Devon’s Mission in Kiribati

Mauri Everyone!!! Hows it going? The first week is down and it doesn't feel real. It was definitely an experience... We all are assigned to a floor when we get here and that's where our residence is. Our floor consists of all the missionaries that are going to their mission to the Pacific Islands. About half the missionaries that are going to the Islands are FROM the islands which makes it that much cooler. It is never a dull day when you can wake up to the Tongans and Samoans singing in the shower haha. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met. We had a pull up bar that's hooked to the wall outside our room, so one day our whole floor had a pull up competition. Not to brag... but I did win. All the Tongan's now call me Buff Boy, so whenever I see them throughout the day they are like "AYYY buff boy!". It's pretty funny. OH YEAH. During the week, we also ran into a missionary who is from Kiribati. For those of you who know my friend Harry Alapp...

1. My companion, Elder Hoggan, and me 2. My district attempting to learn this impossible language 3. All the other missionaries, other than the 2 sisters, going to Kiribati Mauri! Ko uara? I have survived the first 2 days at the MTC! It is definitely already pretty dang hard... Majority of our "class time" is spend in language study. We were assigned to our district which is a small group of elders and sisters that will be speaking your same language. Other than me, there are 8 elders and 2 sisters. All the elders are white, but the 2 sisters are from Australia and Tonga. Even though they don't understand Kiribati, they laugh at most of us attempting to speak an islander language and trying to get a proper accent.  Our district was then assigned to a zone which is just a bunch of districts. We are the islander zone so we have missionaries going to Kiribati, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, Malay, Indonesia, and the Marshall islands (there ar...

Devon will be entering the Provo MTC on October 18, 2017.  He will be serving a 2-year mission in Kiribati, a group of islands located in the Central Pacific, speaking Kiribati.  Dress code:  short-sleeved white shirt and tie with pants (rolling is optional) and sandals, crocs or flip-flops.