Family so dear,
Happy Father's Day Dad!! And to all of the other fathers out there as well, even to those who are soon to be fathers (Zach!) For father's day here, we got invited to a big family get together. They prepared a table full of man Tahiti, and man it was super good. Nothing beats a good man Tahiti. I hope that you all had an awesome day yesterday, and a great week this past week.
Personally, I was pretty sick this past week, with a sinus infection or something like that. It hasn't been too bad, luckily I've been able to keep working all week. That has been a blessing, because we had a pretty busy week last week, and saw a lot of investigators that we needed to see. There was one day that was pretty bad, last Friday. I had some sinus migraines, and lost my voice. We were out contacting and I started getting lightheaded and I was worried about passing out. But I haven't taken a sick day yet, and I wasn't about about to now with only a few weeks left. Well, at 3:00 we had our interviews with President and Sister Fox and Sister Fox told me I was being stupid and should take a nap after the interview. So yeah turns out I didn't push through it after all. I was out like a baby for a couple of hours.
We had a pretty fun day activity last Monday with the district. Elder Claflin and I wanted to make a couple of local ties for some souvenirs and the rest of the district was down as well. They don't actually sell Tahitian ties, you have to buy the fabric and sew them yourselves. The week before I spent a couple hours with Tomasini, ,and he taught me how to sew them. Thank goodness I took sewing way back in 8th grade. And then for p-day last week, we borrowed a couple of machines from some members and we all 8 went to a member's house to sew our ties. We got an assembly line going, and started cranking out ties in record time. Usually it takes 30-45 minutes to make a tie. In 3 hours we whipped out 34. Good times with the crew. If anyone needs any sewing help when I get back, I'm your man. ;)
On Wednesday one of my investigators that I taught at Mahaiatea named Jean-Yves got baptized!! He called me a few days before to ask I could be there. The assistants said that it was cool with them, and that I could spend some time to say goodbye to everyone over there while I was at it, so that I could get that out of the way (because of the culture and the small size of the the island, missionaries always go say goodbye to everyone before they leave). So on Wednesday I headed on over to Mahaiatea, on the opposite side of the island. The baptism itself was kind of disappointing, it was poorly announced so no one in the ward was there, they forgot to fill up the font, and it started two hours late. The missionaries and the dip didn't do their job. But once the actual device got started, it was great, just like every other one. A baptism is a baptism, and I am so happy to finally see my friend get baptized!
Like I said, I said goodbye to everyone while I was over there. Man that was way harder than I thought it was going to be. I'm not really a sentimental person at all, but it was pretty sad. Just driving through the area, through the streets, after a year or so was really touching, so many memories flooded my mind. All my missionary friends that are gone, and all of my friends, investigators and converts that I may or may not every see again. I really love these people, and I love serving here. I am going to miss everyone so much man...but it was awesome to see them.
I love you all!
Elder McQuiston
One more week cracking pavement as they say. Things are getting toasty out here in Taharaa, not really on the temperature scale tho, I'm getting pretty chilly actually. I've woken up in the middle of the night a few times this week and had to put on the sheet. We're getting into the lows of winter now, probably like down in the 75's. I'm pushing through the trial though no worries, I'll endure.
But yah things are going pretty solid with our investigators. We had 5 investigators at church yesterday, which is pretty good for this ward. It's the most that I've seen since I've been here. We've got Sandrine that has come a few times now with her 10 year old son. She is doing great and preparing to get baptized, and we are trying to work on her son as well. Josephine has come a few times as well. The first time that we visited her she was super prideful and unloaded the four lettered word cannon on us, and I though there was no way she was potential, but figured might as well come back to share the restoration anyways. Well since that day she has completely changed, loves coming to church and is also preparing to get baptized. That's what I love so much about the Gospel! Timothee is doing well as well, pretty much the same old.
We have been able to find a bunch of new investigators recently, a lot of which are pretty potential, and are really curious with the church and our teachings. Their names are Ayron, Raiteva, Poe and Cicil. Keep all of them in your prayers if you remember!
Speaking of mami Cicil, she is a Chinese mami, that only speaks Tahitian and Mandarin. It is the very first investigator that I have taught that doesn't really understand French. It is kinda fun teaching her, it reminds me of the beginning of my mission. I understand the majority of what she says, and then my companion and I struggle to respond in Tahitian.
We had a ward sports activity on Saturday morning, and they pulled out the petanque. I'm getting pretty good at petanque, I've considered putting my missionary career to the side for the last few weeks to try out a petanque career. I haven't decided yet, I'll keep you all updated.
Funny story, we were contacting and we met an inactive member that is the brother of an active member that I know. I asked him if he had served a mission and he gives me a weird smile and says, "yah, the mission of Satan". Classic. It's only in Tahiti that saying something like that and being serious is normal.
Saturday night a family from Canada came and did a concert in our stake. It was soeur Dumoulin Morphis' family, from Raiatea. She has 7 younger brothers and sisters, and they are all way musically talented. They theme of the concert was on the family, basically talking about how important it is to have family unity and love and the Gospel, and to raise your kids well and stuff. The Tahitians loved it, and were all dumbfounded that there exists family's like that united and with so much love and stuff. That made me think of my fam, and made me way grateful for my family. It is sad that the family here isn't very strong. There is a lot of violence and arguing and a lack of parenting. The family is so important, and is central to the plan of God. Our family relations have a big impact on our spiritual and temporal lives. We should be extra careful how we treat the members of our family, and do all we can to make sure that the Lord is at the center of our life and our family.
I love you all, have a good week!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: some pics with Timothee and with mami Cicil
Hey everyone!
We had a great week this week! Transfers came around, and I'm going to finish my mission in Bora Bora!! I'm leaving this afternoon, I'm way excited! I thought for sure that I was going to finish my mission here in Arue, but hey I'll take the island life again. I may or may not have asked president to send me there to finish, but as they say, ask and ye shall receive. The area is Vaitape, and my new companion is a Tahitian named Elder Haavare.
Yeah no, I'm not actually getting transferred, that would be fun though. The work really went forward this week! We were able to find several new investigators this week, and fix some more baptismal dates. I'm really hoping to be able to get at least 1 more baptism before I leave, and the odds are looking pretty good. We had a cool experience the other day, in the search of a reference that we had got. We knew the name of the neighborhood, but that was about it. We went into the neighborhood and drove all the way the mountain to the top, just to scout out the territory. We decided to try a random house near the top, and what do you know the bishop of the ward right next to ours comes out! He was visiting his daughter and son-in-law, who isn't a member for a couple years. So we got a reference from him and then got back in the car. We went back near the beginning of the neighborhood and go up and start talking to someone working on his scooter. What do you know, it was the reference that we were looking for! We had a good discussion with him, and fixed a time to meet with his family. If that's not being led by the spirit idk what is.
We were able to do a couple service projects this week, which was awesome. I love service projects so much, especially for people who are really in need. One of them was for an investigator that is a widow, she just lost her husband a couple months ago. We got the district together and moved a huge pile of rotting wood and leaves and stuff, to a place where she burn it. It took us a couple hours, and it made her super happy. That would've taken her an entire day to do that by herself. That felt really good.
I also got in an accident this week, and I'm super lucky that nobody got hurt. I was turning left pulling out of a dirt road onto a 2 land road. The traffic going right was backed up. The car stopped to let me turn, and as I started to pull out a scooter flew out from behind the line of cars going about 30 mph. He was doubling all over the traffic and I couldn't see him hidden behind the cars. Luckily there was minor damage, and he didn't get hurt, he could have gotten really injured. But we're all good!
I had a testimony builder on prayer this week. We had a n investigator that was really worked up the other morning, and called up pretty upset. I prayed for him to be able to calm down, and for something that I could share with him. During my prayer a random story from the old testament came to mind, that was perfect for him. And then 10 minutes later while I was studying the story, the investigator called back all calm, and apologized. I really believe that God answers our prayers of faith, and prayer has been a huge blessing for me during my mission. It is somethings simople that we do every day, but we shouldn't let it become routine or take it for granted. God really listens to us, and wants to bless us.
I love you all!
Elder McQuiston
Hey everyone,
Another week has come to an end out here on the mish. I got the sad news this morning about grandpa passing away...that's a bummer. I love him a lot, and I have a lot of great memories with him, fishing, hunting, golfing, political talks and impeach Obama stickers, going out to eat at Mexican restaurants or buffets, the doorbell with triple knock combo, just to name a few. But he's moved on to a better place, no more suffering in an imperfect body. I really like Alma 46:39-41,
39 And it came to pass that there were many who died, firmly believing that their souls were redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ; thus they went out of the world rejoicing.
40 And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land-but not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the climate-
41 But there were many who died with old age; and those who died in the faith of Christ are happy in him, as we must needs suppose.
Grandpa went out rejoicing and happy, as we all can hope to be if we keep the faith. I love you grandpa mahoney!
We had a pretty good week this pat week. We had a zone conference on Wednesday, with a big focus on baptismal invitations, because our baptismal statistics are way down from last year. We did some role plays, and it was really well done, and motivating. Coming out of that the next day, we went to see our investigator Sandrine. On Sunday we had invited all to the investigators in our gospel principles to get baptized the last Saturday in June. Well we did the follow up with that and she agreed! And not only that, but she talked with her kids, and they are also interested, and we will be starting the lessons with them this week.
On another note, I realized this week that I'm pretty bad at door-to-door contacting. We spent some hours doing that this week because of some holes in our agenda. And yah we didn't find a single person to teach. Contacting already isn't very efficient here, and after 20 months of doing minimal contacting, I never picked up that skill. That's alright, thumbs down to door-to-door!
On Tuesday we did a split with our district leader. I went in his area, and we had a pretty good day together. I had kind of an interesting experience while contacting a reference that they had received. It was a mamie named Rangi, and when we started talking to her, she started talking to us pretty rudely in broken French, as usual with Old Tahitians. Well as we got further in the conversation, we found out that she was from the cook islands. I asked her if she spoke English, and she responded to me in perfect English. So what do you know, I contacted someone in English for the first time on my mission. She was actually really nice and loving and polite in English, kind of interesting. And she accepted us to come back, woo!
On Sunday there was an American couple that came from California. We translated Sacrament meeting for them, and it was funny to hear all of their commentary about how different things are here, things that I have long forgotten about. The translating was a little rough. I dont' think that that lady understood my English at all haha whoops.
Funny story from this week, we were waiting in the car outside DMP's house for him to come out. Well a drunk guy came kup and started chatting with us, and starting talking nonsense. So we started speaking to him in English, and he definitely didn't understand anything we were saying, but I don't think that he realized it. So we just had a nice 10 minute English-French conversation in teh car waiting for DMP. Good times.
I love you all, have a good week!
Elder McQuiston
Pic:
1-Tim and Elder Kimball with the beer before Tim dumped it out
2-Classic road in Tahiti
3-Just walking like a gomer
4 & 5- Some pics on top of a mountain while contacting
Hey Fam!!
What's the new in with the crew? We had a killer week this week! We were really able to get things moving this week in the area. We were able to work a lot with the members this week, and we were able to find several new investigators. The work is really starting to pick up here in the area, we have a solid teaching pool, and have been able to gain the member's trust.
I think I'm just gonna hope around a little, keep you guys on your toes. I had kind of a cool experience with an inactive that we are teaching named Jean Pierre. The other week after a lesson with him I wasn't really feeling right and was feeling kinda bad for him because we have been teaching him every week for a while now but he hasn't really made any progress on his scripture reading and the Word of Wisdom. Well, I felt like we should try and do more for him. And this week we offered to come and read the Book of Mormon with him every morning. He has started to make a lot of progress, and I really feel a lot better about him. I know that that was the spirit guiding us. I have learned a lot about recognizing the spirit and listening to his promptings on my mission. I really believe that God wants to talk to each of us, and he really is willing to. I know that if we make it possible to receive personal revelation by being obedient to God's commandments and by keeping our covenants, God will talk to us. And if we listen to the inspiration that we receive, we will be blessed in our lives and live a life with more peace and happiness.
This week was a big reminder for me as well about optimizing the day. We had interviews with President, and in my interview, he gave me some advice about avoiding trunkiness. He said it is all about optimizing every day. We had leadership council as well this week, and we just so happened to talk about optimizing the day as well. And then for the third time during our district meeting, we once again started talking about optimizing the day. I got the message, and with my companion, we set some goals of how we are going to optimize every day for the end of this transfer and for the next. We will be leaving the house at 9:30 am and coming back at curfew at 9pm. No more coming back for lunch, or lollygagging before/between our studies. It's a sacrifice that we're gonna make, but we hope that it will help us get some more time to do proselyting in the area. Take that trunky
Speaking of the leadership council, I don't know if I've said anything about that but somehow I got designated as the pianist for like the past 4 leadership councils. I never thought that I would use my piano skills so much on my mission, I'm not even good. But thanks mom and dad for making me stay on that piano bench while I spent an hour complaining about practicing for 30 minutes. For all those kids out there that hate piano practice, stick in there because you are actually going to use it one day.
Our English class has been killing it lately, this past week we had 10 people come. Too bad that people aren't as good at spreading the good word as they are at spreading the word that we are teaching English.
I've got a few funny stories this week. We had to move back to our old 2 person house this week because Elder Claflin got a second son and there wasn't enough room in their house anymore, which is kind of a bummer. AS we were moving back, we were moving a fridge into the house, and when I squat down to set it on the ground, I heard a huge rip. Almost the entire crotch seam ripped hahaha. I'm really cutting it close these last couple months I'm running out of clothes.
Shout out to our DMP he is really coming in clutch lately. He is with us all the time recently. He is a recent convert of less than a year. He is really humble, but also really funny. And he looks a lot like dad too, if dad got the Lamanites curse they'd be twins. Anyways on Saturday, he came on a split with us for the entire day again. He's starting to get pretty comfortable sharing the gospel now, he has helped us find a bunch of investigators and is starting to participate in a lot of lessons. We went to the store to grab something to eat, and there at the store there was a local ukelele band hired to entertain. We'll all of a sudden DMP grabs someone's ukelele, and then before we know it he joins in with the band, all dressed up in his church clothes. What a man. And then on the way out, he says he needs to go to the bathroom, and just heads right into the women's restroom. There were some women that came out with a shocked look on their face, and then DMP comes out super embarrassed hahah and tells us that we need to go now and hurries to the car hahaha we were dying.
Well, that's all for today folks. I love you all have a good week!
Elder Pakistan (more people probably call me that than McQuiston)
Pics:
1-Dragon Fruit, I think, pretty good
2-Made some cakes for Elder Rainer's bday
3-ripped my pants...
4-Our DMP and our investigator named Sandrine
5-A Chinese grandma names Jyiy that we started teaching
6-Got stuck in the middle of a bike race and figured better take a pic in the action
Hey fam!!
We had an awesome week this week!! I'm not gonna lie I don't have a ton of motivation to write this week nor a lot of time, and I just talked to you all yesterday, but I'll do my best hahah.
We had a couple of hard days this week, with a lot of lessons canceled, and not a lot of success. Tuesday and Friday were both pretty tough, we drove all over just to face rejection wherever we went. We ended up going on a split though with someone preparing to leave on his mission and went to see one of his friends that accepted to take the lessons. That was awesome, he's a super nice guy too.
We had a couple of good days as well. On Wednesday we had some solid lessons and were ablet o work a lot with the stake leaders. We had a great meeting with the stake president, the high council member, and President Fox. We were able to get their support to solve several difficulties in the zone and make some solid plans. Thursday we had a solid service project with Timothee and chopped down some banana trees on a ladder, that was pretty fun. I love service projects, and that took the majority of the morning.
Saturday was awesome as well, we went on a trip to Moorea, the island right next to ours. We did a training meeting with the ward mission leaders over there for a few hours in the morning. We did some contacting with them, and went to their baptism, and then finished off with a fireside over there.
Alrighty I gotta go. I love you all and have a good week!
Elder McQuiston
Pics:
1-Some chickens mourning the loss of a loved one
2-Moorea wooo island lifeee
3-Us with the Moorea Elders
4-Typical baptismal refreshments here at Tahiti
5-Heavy training prep
6-A pic of us on the boat to Moorea
Hey fam!
Man we had an awesome week this past week! Things are picking right up in this area, and Elder Kimball and I really make a great team. We are working way hard, and are really seeing results. We were able to work a lot with members this week, and have been busy until 9 at night every day. We were able to find some new investigators and a lot of new potential investigators. We were even able to fix Timothee's baptism, he really wants to get baptized and told us to send the paperwork to the Bishop because he's ready. Our DMP is awesome and we were able to spend a lot of time with him this week, there was even one day that he spent an ENTIRE day with us. How many of you would go on a split with the missionaries from 10 am to 8pm? I'm loving these last few transfers! Sorry about the short email but I don't have a ton of time and I'm getting a little tired of writing every week hahah sorry fam.
I love you all!
Elder McQuiston
