Bonjour tout le monde!
This week I don't have a ton of time, because we're going to Moorea with the Paea ZL's. I'm super pumped it should be way fun, and I most likely won't get another chance to go to Moorea on my mission so we're getting the most out of this trip, and we'll be there all day.
Last week's pday was also super fun, we went to the other side of Tahiti with the zone, which is called the "almost island", or Taravao. We went to McDonald's over there for lunch and then headed around the one side of the island to Tautira, where we played beach soccer against these kids that were there. It started pouring rain on us out of nowhere, and so we hustled to the car soaking wet, and headed back home. We still had a bunch of time left, so we hit up some chess.
Saturday was G.'s baptism. We went early to fill up the font, but it was all dirty so we had to wash it and stuff, which took a little bit of time. Turns out that we didn't start it early enough, and by the beginning of the service it was only like halfway full, and needed like 45ish more minutes. But like 15 minutes into the service when it was time for the baptism we went and checked it out, and it was all the way full. We definitely cut that one close. But besides that the baptism was awesome, we had probably 10 investigators there, and the spirit filled up that room, everyone was really touched. G.'s testimony was really cool to hear as well, he is so happy to be able to have this second chance and really has a strong testimony of the church and the book of mormon I was so happy to be able to see him enter into the waters of baptism.
Friday we also got the opportunity to go to them temple with G. and H. it was a really cool experience, we weren't able to go inside because H. isn't baptized yet, but we did a tour of the temple grounds. Both of them really felt the spirit, especially when we talked about eternal marriage.
Other than that, the week was a little bit rough. We are in the rebuilding phase, trying to find some new investigators. Contacting isn't effective at all in this mission, it takes 300 houses to get 1 baptism. On the other hand on average we get 1 baptism every 10 member referrals. So we spent the most part of then week visiting all of the members, sharing a message with them and committing them to share the gospel with their friends and family.
Je vous aime tous!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: The first one is a tour of the temple with G. and H. the second is from G's baptism. The rest are from Moorea.
What's uuuuppp everyone?
So yep my new companion is Elder Thorpe! He's from Tooele, an he's been on his mission for 22 months, he'll probably finish here in Mahaiatea with me. He's a super nice kid, and I really like him, we should have a lot of fun here together.
There wasn't a whole lot that happened this week, the most part was spent showing Elder Thorpe around and introducing him to all the members and investigators. In terms of investigators, G. is doing amazing, he is so ready for baptism. We just barely did his baptismal interview yesterday, and everything is good for his baptism this Saturday. He has such a strong testimony, and is soo pumped for his baptism, he's a great guy. On the other hand tho, E. and M. dropped off the face of the earth this week...they stopped coming to church, and stopped answering their phones, and are never at the house....I don't know what happened, but if you can keep them in your prayers, I love that family.
We also got the chance to go to the temple this week, which was awesome. Going to the temple really does recharge our spiritual battery. I can't wait to be able to go every week again when I get home. I hope that everyone is taking advantage of that huge blessing that we have, it is the best place on this earth to receive revelation and feel peace. Speaking of the temple, the temple president came and spoke in our ward yesterday, and his message was super cool. We can't forget our ancestors, because with out us they can't be saved, and equally without doing their work for them we can't be saved either.
Funny story of the week...on like Wednesday we had an hour or so without anything planned or anything to do, so we had to result to some contacting. The first house that we went to, this guy came out, and started ranting to us about the Catholic church. He literally wouldn't give us any time to speak, and wouldn't let us leave either. No joke he talked to us for an hour straight. It was a nice lesson for us...contacting does NOT work here in Tahiti hahah.
I love you all, passez une bonne semaine!
Elder McQuiston
Pic: The first one is us trying on some dance ritual hat things, good ol Davy Croc, the second is us with the family Coulon, and man that cake was so good. The third is our new district, Elder Rice on the left and Elder Lewis sitting down, which are the zone leaders, and then me and Elder Thorpe.
Bonjour tout le monde!
As you guys can tell by the subject, Elder Omorodion is getting transferred. He is going to Bora Bora...I'm a little envious. My new companion is Eder Thorpe. He's coming later today, so I'll tell you about him next week. I had an awesome time serving with Elder Omorodion, we had some great times together, and had a lot of laughs. And now he's leaving on vacay...I'm going to be the senior companion this transfer, as well as the district leader.
We had a pretty decent week this week, in terms of missionary work. We have a few investigators with their baptismal date fixed, and a few others that are potential. After last month we are in the rebuilding stage, working on expanding our teaching pool and finding some new potential investigators, as well as helping the few that we have enter into the waters of baptism.
Last Monday we went on a super sweet hike, and there was a super cool waterfall/pond at the end, super tough not to swim haha. There are hundreds of super cool hikes here that lead to waterfalls, I'm pretty sure if you lived here you could never get sick of the hikes, so dope.
On Tuesday we didn't get to do a whole lot of missionary work, because we had our multizone conference. It was the last one that I'll have with President Bize, kinda crazy. It was a great conference, there were some great messages shared.
On Wednesday one of our investigators names V. said that she doesn't wanna get baptized, because she "isn't ready to get married". After 8 or so years of being together. Tahitians kill me! We taught all of our young recent converts after that....man teaching kids is rough, I could not make it as an elementary school teacher. We also had a lesson with M., one of our investigators with her baptismal date fixed. I really like teaching her, she understands really well what we teach. It is so rare here to find people that 1. understand what you teach, or 2 accept what you teach them. When you find someone with both of the two, it's sooo nice haha.
On Thursday we headed out early to do a service project, helping one of our investigators make news. I thought we were doing pretty good, I was liking how my nems were looking. But apparently the ladies that we were helping didn't really think so... because they politely told us that they'd finish the rest...we should probably avoid those kind of service projects going forward haha. We also contacted these kids that were playing Yu Gi Oh, who weren't so happy that we interrupted their Yu Gi Oh game, but who accepted us to come back another day...we'll see if they'll actually be there haha.
Friday we did splits with the Zone leaders. Elder McLelland came to our sector, and my companion went to theirs. We had a pretty good day, we did a lesson with Guy, who is doing great. We also taught G. who talked our ears off, but who accepted the lesson and made the decision to from that point onward would never break the word of wisdom again, which was awesome.
Did we have Saturday this week?
Sunday was super cool, Guy blessed the sacrament for the first time, which was super cool to see. We did the missionary concert at Mahina after that, which was dope because it allowed us to do the tour of Tahiti, which was the first time that I've done that.
Thanks for your love and support, have a good week!
Elder McQuiston
Alrighty for the pics...
The first one is our gospel principles class
The second and third are me with some lobsters, Lobster is sooo good
The fourth an fifth was our goodbye for Elder McLelland, one of our zone leaders who is going to Raiatea
And then the last one is us with the Palmer family
E aha tera mea i te mau fenua, no te utuafare i te reo faaineine. Ua faarue au i te reo Tahiti!
Alrighty so last week:
Thursday- we went to do the first lesson with one of our new investigators, Gaspard, at a members house. When we got there, we found out that his wife had just barely died of cancer a few hours earlier. We talked to him about the plan of salvation, and he was super touched, the spirit was super strong and he was in tears. He said that he really wants to be baptized, so we fixed his baptism for the 24th. It was such a miracle that we found him, and I know that the Lord was preparing him for us.
Saturday-We also fixed a baptism on Saturday for the 8th of July, with one of our investigators names Raf. She is super ready for her baptism, and comes to church every Sunday, she just needs to get married, so we're really hoping that everything will go well for her to be married and baptized the 8th.
Wednesday-Yeah nothing notable happened on Wednesday. Sorry Wednesday.
Monday-After we did our mail on Monday we headed to Puunauia with all the Elders from Puunauia and Paea to play basketball. It was way fun, but holy I am so out of shape, we were all so dead. Gotta get back to real exercising...
Friday- About halfway through the day we didn't have anything to do, so we did contacting for the first time in this area. We felt prompted to got to a house, and turns out that at the very first house that we contact, there was a 17 yr old girl that is really good friends with a recent convert in our ward, and she really wants to do the lessons with us. Kinda cool.
Sunday went awesome, it was one of my favorite weeks at church. In our gospel principles class, we had 4 really potential investigators, our dump, and then our recent convert. We had a super good discussion on baptism, and then our recent convert bore his testimony on his baptismal experience. It was super super powerful, all of our investigators were way touched. I'm super proud of him, he is such an awesome guy, and it is so cool to see how happy the gospel has made him. That's what the mission is all about. And then we did our missionary concert at Faaa, which went awesome like last week. There was a member of the 70 there from New Caledonia named Elder Thompson. He gave a message at the end, which was really inspired, you could just feel that he was so close to the Lord,a really touching experience.
Tuesday-nah
Je vous aime!
Elder McQuiston
Pics: The first one is us with the captian of Tahitian national beach soccer team, that just won second in the beach soccer world cup a couple of weeks ago. The second one is an action shot of me building my house on a way dope spot we found, and the third and fourth are selfies from the same spot.
This week was good times, we had some miracles and some good laughs as well.
Last Monday we finally had our last choir practice, so after a month and a half we finally have our days back.
On Tuesday we went and tried to find some inactive, and I felt prompted to go try a house, and turns out it was the inactive we were looking for, and they really needed our help because they were moving these super heavy cement sacks, and the mech was planning one going it all by himself, so we helped them out for a couple of hours.
On Wednesday we really needed some new investigators, so we decided to go and visit some members, and ask them if they know anyone that we could go visit. One of the members just barely got back from France, an she pulled out this super lux expensive box of macarons for us to eat while we were there. Welp turns out they were super good, and by the time we left there weren't any more macarons left...whoops.
Thursday we had a pretty weird day, we started off the day doing a coodination meeting with our dump for the first time in a month or so, and then came back home and said goodbye to Elder Terry and elder Murdock, who left for Raromaitai, Tahaa and Radiate. We did our weekly planning after that, and then headed out to the airport to pick up elder Gilstrap, who was the elder that replaced me at Nuku Hiva, and now he's staying at the house with us.
Friday we had our district meeting, and we have some new missionaries in our zone. The district meeting was in French, and everything flew right over the green's heads, so funny haha those cute little guys, I remember when that was me, the first week in the field.
Saturday my companion skipped his parents for mother's day in the morning, and then the DZ's came and gave us a ride to Faaa to drop off elder Omorodion, who got invited to a baptism of a family that he found and taught. I spend the day with the DZ's, and we managed the tow sectors with their car. elder Omorodion didn't get back until 6:00, 3 hours longer than when hew as supposed to get back, we were pretty worried and the DZ's were not happy.
Then Sunday at church a brother of a member showed up for the first time, already with a desire to be baptized. Such a crazy miracle, idk what we do to deserve these kind of miracles, but I know that the success that we have here in this sector is the Lord's doing, not ours. Right after church we headed to Taravao for the first missionary choir concert. I was really impressed, it was crazy good and the spirit was super super strong. I have no idea how we pulled that off, because the last rehearsal was so bad haha. But super funny, right before the concert we did a little rehearsal, and some guy put a mic like right in front of my face. And then I don't know what happened, but in the middle of one of the songs I accidentally started singing in English, and it played way loud over the speaker hahahah all the 100ish missionaries started dying. whoops!
That's the rundown the week, Je vice time tour, passed un bon semaine!
Pic's: Me and Elder Terry and Elder Murdock before they left, and a picture of Taravoa.
Bonjour tout le monde!
Sadly I have no time today, we had a super long choir practice today that took like all day, and then we had to do a bunch of things for the transfer, and then we got stuck in traffic...so yah sorry about that. But yah so here's a little email to let you all know that I'm still alive...and the baptism was awesome, and neither of us got transferred. That's all I have time for, have a good week everyone!
Elder McQuiston
I had an awesome week this week, and it was topped off talking to you guys. I'm so glad that everyone is doing great, and it was a lot of fun seeing you guys and talking to you all!
Alrighty, so there isn't a whole lot to say about this week, but I'll share some of the cool experiences that we had.
So it was pouring the whole week, so being soaked from head to toe all day was pretty fun. But I came out victorious, because the storm has passed and I'm not sick, so that's good news. On Tuesday we had a really cool experience. We headed out on our bikes for our first lesson, which was at the opposite end of the sector, in the pouring rain and super strong wind. And then we finally get there, and there was nobody at the house...we were kinda disappointed, must as we were leaving that neighborhood, some lady called us over and asked us to meet with her. Turns out she went to a baptism like three weeks ago and felt the spirit super strong, and ever since she has been thinking about that. And she is super interested about our church, and before we even said anything she told us she believes our church is true and wants to be baptized.
Friday was also a great day, we had our interviews with President, which was easily the best interview that I've had with him so far. It was really uplifting, and he told me how much he trusts in me, which was cool. And then that same day K. and T. passed their baptismal interview, so everything is good for their baptism on Saturday.
And then Saturday was the marriage and baptism of Guy. It was an awesome experience, the spirit was so strong the whole day, and they were both so happy. He's one of my favorite converts, he's such a cool guy, and has such a strong testimony.
Alright that's the rundown for this week, have a great week everyone!
Elder McQuiston
Pic's: The baptism and the wedding
