Tyler In Tahiti

Ka oha nui everyone from The Marquesas - the land that the church considers a third-world country (that's why we don't have iPads), and yet basically everybody has a car. This week was pretty chill. Things are really a bit the same. We're still just living  large and trying to do some form of missionary work out here. Literally all the people I talked about in last week's email didn't work out, so this week we'll be trying again with them. But in it's place we've had some pretty fun stuff happen this week. We were chilling at this restaurant (that's actually a lady's house), and then friggin everybody showed up. We played guitar and everything. It was Pareo Day! (no lie May 27 is a legit holiday here for the pareo (if you saw that Rai & Mana video from a couple weeks ago you know what it is). People will just  wear them to work and everything), so I took a picture with one. It was also Mother's Day on ...

Ka oha nui from the Marquesas - the land where we sing Secret Prayer like 10 times a week (seriously dude, every sacrament, every family home evening, every everything). This week was pretty great too! Things are going really splendidly with Elder Davis. We have a lot of fun together, and just do lots of cool things. Something I forgot to mention, is Elder Davis's being on the basketball team! Coco had told President Bize he wanted a missionary who was athletic this last transfer, so Bize sent Davis, and now he is officially on the basketball team. Like, the one that played with Air Tahiti. It's crazy! I wasn't so sure at first, but I frankly just saw the potential that all the practices we do have for finding people and giving us work, so I'm certainly on-board. The only trick now is figuring out just how to properly use it (engaging people to lessons can be a tricky business). We've also had two new baptism potentials this week. Catherine, an investigato...

(Technical note from Ty's mom.  I have no idea why the margins are messed up on this post. And I don't know how to fix it.  Sorry!) Ka oha nui everyone from the Marquesas - the land where things have been going awesomely with my new companion, and we now have all of our own inside jokes (including over-use of the word "cook" to replace explitives). This week, I've been showing Elder Davis around the Marquesas! He's been apprec- iating it a lot more than Abbate seemed to, and the two of us are getting along really well. He loves it here even more than I do, I dare say, and I'm glad that he will (presumably) me my replacement out here. We've been seeing a lot of the families that we haven't seen in a while too, and that's been really great. Particularly Celestine and her kids and the Bonno family. It's been fantastic! Work has been pretty alright as well. We've scored some more lessons than the average ...

Ka oha nui everyone from the Marquesas - the land where I Skyped yesterday, and as a result don't have a lot of anything else to say. This week was really mellow apart from a new companion. But that's been super awesome thus far! Within like the first day, Elder Davis and I had already landed two member lessons and potentially a new member reference! They just fell out of the sky man. I don't know how it happened. I'm convinced he's good luck, and can't wait for what we're going to do out here. My goal right now is to finally get the Standard of Excellence out here, and to land two more baptisms before I get transferred. Hoping everyone is well (and that I'll have a bit more exciting news next week), Elder Harrah -this is a Slovakian filmmaker dude that Abbate and I met and taught. He was more of a meditation guy, but he was chill to talk with. We saw him again and he was like, tearing around on his bike, tripod in hand trying to film t...

   Yesterday was Mother's Day and we got to Skype for a while with Elder Harrah.  It was just about the best thing ever.  There were very few technical difficulties and we could see him very clearly this time.  He was at a member's home and we got to see a couple of gimpses of that family.  As he was talking, a gecko ran by on the ceiling behind him,  (I was worried it was a huge spider!) and we could hear roosters crowing in the background.  We also got to wave to his new companion, Elder Davis, who he has been with for just 3 days.  I am excited for the two of them to get to work.  Ty mentioned that he hopes to get 2 more baptisms while is is there, so keep him in your prayers!  Here are a couple of clips for you all to enjoy! (sorry the tail end of that video is just background conversation, but I didn't know how to edit it out! Haha!) A big thank you to the family who let us use their home to talk to Elder Harrah....

Ka oha nui from the Marquesas! The land where transfers are coming. On May 6, Abbate will be going back to Tahiti and then going home, and then the same day, my new companion, Elder Davis will be arriving here. Elder Davis is actually from Utah (American Fork), and has only been on a mission since December. I'm very excited to have a new companion, and to show him the island. I love it out here, and I can't wait to show him all the cool spots and shortcuts. Apart from that, this week we had the Gendrons in their first sacrament meeting as members where they bore their testimonies and everything! It was so great to see them there and to feel the spirit they brough with them (new converts are always strong, but it's times 10 when they're YOUR converts). Louis received the Aaronic Priesthood, and Kaha was the one that gave it to him! It was very cool. They even brought an investigator with them to sacrament meeting. It was a really great Sunday. We also had a...