Week 30.5: Roller Coaster

So I wasn't going to write a group email this week because I was assuming id be home by next week, but now im not too sure. This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions to say the least. 

So quarantine has been better and worse than I expected. I have been way less anxious and realized a lot of my anxiety actually came with how hard missionary work is and wasn't all about home and being far. Now that days are nothing, I dont wake up super anxious or have problems in the morning. But quarantine has also been hard haha. Days feel so long and I get tired of activities so fast. Studying is nearly impossible in these circumstances and I study less now than before. We try and play games, study a bit, and got our hands on a mini projector which has been clutch for movies I had on a USB that doesn't work on our mini DVD players.But multiple times a day we just sit and look into blank space, chatting a bit, and stressing. 

Days are also filled with lots of speculation, news updates and gossip. I can confidently say that our mission hasn't handled this well. Their strategy of silence for the full first week of quarantine hasn't been my favourite. Ive heard all my news from my mom, other missionary moms, other elders, and members. Ive been receiving and passing news like crazy. Its kinda fun but so stressful. So much news has been indicating home, and then calls that say otherwise, and then a news article that seems to confirm home, and then a text that points away from that. Its been horrible.

Some mission updates:

-Tahiti restarted a more serious quarantine for 15 days on top of the 5 we had already started. They predict it'll be longer

-All outer island missionaries here (30) got flown in this weekend and are staying at temple housing

- All missionaries going home April and may are leaving this week

- Some french sisters are stuck

- We still have to get dressed up in white shirts, get up at 6 and shave daily (as if. I laughed when I read that in a text we got)

-Tahiti went from 3 to 11 cases in a day and started a panic

 

So I think, based on a call that caused a mini panic attack, we are waiting out the Tahiti quarantine for 13 more days, and then waiting out the planes being cancelled for 15 more on top of that. So stuck in our apartment. Dont know how we will do it haha i hate this. I just want to go home at this point instead of staying in this torturous state. We are all struggling hard. At least its not just me I guess! 

Im still hoping (and praying) we will just be sent home asap instead of "waiting it out". I don't care about being "safer" here. What a joke.

But as this is meant to be motivational ill end with a cheeky spiritual thought. We were all stressing hard and decided the only thing to do was a house Book of Mormon read. As we read I felt a peace come over me I Hadn't felt at all in a few days of stress. Heavenly father gives us things to help us through difficult times and the Book of Mormon is one of those tools. It has been hard, but I've been able to find a little bit of comfort through the little bit of BOM study I manage. I know the book is true and brings comfort and peace. I also finished the book this week and had been highlighting references to the Godhead (God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost). Out of 531 pages, only 23 had no highlights. The Book of Mormon truly testifies of Christ and is a book centered on Him and God. I quite like that book.

Anyway, hope everyone has a fantastic week probably chez vous. Enjoy wifi for me and ill enjoy my camera I take pics of emails with. the elder who owns all the houses games is leaving too so that should be fun (not actually).

Love 

Elder Fore 

Week 31: I'm coming home

After much stress, games,a projector found, movies watched, sitting in boredom... we are coming home . It was a tough week honestly and we did nothing. I'm coming home this week with all other foreign missionaries in Tahiti. It was a very stressful week I'll be honest. Lots of calls back and forth between missionaries, and lots of freaking out.

But its all good now we got the call

Love

Elder Fiore

Mom's Note:

It has been a roller coaster of a week. All the waiting. We finally got word late last night that Zach is on a flight on Saturday night (March 28th) and will be home March 29th (flying through San Francisco). Unfortunately only 30 missionaries have  tickets for this flight. They said they are only getting  flights to those who's connections they can confirm. However there are another 50-70 missionaries that need flights.  I feel blessed for Zach coming home, but my heart breaks for those still waiting....

Week 24: How to get 30 baptisms in one week

Bonjour, 

Figured I'd start one off like a local. Not a Tahitian local though since no one really uses that here. 

So this week was fine. A little hard to be honest emotionally, but the work was good, so that balances to fine.

We give many blessngs at the hospital which I love and even brought the sacrament to a few people which was nice. An interesting happening was we got rejected by a member for giving one. We weren't the right mssionaries he said. I guess he figured it was a no risk play. He coud call the missionaries and then just decide if we were fine to do the blessing when he saw us. We also went for another visit and met the patient in the hall, as he was walking back from downstairs. We shook his hand, talked a bit and were about to enter the room with him, until the nurse jumped out and said we can't go in without a suit and gloves. The patient went in and we suited up. I don't know how we were allowed to touch him outside if we had to put gloves to visit him inside. It's a little suss. I washed my hands well.

Mami Anna was mad we visited Mami Mareta and was very passive aggressive and then aggressive aggressive.

My mom sent me 40 hours of General conf videos from the Tahiti distribution centre so I've been ripping those.

Oh and it rained a lot here and we made it to orange for cyclone warning. I really wanted a cyclone (to chill) but then realized that could interfere with calling home, and as I've had a kinda tough week, I couldn't take the risk. So the rain stopped after a few days and I was happy. 

To answer the question we've all been reading for. The way to get 30 baptsims, and the way I did it was by going to the temple and doing baptisms for the dead with a new convert! Finally made it inside the tiny Tahiti Papeete temple! I wore crocs due to rain which is kinda bad.  I baptized the convert for his grandfather, giving the grandpa the opportunity to truly accept the gospel in the next life,  which was such a spiritual experience and definitely the highlight of the visit. Other than that the temple was okay and I got super homesick from it. Not the best temple visit in all to be honest, but I'm happy for the convert and am always happy to do missionary work on the other side of the veil as well. As missionaries we can't go to the temple often which sucks. I urge everyone who can to go more often as it is such an important work and brings so many blessings for you and others. I wish I could go more and I'm hyped to go when I'm back. 

Have a good week everyone

Love

Elder Fiore

Mom's note:

I am so happy the General Conference DVDs made it there. I ordered them on Dec 23 from the Tahiti Distribution Centre. Not sure why it took so long?!?! lol I guess the hold up is always inTahiti?!?!  His Valentine's Package which I sent right after Christmas  has not made it yet, and Rob sent him something in mid Jan from the US thinking it would take less time - but still not there. 

Elder Fiore is still hanging in there with the ups and the downs of dealing with anxiety. It really is trying him, but we are so proud of his courage to share how he feels and the effort and faith he is putting in. We had a terrible internet connection this week so it was super hard to see him.

Here are some photos:

The DVDs that finally arrived:

I'm wondering if this is the top of the hospital?

Week 21: Bye Bye Faaa

Yup you read it right. I'm leaving Faaa and am hyped. It was sad leaving the ward and saying by but I really needed the fresh start for sure. I'm getting ahead of myself though...

So i did some splits again this week and went to a place called "Oremu" with Elder Cowley. It took an hour and a half walk up a mountain to get to the area where we taught english and visited. It was so hot that day that even Tahitians were complaining. It as rough but hype. But yea, different than a car.

I also got a haircut in the chapelle in a classroom for free from a member. Missionary life.

I also organized and lead a service project cleaning garbage at a member's house. We found many t shirts, toys and a dead dog. A full dead dog. It was insane. We filled over 24 bags like 200L each. Nuts.

But yea transfers were the hype part. I'm in Arue (Ah rou way) in Pare (pah reh) and it's still city which I'm a little sad about; other than that looks lit and I have a part that is jungle which I'm  in right this moment; It's super close to Papeete too so best of both worlds I guess. I also have the big hospital for French Polynesia in my sector so lots of blessings. Bike area too which I'm happy about. Oh yea and an American comp, Elder Wilkinson! So happy for english wow; he's super nice.

I got 12 ties this week wow.

Have a great week everyone

Elder Fiore

Mom's note:

Zach had a ton of pictures he was disappointed he didn't have internet to download. He showed me a bunch on our call - he had taken pictures with all the members of his ward in Faaa. Despite all the ups and downs and challenges, he has loved the people he has served. He is excited to serve in this new area which is apparently very busy and he's looking forward to being exhausted from serving. He is feeling better  - I'd say he's worked his way up to being about 60% better - which is a big improvement from where he was a few weeks ago. Certainly his trials have helped him grow and develop in ways I did not think were possible  - they have helped us all grow as his family too. Looking forward to a new chapter for him in Arue. 

I'm going to add some photos that he downloaded but I'm not sure where and when they re from!

Week 20: 2020 in Toronto

Happy New Year everyone.

I had an unexpected surprise and facetimed home exactly at midnight in Toronto and watched the ball drop w family. It was very fun and unexpected. 2020 is crazy. Full year in Tahiti. Gonna be a tough one lol. I also went to bed at 10 New Years Eve which was sad, but that made it so the Toronto New Years was truly mine too. 

I did another mini split and loved not being in the car again. I also invited a person I taught for the first time, to baptism. I don't know why I invited the ami they're teaching but he said yes. I did the whole lesson too while my comp did a lesson with someone else at the same time next to us. Two lessons at the same time. That's efficient missionary work. I also set up an english tutoring session and taught 8 kids basic intro english. 

Back in my sector we taught a new convert how to get a guy and gave her love and flirting advice. 

We had a poke bowl too which was good and the people we were eating with were freaking out over how many veggies there were the whole meal. Shredded carrots and sliced cucumber. They don't eat many veggies here - it's difficult. But as their son said, we are spoiled to have so much. There are more veggies in a burger smh.

We also had someone get up in front of all in testimony meaning and not only sing a song, which is weird in itself, but chose a song for the ward to sing. About a third of people sang and the pianist did an awkward head shake when asked to play. It was fun and she's crazy. She tickled me after. And pinched me. 

I'm the king too according to gallet to roi, Three King day thing, 12 days after Christmas. I got a little Mexican head in my cake, so of course I win. It was weird but fun.

I've started just planning all our days and have been filling them so we've been a lot busier. Its made days a lot more hard working and fun.  Because I plan all now tho and my comp doesn't care, I've made it so there's literally nothing on a day I'm doing another split, going to another area. I don't want to miss anything haha. So we have every day extremely booked this week, like hour by hour full and jam packed already, and then Wednesday completely empty. Oh well. I have to start planning lessons Wednesday though cause there's no other time this week free. I like planning the days -  it's fun. 

I got 3 free ties too.

In the same crazy testimony meeting there was a 10 year old boy who went up all alone. He spoke for like three min then starting sweating a lot, deep breathing and crying. His dad came up and literally just stood behind him closely. The little boy looked up at his dad, nodded in a I can do this way, then finished well. The silent support of his dad was beautiful. We have support no matter where we are and what we are doing. We have friends and family and Heavenly Father standing behind us, there for us. It was a beautiful moment. 

Transfers are next week and I'm tryna leave lol. I hope i do.

Have a great week everyone

Elder Fiore

1 Conatcting

2. Given food yum

3. mountain

4. Lotus hills view of moorea i have all the time

5.King

Mom note: It was the best surprise to hear from him on NYE and have him there to ring in the NY! The past couple of weeks have been super super challenging, but he has been getting stronger and it has been nice to have more contact with him to help him get stronger. Here's a few more pictures from his week:

Daily views and activities:

Replacing the stickers:

More views and daily life: