and shared a message for the wife specifically, and she let us come over, the first people she's EVER accepted to her house before. Kinda cool!
And then today we went all day with the Tehiva family to the motu in their boat. It was insanely pretty, white sand, coconut trees, completely alone, clear turquoise water with a view of Bora, Huahine, Raiatea, and Tahaa....so cool, I still can't believe that it is real. The Polynesians are so blessed man.
I love you all, the church is true!
Elder McQuiston
This week it poured rain pretty much the whole week...did we let that slow us down? Well yah, but at least it didn't stop us.
Tuesday morning we had some lessons at one end of our area, which usually takes us about 25 minutes on bike to get there. Well in the rain and wind we got there in 45. And after all that, the first investigator stood us up...we were a little bummed and went to our second lesson hoping that it would be better. Well it went awesome, and we ended up fixing her baptismal date! Definitely worth the rain.
Wednesday we had a zone conference in Raiatea, and we were supposed to take the 6:15 boat. The boat leaves on the other side of the island, so a member was going to come and pick us up. Well..he never showed up. I panicked a little, because President and Sister Fox were both going to be there, and we were gonna miss it. At around 7:30 I found a boat leaving at 8:30, about an hour away in a car. I found a member asap to take us, and we flew like 20 mph over an ended up barely making it on time. Good thing too, because the conference was super good, and I learned so much.
Other than that there wasn't anything really too notable, just lessons, rain, and studies. I am starting to get a lot better speaking Tahitian tho, I've really been putting in a huge effort to learn it, because so many people speak it here. Definitely seeing some improvement there. I'm considering pulling an all-nighter with the Tahitian BofM, but not so sure if that's the best idea.
Ua here au ia outou!
Elder McQuiston
ps excuse my haircut, it was my companions first time cutting hair and he forgot that he was supposed to leave some on there.
Pics:
The first is a pic of Dave, the boat that took us to Radiate, the second is me on Dave, the third is a pic of me after just waking up from falling asleep on Dave, the fourth is a pic of me in the storm and the last one is when the mud got me
