Wow lots of stuff happened this week actually. I finally went to the temple, that was super cool, its been so long since I've been. There were no temple trips at Nuku Hiva haha.
Alrighty anyways so last monday...we went and checked out the beach here in our sector. It's a super cool beach, and there are always tons of surfers there because the waves are way good. Pretty dope.
On Tuesday we woke up at 4am to go to the temple...It was super cool to finally go to the temple here. It's super pretty, and super super small. We were super tired the whole day thought as a result haha. Luckily I never fell asleep during any of the lessons and Elder Omorodion only fell asleep during 2.
On Wednesday kinda weird we had a lesson with this kid names A. that we teach, who was super tired and not at all interested during the whole lesson...and then after we taught I asked him if he wanted to be baptized, and he like yelled yes haha, he wanted to so bad and we didn't even know. so we fixed his date for the 8th of April. Then that night we went to see John Y. and G., some investigators that are getting baptized in June because they have to wait for marriage papers. But they forgot about the lesson and had some friends over.. so we ended up playing pactenque haha kinda fun...it's actually way hard tho, I got wrecked.
On Thursday we had a super busy day planned...11 lessons. During one of the lessons we rein activated the investigators in the catholic church...fail haha. And we also fixed the baptism of an 11 year old kid names H., he's a stud.
On Friday we had our district meeting, and then that night there was a huge talent show to boot of the stake conference. For the talent show this bus came and picked up all of the members. The talent show was way cool, all of the wards did a dance from a different archival. The Tahitian culture is so cool, I love it so much!
On Saturday we started off the day with our weekly planning. Then we headed over to one of the investigators house, which is where the fun began. One of her brothers was there, and he was insane. It was kinda sad, cuz I'm pretty sure the reason he was insane is cuz of drugs. He started going crazy on us and was like threatening us and then told us about how his friend died on Sunday and how he was the only witness..and then he told us he drinks and smokes an does weed and injections of who know what....and then he ripped off his shirt and got on his knees and like worshipped us and the grabbed our hands and put them on his head and told us to bless him. So we did our best to explain to him what a blessing is and then he sat on a chair and we did the blessings, and he was bawling the whole time...and then at the end he started talking about how powerful we are and how he could really feel the power...and then he pulled Gordon B Hinckley out of his hat somehow I wonder how he knew his name...and then asked what the new prophets name was, and hauled to find a paper to write his name down and came back with his cigarette pack and told me to write the prophets name on it...yah I didn't, that probably woulda been sacrilegious or something. Anyways yah a super crazy story, probably the weirdest thing thats happened on my mission. Stake conference that night was great, and some of our investigators came which was awesome.
Yesterday we had the last sessions of conference, I really liked the stake president's talk, he talked about how we can't just be average members, we really have to do our best and magnify our callings and stuff. Then after that we had a really cool lesson with a guy and H, a couple that are getting baptized on the 13th of May. They really needed money for their marriage for them to get baptized on the 13th. So they prayed and asked for help, and then the next day when Guy went and grabbed his paycheck, it was for 6 times as much as he makes. He went and talked to his boss to as why, and they didn't know, but said that he can keep the money. That was a super cool miracle, we really are blessed if we try and do our best and pray with faith.
That's all for this week...this morning we stopped at Papara Pneu, this miracle clothing store int he middle of nowhere haha. Somehow they get extremely nice brand new brand name clothes from the US, and sell it for NOTHING. They got a brand new shipment this morning, and I got 300 dollars worth of clothes for 60 bucks. I decided I better do all of my after the mission shopping while I'm here in Papara, because this place is money hahaha, I love Papara Pneu. And then later today we have a zone activity at the beach, which should be fun. Ok ya,
I love you everyone!
Elder McQuiston
Pic's: The first two are from the beach in our sector, the third one is some dope glasses I've been checkin out for a while, the fourth is us on the bus on the way to the talent show and the fifth is us with some sisters in our ward
Hey la ora na tout le monde! I made it here to Mahaiatea! I'm loving it here, I really like my new companion Elder Omorodion, and there is so much work to do here, we are super super busy and have a ton of progressing investigators, we average like 11 investigators at the church. There is a ton of potential for baptism, and I feel like we are going to have a lot of success here if we work super hard an stay obedient. We had a baptism on Saturday of someone named Shirley, the daughter of our Elder's quorum president, that has been an investigator for like 2 years. I'm not gonna take any credit for that one cuz I really didn't do anything haha, but it was awesome to see it and to be there.
So yah my companion is Elder Omorodion, he was born in Nigeria, but moved to France when he was 6. He speaks super good english and speaks it all the time, he loves american culture. He also loves rap music, he sings like all day and knows every single song haha kinda funny. We get along really good together, and we teach really well together. He's only been here for one transfer, so I hope that we'll have a couple transfers together. We are in the same house with the ZLs of Paea, which is Elder Prete and then Elder Murdock, who went to Davis haha kinda funny what are the odds.
So yah on Monday my companion and the ZLs of Paea were there at the airport to pick me up, and we headed back to the house. We stopped at Carrefour on the way, their equivalent of walmart. It was so crazy, so big and so much food...It's weird being back in civilization hahah. The house is pretty nice, it's pretty big...but so messy haha there's so much work to be done...I spent like 2 hours this morning just cleaning the kitchen.
The Tahitians are also a lot different than the Marquisiens, it's kinda hard to explain, but there are just a ton of things they do different and stuff...and the fact that it's a complete different language that they speak haha. And not gonna lie the people are just so much more open here, open to new ideas and are more willing to listen to us and to accept us as servants of the Lord.
We had a lot of really cool experiences this week, and saw a lot of miracles. One of those happened during a lesson we had with a young couple named guy and H. They are a reference from a member, which was a couple weeks ago. They came to church this week, which makes the third time in a row. During the lesson, we asked them if they wanted to get baptized, and they said that they do, they just need to get married first, and they need to save up some money, so they decided on November. Well me and Elder Omorodion immediately decided that that wasn't gonna cut it, so I whipped out Alma 34, and then my companion asked them if they'd be baptized on the 15th of April haha. They looked like dumbfounded and then said they're gonna need money for the marriage, and then Elder Omo told him "no you don't all you need to do is sign a paper at the town hall" hahaha kinda funny, then we talked about how the real marriage is at the temple, and that it can only come after baptism. They were really touched and they accepted the invitation, and decided that they would be baptized on the 15th super cool.
Well that's about it for this week, thanks for all the prayers and have a great week everyone, nana!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: The four of us that were at Nuku Hiva together the second is a pic of Tahiti from the airplane, the third and fourth are from the baptism.
Haha my last time saying kasha...from now on its gonna be la ora na haha weird...its gonna be super different. Today marks the 1/3 mark for my mission, which is super super weird, it does not seem like I've been out that long. And after 1/3 of my mission I've only had 1 area, kinda crazy. I'm basically a marquisien by now.
So this week was super crazy, tons of stuff went down. And it was awesome spending a few days with president and his wife, they're super cool and he's a great leader. The conference was awesome, and I learned a ton.
So Tuesday we almost got stranded at Ua Huka, because there was this huge storm. But the tiny plane eventually ended up making it, just super delayed. We had like a 10 minute layover at Ua Pou, which was way sketchy the runway is right next to the ocean and super small haha. When we finally arrived we came to the chapel and had a meeting with President Bize and Elder Sinjoux of the 70 and the four sisters from Ua Huka about sending missionaries to Ua Huka. And we finally convinced him!! He promised to send missionaries there next transfer. Too bad it won't be me, but at least there will be some there which was on of my big goals here. Elder Sinjoux did a fireside that night, which was great.
Wednesday and Thursday we spent the majority of the day with president and his wife. We talked a lot about our sector, and went and saw some inactive and investigators. And then that night conference started at 4, and didn't get over until 8:30 haha super long. But it was way good and I learned a lot, and it really motivated the branch too. I miss good leaders haha...Thursday morning we stayed with president at the church, and we had an interview with him. He got me super pumped about my new area, supposedly they were one of the best areas last year. And then Thursday night was super cool, they finally changed the branch presidency haha. But right before the conference started, all the men (us included) got up and did this marquise dance called the danse de cocoon, or the pig dance haha it was super funny, I really got my marquisien on.
And then Friday and Saturday I spent the day packing and saying goodbye to everyone. And then Sunday the elders from Hiva Oa came, and we spent the night with them, super fun haha way weird being with other missionaries. In about an hour I leave for the airport, and then I land at around 3-4 at Tahiti, and hopefully there will be someone there to pick us up haha.
That's pretty much all of this week, goodbye Nuku Hiva! Talk to you next week from Tahiti!
Elder McQuiston
Pic's:The first two are us with a casse-cou, the third is just a pretty pic form Ua Huka the 4th is us with DMB and his wife, as well as Sr. Ellis and the fifth is the Ua Huka sisters, and the last one is us mid haka
Sooo sadly no baptisms this week...but we did see a ton of miracles, and a bunch of people committed to being baptized in April. So yah a bummer that I won't get to see them be baptized, but as long as they get baptized, that's what's important.
Ronny's dad wouldn't let him get baptized this week, but he gave him permission to be baptized in April. Aldo, progressed a TON and had a ton of super cool experiences with the holy ghost, and he says that he knows that our church is true, which is awesome. He committed to be baptized in April too, which would be soo cool, that would mean that I would be able to go to their sealing, if I'm still at Tahiti a year from then. Tania also is going to get baptized the 15th of April, as well as Parina. so yah we didn't do a baptism, but we had a ton of success here and set up the next trip, which was our goal. We also found a bunch of potential investigators that will continue to do lessons over Skype. So thanks for all of the prayers and those who joined us in fasting, we had an awesome week.
I have a super strong testimony of the priesthood. I had a lot of really cool experiences this week. We gave around 5 or 6 blessings this week, and every single blessing brought the person to tears. The priesthood is so powerful and so real, and it really can work miracles.
Kinda funny about that tho, we were giving everyone blessings, and this kinda handicapped lady asked us for one too. She is like super creepy and we had been warned multiple times not to talk too much with her, or else she won't leave us alone and will try and find us and stuff. But we gave her the blessing, and afterwards she was like bawling. Then like 15 minutes later I'm talking to Elder Boyd and all of a sudden she comes out of nowhere and embraces me...super awkward haha we had to haul out of there...Hopefully she won't show up at the window or anything, I'll have to sleep with an eye open haha.
This week was super awesome and I learned a ton. I love all of the members here so much, and all of my converts are doing so well, they bore their testimonies on Sunday and it was awesome the spirit was so strong, I'm so impressed with how we'll they are doing, even without the church really being established here yet. They have so much faith.
This next week is gonna be pretty crazy. Tomorrow we get on the plane to head back to Nuku Hiva, where we will wait for President Bize, who arrives 20 minutes after us. He's coming for the district conference, which is Wednesday and Thursday, so we'll probably spend a lot of time with him before he leaves on Friday. Then Sunday Elder Ugbah and Fareata from Hiva Oa arrive on airplane, so we're going to have to go and pick them up. Then Monday morning me and Elder Fareata are getting on the plane to head back to Tahiti. I'm kinda nervous to spend a few days with President, but I'm excited too, it should be pretty edifying, and I hope I learn some things.
Well that wraps up this week, sorry again that I can't sent pics, but if all goes well they'll come tomorrow. I love you all!
Elder McQuiston
Alrighty, so first of all, I got the coup de fil Friday night, and I'm getting transferred. I'm heading back home to Tahiti, to Mahatma at Papeari. My new companion is Elder Omorodian or something like that, I think he's from France or Africa or something. But I'm not gonna be transferred for like 2 weeks, because I'm stuck at Ua Huka for the time being. It's way sad to be leaving everyone, they're basically my family now after so long here, but I don't have any regrets, I know that I did everything I could, and gave it my all.
On Tuesday I had my Testimony really strengthened about teaching by the spirit. I really focused the whole day on not being afraid to say what I'm prompted to say, and I really focused on relying on the spirit to tell me what to say and what scriptures to share. It was kinda tough, but the spirit was super strong in the lessons, and I found myself saying stuff that like I've never really thought about before, but that were perfect for the investigators, and I know it was from the spirit. Also we had some kinda weird news, Beatrice said she's done taking lessons and wants to stay Catholic, but that she's gonna let her son get baptized, and so he's gonna get baptized soon after we get back.
On Wednesday we headed down to Taipivai. Once again, Fr Ah Scha went on a split with us that lasted like the whole day. He had the idea to go to every house at Hooumi, and just say hi to everyone. Understandably, I was skeptical at first, thinking it was kinda a waste of time. But like halfway through the city, we found someone that was super interested and is really potential. And kinda funny story, in the middle of a lesson, all of a sudden out of no where Fr Ah Scha slapped my face way hard, and I was super surprised and looked over at him, who just had this enormous sincere smile on his face. He showed me his hand, with a dead mosquito on it, and just whispered "I got it".
I got the Valentines package on Thursday, thanks so much everyone for hookin me up fatty. We also got hooked up in this huge Adventist bible bash...Aaaaiiiiaaa
Then on Friday we felt in to Ua Huka, and it's been awesome here so far. Nothing huge has happened yet it's been fairly calm, but we're praying and fasting that we can have some miracles this week that will let us have some baptisms on Saturday. We are gonna do a fast starting tonight, and we're praying for Ronny, Melodie, Vania, Roger, Aldo, and Julie, if anyone wants to join us.
Meeting Vania yesterday was kinda a miracle. I felt prompted to go visit her, and it was someone that we randomly encountered the first time I came here, like 3 months ago. Turns out she had just arrived from Hiva Oa an hour or so earlier. She gladly accepted us, and had a ton of questions. She had taken the lessons in the past, and is basically ready to be baptized already. She said she just needs to get baptized now, she can't wait any longer. And she even said that she's gonna dump all of her coffee today. Cool story.
Alright that's pretty much all for this week, I took some pics but the computers being stubborn so I'll have to send them when we get back. I love you all, passez une bonne semaine!
Elder McQuiston
Kaoha...Man there really isn't a whole lot that happened this week, it was pretty much a blur, it went by so fast.
On Tuesday we had a really good lesson with Ronny, the 10 year old that lives at Ua Huka. We're going to try and baptize him in the next two weeks while we're there, but it isn't fixed yet. We also had three of our investigators tell us that they want to stay Catholic, which is super frustrating. We just have to hope and pray that they'll read the book of mormon and pray about it.
On Wednesday we went to Taipivai as usual. It was a little bit more successful this week, we found a couple potential investigators, Fr. Ah Scha came with us on his bike, and ended up staying with us the whole day which was pretty cool. Some JW's came up to us and tried to bible bash us, and we destroyed them haha pretty funny. Fr Ah Scha was getting so worked up it was kinda funny hahaha. We also started up the english classes again, and we had a pretty good turnout.
Our most potential investigator right now is probably Marie. We had a couple of lessons with her this week, and she started to read the book of Mormon, and is like marking in it and everything. We are hoping to set her baptismal date soon, she just is really hesitant to get married, because it's her 3rd husband.
Saturday and Sunday we had our branch conference. Our district president flew in Friday, and we had a bunch of meetings with him throughout the weekend. On Saturday we had a branch activity all morning, where the Tama's taught us how to make these bag things that are supposedly way big in Tahiti. Saturday night we were in charge of a fireside, which went super well. We had a bunch hot people there, and we watched a few little videos and talked and testified about them, on the theme of the restoration.
Well that's about it for this week, finger's crossed that we'll be able to email next week. Je vous time!
Elder McQuiston
Pic's: The first one is me braiding some dried leaf thing that took forever during our activity on Saturday. The second one is an attempt to take a picture with the sunset.
Kaoha everybody!
Alright lets get right into this week,
On Tuesday we had 6 lessons cancelled on us, typical Marquises...but we did have a couple of really good lessons nonetheless. We talked with some Adventist, that said she would read and pray about the book of mormon. We also got to see Marie C., who is here at Nuku Hiva for a couple of weeks to help her dad who's in the hospital, which was cool. We also had a really good lesson with our neighbor Jacob, he's cruising in the Book of Mormon, he's almost to Alma already. Oh that reminds me, our mission president wants us to do a little bit longer of a trip to Ua Huka, so we're gonna be there from the 24th of Feb. to the 7th of March.
On Wednesday we spent the whole day at Taipivai, We found some potential investigators, so we are planning on going to Taipivai every Wednesday to see our investigators regularly.
On Thursday we started off the day with 3 lessons over Skype. Yvonne had a super cool experience, she fasted for her father who was in a coma and had cancer, and the like the next day he came out of the coma and didn't have cancer anymore.
Saturday we almost got killed by this huge dog...Normally it's chained up, but they forgot to chain him up on Saturday. It was like freaking out and it riled up like 4 other dogs, and there weren't any rocks on the ground for us to throw at it. It was like just about to attack us, when the owner came out of the house and nailed it with a huge rock...super lucky haha. We had a missionary activity at 15h, which was super fun and super successful, probably one of the funniest things so far on my mission. We gave a training on how to do missionary work, and how to share with people. We did a role play activity after that, which was hilarious. DMB gave probably one of the worst example's i've every seen, and everyone was dying it was so funny. We then split up into teams, and went out to find some references. I went with the T.'s, and we went and saw one of Sr. T's friends from work. It was super good, and she is extremely potential, she said she's searching for the truth, and she knows that the Catholics and Adventists aren't true.
Church yesterday was awesome, I gave a talk on how to make the sacrament more meaningful. I was pretty nervous, but it went pretty we'll, I ended up speaking for like 20 minutes. And then our lesson in Sunday school was super funny, everyone was loving it, our investigators included.
Well that's pretty much everything that I can think of this week, have a good week everyone!
Elder McQuiston
Pic's, picking Mango's with the neighbors
