Tyler In Tahiti

Ka oha d'habitude from the Marquises - the land where it's rained literally every day for the last 2+ weeks, and this is supposed to be the dry season. Almost didn't have a p-day this week. Internet's been down for the ENTIRE ISLAND for a bit now. Luckily they fixed the problem a couple days ago. No lie, I think they were just missing some cable. This week was a pretty good week. Elder Davis is completely healed now. Mostly the only lasting damage has been the realization that that IV was the most expensive meal he'd ever eaten ($81.72) and it was from a tube. We met this one guy that I'm pretty sure is certifiably insane, and he was really nice and really old and we traded him a Tahitian Book of Mormon for a Sprite and he came to church and said some seriously funny and weird stuff in Sunday school when he came to church (yeah, he came to our church!). We didn't get to see Suzanne or Catherine this week (something came up with them ea...

Ka oha nui from the Marquises, where the whole week was rather calm right up until, you guessed it, p-day. Elder Davis has been sick with the dengue for this whole week, and it started out okay, but then went from bad to worse. He was feverish, had weird, sensitive skin, his hands and feet hurt, he had headaches and bodily aches, did not stop throwing up, and could not eat for five days, to name a few. As a result, this took up most of the week. We went to the doctor's and he said it was the dengue, and prescribed something we didn't recognize. Soeur Tama (the nurse that gave me breastmilk), said that what he prescribed was just a fancy version of Dolliprane (their equivalent of Ibuprofen). Thusly, she gave us something that was, again, Dolliprane, but this time with codeine. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the throwing up started after that. I don't think it was because of the pill, but still, I don't think it was very great for his body either...

Ka oha nui from the Marquesas - the land where you use stepping stones to cross a river, and you do it with all the casualty and forgetability of crossing the street. This week, we had a pretty good lesson with Suzanne and her family. Really led by the spirit. Unfortunately, we had quite a difficult time engaging them. They didn't come to church, but even a simple invitation to pray about what we said didn't quite work either. We'll just keep trying I suppose. We fixed the hot water heater! Finally! After like 4+ months. It just wouldn't light. We asked around, and we weren't quite sure what to do, we tried some stuff, but we forgot one very crucial thing - gotta change the batteries. Of course. $4. Also, recently when we've been trying to play basketball on the court down by the beach, people have been wanting it so they can play soccer, and our showing up has sort of miffed them a bit. They've gone from playing off to the side, to playing ...

Ka oha nui from the Marquesas - the land where the month of July is beginning, and thus begins the fall of missionary stats. This week was a decided improvement over last week, and certainly went by lots faster. On Tuesday we did a bit of home teaching, and saw the Gendrons again finally. Tehani (their daughter) was back in town for summer vacation and was able to dance with us that weekend (her parents had to head to Tahiti, so they couldn't be in our group). On Wednesday we had one lesson of the four we got this week (eesh). On Thusday is when the party really got started. For you see, a traditional Marquesian oven does not DIG itself. We spent like the entire day cutting the grass (we don't have lawnmowers here, so you cut the grass with oversized and rather dangerous weedwackers and then rake up the clippings), cleaning up the chapel, digging this crazy pit, grabbing our wood for the fire (miraculously dry even in all of the rain), and grabbing our volcanic...

Ka oha nui from the Marquesas once again - the land where I finally got better from being sick, but it sort of killed our week. This week we didn't have a whole ton of success in terms of lessons. Like, at all. Between me being sick and all our regulars cancelling, we ended up with less than 10 lessons; something I've had yet to do on a mission. It's been super discouraging. Still no word on our trip out to Ua Pou and Ua Huka. I guess it'll be some time in July (despite all this partying). Speaking of parties, that's about all that's happened this week. The Catholics hosted this crazy jubilee where a bunch of people from Ua Pou and Ua Huka came and sang and danced, and there was more food there than I've ever seen in one place in my entire life. Probably. ... and that's truly all I have to write about this week. It was honestly really long and kind of lame in terms of work. Love to everyone, Tumu Hakako Harrah -this pill looks ...

Ka oha nui from the Marquises - where I'm running out of titles and not-so-witty jokes for these emails. This week was, as I said, eventful. On Tuesday, we went and worked down on the docks. Kevin and Soeur Ellis had a really full day and needed a bit of extra help, and Davis and I are not ones to turn down a service project. We helped bring in a bunch of boxes that Kevin had ordered (ice cream ordered for the shop, navigation books, tanks of fuel, a new printer, the likes). On Wednesday, we had a day where everyone kept their appointment, and everybody read the scriptures we gave them! It was truly a miracle. They were all really quality lessons, and two of them were with Catherine and Suzanne just to make things better. They're progressing a bit more now than before! On Thursday, the universe was like, "What? You guys can't have success," and I was struck with what we found out later was the zycca (Zika) virus. This was the worst day of it. I ...