Tyler In Tahiti

Monday Went on a hike to a very cool waterfall. Since it's been raining so much, we actually had a waterfall to go and see. Kind of showed up to somebody else's party though. It was fun situational comedy. Tuesday Had a great lesson with one of our fixed baptisms; our DMP's daughter, Vahinehau. Also had a good lesson with Our other two fixed baptisms; Melodie and Narii. They're getting married and baptized on Februry 25. Wednesday Every Wednesday night is our sport activity. It's kind of died out recently though. Not a ton of people/investigators come. Most exciting thing was the worldwide missionary broadcast where we sat in (like almost as if we were at the table) with the likes of Elder Oaks and Elder Bednar. They announced a bunch of changes for missionaries. Our schedule is different now (we have more freedom to move stuff around; like we could study at night if we wanted to, planning is in the morning finally, and we get more sleep!), and the ...

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen the sun since I've been here! It's been raining so much. It's the season for all of that though. Work has been going pretty well. We've got three fixed baptisms and a huge sector! We've always got lots to do. We've had lots of driving adventures, and it's just given me some good chances to see the island, and that's been great. Elder Jordan is half-Tahitian (his mom's from Takaroa), so he is literally cousins with like everybody! It's really funny. And he's a chill dude to be around. I'm finishing his formation right now, so he's still pretty new. This is like Week 7 for him I believe. It's really nice being able to just focus on a sector and trying to pump myself up spiritually (I try to read my scriptures even more throughout the day), and not have to take care of anybody else again. I really like it. I still have the power to do baptismal interviews though (...

So I actually was getting transferred! Surprise! As I explained a bit in my last email, this transfer was absolutely huge. Every zone leader changed, nearly every companionship changed. Myself included. Some transfers this time around really just had me scratching my head. And that's not even to comment on the quality of these transfers, I was just left wondering, ''... (title of this email).'' So transfers are going down, I miss the first boat going out to Moorea (chess in a McDonald's was more important apparently), and then I almost missed the second one (why we all felt that like 20 missionaries needed to convene in the same 2 square-foot driveway of the 'airport house' at Faa'a (where I stayed in the night before I left for the Marquises) was truly beyond me). We rolled up to the docks and the boat was like taking off just about. I ran up, bought my ticket at lightning speed, and Elder Heiata (guy that drove my luggage and I to the docks) l...

This week was long and hard for everybody. Our contacting didn't take us too far honestly. We went out and worked so much, but we like, couldn't even get spiritual thoughts across to anybody. Just placed like some brochures. That was honestly the whole week. Not a ton of lessons at all. The anti-addiction courses that these other missionaries in our zone are doing is actually really cool and is going super well for our investigators that are attending, so that's a highlight. Conseil des Dirigeants was a high point as well! The zone challenge this month is actually to bring inactives back to church! Everybody was actually really glad to hear about it. That being said, my son and I hit the asphalt running to go do it and our biggest potentials kind of just straight told us no way, so that was pretty discouraging. We talked with our ward council though and they've already got a reactivation plan going, so hopefully we'll be able to go with them and make that h...

Hello everyone! I hope everybody had a fun time partying and that everybody's excited for the new year. After our awesome Christmas party, our house didn't really do much for New Years. Elder Reese is still feeling sick, so we all just kind of went to bed. We did make crepes though. This week was tremendously uneventful, as my son and I spent a lot of time at the mission office working on the movie some more (we bought the software on a computer that actually belonged to the mission, but it changed the lighting on my movie and I had to re-color correct my whole movie over again), and I had to get it approved by President Bize, so that's why I didn't send it this last week. I got approval just last night though, and he invited me to show it at the office this Tuesday, and then we'll show it at the Conseil des Dirigeants this Thursday. Speaking of which, I'm super excited for the Conseil des Dirigeants this week. We've got so many new leaders,...