Tyler In Tahiti

Hi Everyone- Yet another week passes in its splendor! I was so thankful to finally be back to missionary work and not be sick, and the Lord saw fit to welcome me back with plenty to do, and lots of rain. I couldn't have been happier. We've had some really incredible lessons, and I've really grown as a teacher. I'm really learning how to recognize the spirit at every moment and act on promptings. My love for the people has only continued to grow every day. I care so much about our investigators, and can feel the Savior's love for them so strongly. There's this one lady named Lorenza who's really special to me. She's got lots of problems and it's a rough situation, but that just makes me want to work so hard to help her through all of them. There's a lot of tribulation in her life, and I want nothing more than to give her peace and have her feel of the love of God, so that's what I work so hard to do in every lesson. There...

Hey everyone. Not a whole ton to report this week. I've still been recovering. Bronchitis is gone, but I've still got a bit of infection in my lungs. That's going away super quickly though thanks to this shot I've been getting each day... in the waste/butt. Ugh. Classy. I was able to get to one lesson though. We taught this really old couple who only spoke Tahitian (luckily their daugther was there to translate for us) about repentance. It was cool because I was able to contribute way more than I thought I'd be able to. We were using the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet to help us teach, and I remembered a box of text from there that I read in the MTC that was super powerful, so I was able to share that. And I knew the first verse of Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief in Tahitian from the MTC, so we were able to sing that with them at the end of our lesson. It was way cool. I'm also growing more confident in my French, especially this night we ate at the exe...

Hello Everyone. Firstly, an item of business - if I have lots of typos, know it's not because I'm losing my English to French, it's because I'm on a French computer that puts like every English word as a typo, so my emails are all basically made of red, so it's harder for me to catch errors. Now, that being said, on to business. A few things I forgot from last week: - My name means "sin" in Tahitian. At least, it does when it's pronounced Hah-rah, which is how everybody says it and it's too big of a pain to correct it, so I just go with it. And honestly it gives me a bit of personality and a joke to break the ice, which is good for what I currently lack in French. - The hardest part of missionary work here is how early everybody goes to bed. The sun sets at like 6 here, so that's when everybody goes to bed. You can't really schedule a lesson then, so all we can really do is schedule our dinner kind of later and hope for the be...

Bonjour tout le monde! I finally made it here. And I have many stories to tell. Firstly, I'm not gonna lie, that flight was kinda long. Secondly, we are four hours earlier here, and we watched conference live (in English thank goodness). And we live twenty+ minutes away from the church where we watched it, so I'll let you do the math on when we had to get up... My favorite talk was probably D. Todd Christofferson's. He speaks with such power and authority. You can tell he's a man of God. I'm currently on the main island in an area called Toahotu; nicknamed the "Presqu'ile" (the "almost island"). It is the tiny little patch of land that connects the two fat circles of Tahiti. It's actually a brand new sector (nobody says area) that we're opening! How exciting is that? Elder Sovereign was so kind when he heard that I was opening a new sector and said, "Pfft! I could've told you that." He's so nice. ...

Hello everyone,     This is Elder Harrah's mom.  Ty left for Tahiti this morning!  He arrived at the Salt Lake airport and called his dad and I about 11 AM Utah time.  It was so much fun to hear his voice and get to actually talk to him after 6 weeks!  He has been sick with what he called the 'MTC cold'.  He's been up all night coughing, etc.  He didn't sound like his usual perky self.  He said the missionaries had given him a blessing last night and that he felt much better today, so hopefully it will pass quickly.       He told us that he and his district had done a musical number in sacrament meeting on Sunday where they sang A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.  They sang the first verse in Tahitian, the next 2 verses in French, and the last verse in English.  I wish I could have been there to see it!  It makes me teary just thinking about it.  Apparently the Spirit was very strong.   He also said that ...

Hello my friends. I finally find myself on my final p-day in the MTC. Thank heaven. The experience has been good, learning so much has been awesome, feeling the spirit's been nice, but I need to get moving, and I need to eat real food again; even if it's Fafaru (you put a dead fish in a jar of saltwater, let it sit for a week, and then use the contents of the jar as a sauce for the fish you just grilled). I've had some good times here. We've had some truly amazing devotionals. We got to hear from Dallin H. Oaks (the man), and his talk was basically a guide to being a great missionary, so that was awesome, we got to hear from Rosemary Wixom of the Primary Presidency (I've always loved hearing from her in conference so it was cool to hear her in person), we got our very own version of Music and the Spoken Word with our MTC choir and THE Lloyd Newell no less ("This is the 185th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...

P-Day 4 everybody. Still going strong. Things are really kind of the same around here. I don't have a whole ton to report. Honestly, I'm just kind of in a perpetual state of good like all the time. Apart from missing people, every day is full of magnificence and progress in no small amounts. That being said though, I am incredibly impatient for Tahiti. I need to get out and get moving. I'm getting antsy. And I daresay the MTC food is taking its toll (meaning it's getting old, not that I'm getting fat. Actually lost a spot of weight, as a matter of fact). Our district grows closer together and more like a family every day, and we all learn and grow so much each day. We're all making great progress with our current investigators, and are gaining so much experience. It's cool being the veterans of the MTC, and tripping out the n00bies with all the dumb MTC games we know (Snaps, Airplane, and Black Magic). People are especially impressed by my skills...