Elder Kyle Van Lindt - Tahiti Pape'ete Mission

laorana! I hope all of you have had a great week full of memorable and exciting experiences! This week I have had plenty of experiences through service. I love service because it is an opportunity to help others and it's a way of showing love towards them. The first act of service I did this week was to help a member build a house. With the mini cyclone that came through here like a month ago, it destroyed part of his house. So this week we have been helping him to rebuild the walls. It is not like an American house, but it is still a house! We have been making a ton of cement and using a lot of cinderblocks. It has been awesome learning new things and being able to help others while they are in need! Another day this week we went to our investigators Bee Farm to him him out. We helped him clean out some fo the boxes and move around some things for the bee's! I was not the smartest and wore a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops. You guessed it, I ended up paying for that by ge...

Hello! This week was such a great week! We had two baptisms! I was so happy for Mateata dn Itaia. Their baptism was so powerful and such a spiritual experience. I always love baptisms and watching people take that step to change. They were so happy and it was such a beautiful thing to watch them be baptized. This week has been full of rain. Like literally, getting wet to the bone kinda rain. I am pretty sure there were a few days that I went through like 4 changes of clothes because we would come home to get into dry clothes and then they would get wet! I can honestly say that I am not a big fan of rain anymore! LOL ... gotta love mold growing all over everything you own. This past weekend was Stake Conference and it was awesome to hear from the Stake President and his counselors. Whenever they come down to Tubuai it is like a huge deal, so they have these huge parties for them. Which is super awesome, but that also means a ton of Tahitian food! Tahitian food is a LOT different t...

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all doing well because I am doing fantastic! I found out on Friday night that I will be staying out on Tubuai for another 6 weeks and I am so excited! This week has been super busy, but super awesome! On Saturday morning we had a lesson with two of our investigators, Mateata and Itaia. Mateata is the wife of the man we baptized in December and Itaia is their son. So we have been teaching them and we had their baptism set for the end of this month, but at the lesson on Saturday morning we we're talking and out of no where Mateata says "I want to get baptized this Thursday the 15th!" So between Saturday and yesterday we have probably biked over 50 miles just trying to get everything ready for this Thursday! I am so excited to be able to witness this baptism and watch this family come together. They have the goal of going to the Temple next April to be sealed. There isn't words to describe how happy I am for their family. The Lord kee...

Bonjour tout le monde! I hope you all had a wonderful week full of joy! This week has been a pretty awesome week for Elder Blazzard and I! I will start off by saying that I finished the Book of Mormon this week, but this time in French! It took me about 3 months to read it all. I love that book, and it has honestly changed my life. My French has also been improving a ton. It has gotten pretty easy for me to speak French.This week I  really started going had with the Tahitian. I know small short phrases, enough to get me through lessons in Tahitian, but I really want to be able to speak it fluently as well. It is tough having not one but two languages to learn. But with the help of the Lord I know it is possible. Just a little funny story, this week we were at a fa'atama'ara'a (dinner) and I was sitting on this bench next to the table and the bench totally broke in half! I guess it is a sign that I need to stop eating so much and loose some weight! This week has been...

Hello all you wonderful people! I hope you all had an amazing week! This week was a pretty awesome week! There was some changes this week so it kept things interesting. I was on split with one of the other Elders (from the other side of the island) for the whole week. His name is Elder Nauta and he is Tahitian. It was super awesome and we had a fun time! I really felt like I was in the culture when I was with him because he doesn't speak any English, so we talked all week in French! It was helpful having someone who speaks the language to help you out! I learned a lot from him and his is also still in training, so I was able to help him out with that! We started teaching this couple about 2 weeks ago and yesterday they came to church for the first time. When they walked in to church I had so much joy and happiness fill my heart! It makes me so happy when investigators we are teaching become closer to Christ and have that joy in their lives! Last P Day we went and played foo...

Hello Everyone! This week was a good week! It wasn't too exciting but there are still some things I want to share with you all about my week! Let's start with Wednesday this last week. It was a normal day of missionary work and we had some extra time so we decided to go and do a little finding. We went down this dirt road and there was a house all the way at the end. So we go and get to the house and yell 'laorana' at the house from the road and hear nothing. Then we yell again and we hear a voice from the other side of the road, and it ends up being the owner of this house. He tells us to come over so we could talk with him. There are a lot of trees so we start walking into the trees and next thing you know we are in a Bee farm...Yes I said Bee Farm! He is in the middle of the bee farm doing his work. He tells us that the bees won't sting us as long as we don't try and hit them! My companion looks at me and says there is no way he is going in there. I look ...

Hello Everyone! This week was another great week on Tubuai! I love this island so much. The people are the nicest people ever and it is such a privilege to be here with them. The Tahitian culture is a LOT different from America, but I feel that now it is a part of me. This week we have had a lot of opportunities to do some contacting. We are working hard to find new people to teach and it is working. We are so blessed! Yesterday we found 5 new investigators that want to take the missionary lessons. I can also tell that my teaching skills are improving. It is fun to be energetic and really get in to everything! This week we also started teaching an English class! Usually they are pretty difficult to get set up and people don't always come, but this week we had our first class and we had over 20 people come! I love being able to teach English to the people of Tubuai. It is such a blessing being able to speak in French and Tahitian and communicate with the people here  so we can...