Sunday, April 24, 2016

culture

Sent:   
Sunday, April 24, 2016 6:19 PM (MDT)
Monday, April 25, 2016 11:19 AM (Vanuatu)

so. this week.

i tried quite a few new things this week. such as making coconut milk. a fresh coconut is only like 50 vatu (50 cents) here so. i've learned how to effectively open a coconut. and how to make fresh coconut milk. tastes so goodddddd. also i tried a native dish here. called laplap. it's kinda like mashed potatoes. a root crop. but it's banana root or casava root. boiled and then cooked in leaves with hot rocks on top. it's pretty good. the picture of mama jenny is her with a bunch of laplap she just made. it takes a long time to make so i haven't personally made it but it tastes ok. better than semboro. semboro is kinda the same but made of bananas and ground cabbage cooked in leaves. to be honest it(semboro) kinda made me gag the first time i ate it. but the thing is if you don't eat all of the food they give you you're disrespectful. so. but it's all good.

my comp elder omilig is a pretty good cook. he has a lot of philipino recipes up his sleeve due to the fact that he's philipino and so learning how to make those dishes and such. p good. turns out. apparently a lot of missionaries over spend their support here. and so we've had like. a zone training all about it and also a district meeting. but apparently im really cheap with my money. like. we're supposed to use no more than 5000 vatu a week. (50$ USD) and the food here is really cheap. so i buy plenty of food enough for both me and my comp for that much. and then splitting the bill. i guess im pretty thrifty due to my short college life and budgeting and such. 

as far as spiritual experiences. it's been pretty tough this week because we have a few progressing investigators(mama jenny being one) and less actives and recent converts that we visit. but none of them come to church.... it's honestly kinda frustrating and i don't know how to imbue them with the desire to come to church.., but. we've been guided by the spirit. my comp and i. without a doubt. one time i thought that we'd go to one little village to talk with the pikininis (kids, anyone under 16) and we started talking to the pikininis a little and a dude from the village that we had a return appt with once came out and talked to us. he had a lot of religious questions. and honestly searching for truth. like. he'd talked to jehovah's witnesses for 5 years. and he's really researched a lot. great lesson with him. and he talked english. so it was soooooo much easier to express my emotions and thoughts to him. good stuff. 
 
also. that bug. we sprayed permythrin around our apartment. so that there'd be less bugs. once one misquito bit me 14 times in one night. it was so gratifying to kill that bug. anyway. the big milibug. it's poisonous. and so. right after we sprayed permythrin (bug poison/deterrant) i found that dead in our hallway. fun stuff. 
that's all for nowwwww


Elder HyattVI

Monday, April 18, 2016

That's All for Now

Sent:    Sunday, April 17, 2016 6:09 PM (MDT)
Monday April 18, 2016 11:09 AM (Vanuatu)

uh. thanks for the stamps and all but they don't really work here. and it costs a 1.60 for an international stamp here. sigh. it's all good though.

oh yeah. I’m looking forward to a Mother’s Day call.  keep in mind that its 11:08 am on monday as i write this. so. yeah. you guys got this. 


i think about you guys alot. hope ya'll are doing well. 

Sunday, April 10, 2016

The Lord's Work


Sent:    Sunday, April 10, 2016 6:43 PM (MDT)
            Monday, April 11, 2016 11:43 am (Vanuatu) 

this week has been a blast.

so we (me and my companion elder omilig) are re opening an area. so at first we didn't even have an area book. so we were just kinda walking around and talking to people on the street. 
it's so crazy. i now have 28 new investigators. in just one week. wowie. the people here are so humble and nice. one time, when i was leaving a lesson, the person i was teaching said. so do you want some naos or pampamouse? (i don't know if that's how you spell it but that is how they're pronounced) and he then went and pulled a fruit off a tree in his area village place and gave it to me. it was about the size of my head! pampamouse is a citrus. but the pulp is a light green. it's so great.
as far as other foods i've been eating alot. i've been eating a lot of rice. and beef. everything here is really cheap. but not a lot of variety. a weeks worth of food is like. maybe 8000 vatu (80$ USD) for two people. and thats bread milk rice, all the stuff.
im really loving it here. the people are so humble and happy. even though their living situations compared to the USA living conditions are less than appealing. it's so easy to get street contacts and share messages with people. because, they'll be sitting out under a tree in their front yard equivalent because almost no one has A/C so everyone just uses the breeze as A/C. 
my companion tells me my complexion has started to change. i guess im getting tan or something :p haven't gotten sun burnt yet but mosquitoes are the absolute bane of my existence. ugh. but it's all good. 
i guess i've realized compared to others who have arrived to the mission field at the same time as me. i've learned bislama really fast. but the people here speak so so so fast. so i have a hard time understanding what they're saying a lot but i can usually get the gist of what they're saying. 
i loved conference so much. i only got to see priesthood and sunday sessions. but it's all good cuz those sessions were the best ones XD. we had a re broadcast yesterday and watched all of the sessions but i was out teaching during the first two sessions so i didn't get to watch them. 
something kinda funny. is the women tend to sit outside and talk and the men are... i don't know. but whence we sit down with them and start teaching one or two people, 4 or 5 others come out and sit around and listen to our message. no pressure right? just 7-8 people listening intently to your broken bislama. it's all good. 
ok so spiritual experiences. so here in vanuatu, a lot of the houses aren't immediately accessible from the road. so me and my comp are walking down a paved road and i see a little dirt road and i tell my comp. lets go this way. so we went down the little road and we saw a dude lying under a tree. we taught him the lesson. it was probably the most spiritual lesson i've had so far. and after. he was beaming like. yes. you are coming back. i need to hear more. but alas. he doesn't live in our area. he was just visiting a friend. we referred him on but im pretty sure he's gonna enter the waters of baptism :)
i don't know it in the moment but im being guided by the spirit. i ask for it every day. mi save se lo tabu spirit blesem me tumas. mi save se papa god nedim mi stap lo hea nao.
that's all for now~


Elder Hyatt VI

PS - if you guys decide to send me a care package, pls put a picture of Christ on the outside. less likely to get stolen if you do that.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Managing Expectations

Sent:   Sunday, April 03, 2016 7:35 PM (MDT)
Monday, April 4, 2016 12:35 PM (Vanuatu)

Vanuatu. is the best!!!!
so. right now i don't have an sd card reader so i can't send any pictures. which is kinda sad. i've been all over the place. the plane ride was kinda crazy. i wish i could show pictures. one of the sisters on the plane ride with me is from micronesia and micronesia doesn't have and agreement with new zeland to grant visitor visas on the fly. so she got stuck up stairs and we had to check in for her downstairs and check her luggage and stuff.

we got to new zealand at 5 am on wednesday and our plane for vanuatu didn't leave until 1 pm. and check in didn't open until 11. so we were sitting around with our bags and waiting for hours. which kinda sucked but it was pretty ok. getting to know people in my travel group pretty well. i'll tell you their names and stuff when i send pictures. 

the ocean here. it looks exactly like the sky from far away. it's amazing. uhm. so the first night. i met the mission president, went to the office and got some stuff sorted out. putting visas and passports in the safe and stuff. i had passion fruit for the first time for dinner. everything is super cheap here. a big meal of food is 300 vatu. or like. 3$. my mission president is super nice. he's from australia. everyone here has a accent of some sort. american accents are rare. im rare here. hah. 

also, the people here have the coolest hair. it's black like normal african american's hair. but if it gets long enough, the tips of the hair naturally tint carmel color. it's so cool. i wish my hair did that. 

my trainer is elder omilig. he's philipino. he's trying to learn how to play the guitar. we're living kinda in the city of port vila. the place is called south ohlen. well. the name of the area is. i think it's kinda just a suburb of port vila. and the area used to be just ohlen. but the sisters that were serving in this area were mostly proslyting in the north so they split the area. so we don't quite have a area book yet or a area map. but it's all good

since my companion is philipino, he's been trying to get me to learn how to cook philipino style. like. chicken adobo. and such. lots of rice. the milk here is called full cream milk. which i think is the same thing as whole milk in the usa?

i guess i should say something spiritual. well. nothing super spiritual has happened yet. i've been focusing a lot on learning the language. and settling in. currently im out of food so im gonna go shopping later. and since we don't really have an area map or area book, it's hard to know were we're supposed to tract. or supposed to be. hopefully that will all be fixed by next week. 

so the reason i titled this post managing expectations. is cuz. literally everyone here has been like. expect this to happen. this is gonna happen alot in your mission. the best are of the mission is. and all that. and then 5 minutes later someone else tells me the opposite. so. i guess if anything. i've learned that i'll just have to make my own expectations. but this place is amazing. i wish you could see pictures. i'll get a sd card reader. 

that's all for now.

Elder Hyatt Vl

Friday, April 1, 2016

Transition then Arrival in Vanuatu

Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 4:59 PM
Subject: im alive and in new zealand!

.....
luggage fees are pretty hefty but apparently ill be reimbursed whence i give the receipt to my mission president.

i've met up with a couple different people here in new zealand. there's one sister and two elders who were visa waiters and are on the same flight with us to vanuatu.

i've learned some more things about vanuatu. concerning packages and such. vanuatu has a very sharing culture. so if you send me a care package of any kind, expect that i will get maybe a 1/4 of the actual contents. how it was described to me. if you buy cookies. they're not your cookies. they're everyone's cookies.

it feels like home here in new zealand. it's really humid and it feels just like houston. but everyone here drives backwards. driver in the right hand seat and driving on the left side of the road.

today has been an experience. i'll write home more about it if i get a chance to email in actual vanuatu.  ....

love you mom. love u dad.
hope you guys aren't too worried about me.
thats all for now!

Elder Hyatt VI

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From: Vanuatu Port Vila Mission
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:22 PM
Subject:  Manly, Weita, Davis, Pahio, Stone, Broadbent, Parker, Hathcock, Hyatt.jpg




From: Vanuatu Port Vila Mission
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:31 PM
Subject: Elder Hyatt with President and Sister Granger