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Episode 8: Mason Ross - Marshall Islands & Kiribati - Ebeye, Wotje, Abemama, Majuro, Jaluit
54 Plays1 month ago
Mason Ross served in the Marshall Islands Kiribati Mission from 2016 - 2018. Mason had an incredible mission and served in both the Marshall Islands and Kiribati! Every elder was jealous of the areas that Mason served in because he not only served on 3 outer islands and Ebeye but also hit both countries in the mission! Mason started in the Marshall Islands, headed to an outer island in Kiribati, and then went back to the Marshall Islands. Mason's areas in order: Ebeye, Wotje, Abemama, Majuro, Jaluit, Majuro.
#MarshallIslandsKiribatiMission #MarshallIslands #Kiribati #Ebeye #Wotje #Abemama #Majuro #Jaluit #TheIslandsPodcast #theislands #PacificIslands #PacificIslanders #Micronesia
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:01
Darin Tingey
All right, this is another episode of the Islands Podcast with Mason Ross, and today we're sponsored by Kool-Aid and Ramen. um I'm just kidding, i wish we were sponsored by Kool-Aid and Ramen.
00:00:14
Mason Ross
That would be so great.
00:00:18
Darin Tingey
It'd be a classic Marshallese sponsorship right there. um But Mason and I were companions back in the day, it served a lot of our missions together.
00:00:32
Darin Tingey
Give a quick background, Mason, where you're from i and where you're at now.
00:00:39
Mason Ross
All right, I am from Syracuse, Utah. I went to Clearfield High School, played little bit of college ball, and I came home from my mission at Utah State Eastern. um Actually just bought a house, so currently now going to be moving into Roy.
00:00:54
Mason Ross
So that's exciting. This weekend's going to be a whole lot of fun.
00:00:56
Darin Tingey
Let's go.
00:00:59
Mason Ross
um Yeah, i still kind of in and around baseball. I coach professionally with the Ogden Raptors, um which is an independent league team up here in in Utah. so Baseball has never found its way away from me. It's always been here.
Baseball and Mission Beginnings
00:01:18
Darin Tingey
Yeah. And, you know, those listening can't see you, but you're wearing a baseball cap, which I'd say most of the mission you had a baseball cap on too, which is so good.
00:01:28
Mason Ross
I did. I did for sure. probably Yeah, yeah, I did for sure.
00:01:33
Darin Tingey
I think like all the pictures that we have together, you're in a baseball cap. And I'm like, that's the most classic Elder Ross thing ever.
00:01:41
Mason Ross
It hasn't changed. You know, even in the offseason, I still wear construction and I still wear still wear baseball hats. It's just the way it is.
00:01:48
Darin Tingey
I'm just surprised you still have hair underneath there.
00:01:52
Mason Ross
Yeah, my wife says I should air it out.
00:01:52
Darin Tingey
ah feel like if you wear that hat too much.
00:01:55
Mason Ross
Says I should air it out a little bit. I haven't been able to do that. She gets it on Sunday, though, until, you know, we get home from church. Then I put a hat back on again.
00:02:03
Darin Tingey
Right, that's right. Oh, so good. um Well, let's see. You served the same time as me, so 2016 to 2018, Elder Ross...
00:02:14
Darin Tingey
i Probably had the coolest mission of all time. He got to go Marshall Islands and Kitabas. Served on Ebi and three different outer islands. Two in the Marshalls, two in Kitabas.
00:02:27
Darin Tingey
I don't know how many missions are like goaded, but that's got to be one of them. Of amazing missions as far as like different locations you got to serve in. um but Walk us through just a quick...
00:02:42
Darin Tingey
um
Cultural Immersion on Ebi
00:02:44
Darin Tingey
your areas from start to finish.
00:02:46
Mason Ross
Okay, so I started in Ebi, and Ebi was, I had no idea that you could fit that many people into that small of an island.
00:02:58
Mason Ross
I mean, if you want to talk about the New York City of the Marshall Islands, it's Ebi. There's like 15,000 people smushed into this little tiny island or something along those lines.
00:03:08
Mason Ross
Don't quote me with the numbers, but yeah, Ebi is where I started.
00:03:10
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:03:12
Mason Ross
It was very populated. The island is very small. um had no shortage of work. It was fantastic. Always going somewhere, always doing something. um and In ways of kind of starting the mission, I feel like that was fantastic.
00:03:28
Mason Ross
Because I had people everywhere, you could talk to anybody about anything, and they would help you. And they weren't, you know,
00:03:36
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
00:03:37
Mason Ross
Some of these outer islands I served on, nate there was only you know a couple hundred people on the island, whereas on E-Buy, I could literally find anybody on the street and just talk. And my biggest critics were the ones that were between the ages of five and seven.
00:03:53
Mason Ross
If I said something wrong, they they let me know that I said it wrong, and then they would correct me on it.
00:03:53
Darin Tingey
ah
00:03:59
Mason Ross
um And the elderly, of course, they were they they had no no issues telling me where I went wrong. But yeah, i started in E-Buy. There were ah six of us missionaries out there and a senior couple. and the We did end up changing around a little bit during um like my three months out there.
00:04:20
Mason Ross
I was only out there for for about three months. um
00:04:23
Darin Tingey
Yep.
00:04:25
Mason Ross
Spent a lot of time just trying and failing and failing hard. i yeah I had a ah friend out there who I eventually saw later in my mission and started talking to him again in Marshallese.
00:04:42
Mason Ross
he said something and I was like, what, why, why would I give you my firstborn child? Like, why would I do that? And he goes, because you said you would all the time on EBI, you had no idea what was being said. You just said, yeah, okay. Sounds good. Okay. I'm mine.
00:04:57
Mason Ross
I'm mine. Okay. Like you had no idea.
00:04:58
Darin Tingey
M1, M1. That's so good.
00:05:00
Mason Ross
um But yeah, I started in ebay had a really good kind of,
00:05:04
Darin Tingey
Real quick, you let let's see. You mentioned the kids and I just had a flashback of walking down the streets of Yuba and all the little kids screaming, repele, repele, like white, white boy, white boy.
00:05:18
Darin Tingey
And they just like scream it at you. And you're like, I'm not a man. You're like, I'm my police, you know, like.
00:05:19
Mason Ross
Yep.
00:05:24
Mason Ross
Oh, they... ah
00:05:27
Darin Tingey
ah That was totally – Ibai is just like so many kids, like just all over the streets all the time.
00:05:28
Mason Ross
oh they
00:05:35
Darin Tingey
And, yeah, they're just they're just always at you, just trying to nag at you, which is so fun.
00:05:42
Mason Ross
but Oh, yeah. And they would you would get all the time, le toquilla, le tolima. Like, no. it's It's my food, and it is my drink.
00:05:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah. yeah
00:05:48
Mason Ross
It is not yours. You go away. This is mine. um Dude, oh, my gosh.
00:05:52
Darin Tingey
I forgot about that. you do it? Can you do it?
00:05:55
Mason Ross
Le toquilla. No, no. That's not happening. It's mine. Because you do it for one, and then you have a herd that follows you wanting more. and you're like, I have nothing left to give you.
00:06:03
Darin Tingey
Yeah. You give it once to the next day, they expect the same thing.
00:06:08
Darin Tingey
They're like.
00:06:08
Mason Ross
Exactly.
00:06:08
Darin Tingey
Yep.
00:06:09
Mason Ross
I learned that the hard way on eBay.
00:06:10
Mason Ross
There was... It was, yeah, it was a world out there. But yeah, Evi was, Evi was great. Got a crash course on Marshallese, wasn't there super long. I ended up actually, my second companion was Elder Teal, Matt.
00:06:24
Mason Ross
He was from my intake. So we made it about a month with our trainers, then had to figure it out by ourselves, ah which that was awesome.
00:06:27
Darin Tingey
Yep.
00:06:34
Mason Ross
difficult in itself both of us he him he was further along than I was let's put it that way things made sense a little bit easier and quicker to him than it did to me I was getting frustrated and mad but I'm competitive you know baseball baseball's always been there I'm a competitive guy but you got to think you know like things happen at your own pace you can't force things to go the way you want them to they happen at your own pace and
00:06:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:07:00
Mason Ross
And E-Buy was a good little crash course for that. I just kind of had to figure it out. And we struggled together and got told off by all the little kids that were saying, way wrong. Like, there's just so many things.
00:07:15
Darin Tingey
I remember I remember, ah let's just, let's stay on eBay for a second, actually, because there's so much good stuff there. Like, you and I lived together um for some of it.
00:07:15
Mason Ross
But yeah, i went straight.
00:07:27
Darin Tingey
I forget, you guys were trying to get, like, another house in the South, which we eventually got after you left, I think.
00:07:33
Mason Ross
After I left.
00:07:34
Darin Tingey
a
00:07:35
Mason Ross
yeah That's when you got It was after I left.
00:07:38
Darin Tingey
Well, we lived in the Triple J House apartment. And I remember we had like ah broken chair that we would always play baseball with.
00:07:48
Mason Ross
would I forgot about that.
00:07:51
Darin Tingey
We used one of the pieces of the wood.
00:07:52
Mason Ross
Yeah, when it would rain.
00:07:54
Darin Tingey
Yeah, when it's raining, there's no work going on. Everyone's taking a nap.
00:07:57
Darin Tingey
So you go back to your apartment and we're just playing baseball inside. of yeah I don't know, we used a piece of paper for a ball and scratched it up and we just played baseball for hours, it felt like.
00:07:58
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:08:10
Darin Tingey
Every day, though.
00:08:10
Mason Ross
dude It was, yep. any Anytime it rained, I mean, you you get out of the streets. You don't walk into anybody's houses. It's really Jajim on it or against culture rude if you want to translate it.
00:08:19
Darin Tingey
Yep.
00:08:22
Mason Ross
But yeah, I forgot about that. That's funny, actually. I got to go back and look at some of the pictures I have. They're all on my parents' ah computer at their house. i want to go back and take a look at them and kind of see the progressions again. Because, you know, you you always remember those experiences out on your missions where you're like,
00:08:38
Mason Ross
You're trying to figure it out, you know, and you remember those.
00:08:41
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:08:41
Mason Ross
Then you forget like the little stuff like that, that kind of, you know, I mean, all of us out there for the most part were new because Elder Robinson was out there.
00:08:48
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:08:50
Mason Ross
You were out there. i was out there. Teal was out there. And then I think we had Paku and Ramson.
00:08:54
Darin Tingey
So...
00:08:57
Darin Tingey
Ramson, yeah. Yeah.
00:08:57
Mason Ross
Like those were the only, and even them, they were only out a few more months than we were.
00:09:02
Mason Ross
So we all were fairly new out there. So you're struggling together.
00:09:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's like... Right. it's the little things that kind of keep you going. Like the little things from home, play some baseball while it's raining, keep you sane a little bit.
00:09:16
Mason Ross
Do you remember our cat? but Were you there when the cat had ah li in of a litter of kittens in our drawer?
00:09:18
Darin Tingey
Yes.
00:09:26
Darin Tingey
I think I came right after that.
00:09:27
Darin Tingey
I remember a little a bunch of little kitties.
00:09:28
Mason Ross
Oh my gosh.
00:09:30
Mason Ross
du They're literally... We woke up one day and we hear all of these weird noises and we look in the bottom drawer where the cat slept and there's just like six kittens and our cat. And we were like, what has happened?
00:09:44
Mason Ross
What? what
00:09:47
Darin Tingey
So good, oh man.
00:09:47
Mason Ross
Oh, it was, E-Buy is something else.
00:09:50
Mason Ross
I want to go back. I really do. Like that's, I haven't, I haven't been able to go back and I want to. And E-Buy is one of the bucket lists that I want
Transition to Wutche and Adaptation
00:09:57
Mason Ross
to get back to.
00:09:57
Darin Tingey
Were you there for Halloween? Were you still there?
00:10:01
Mason Ross
ah Yes, I was there from September 15th to December 15th. I left right before Christmas.
00:10:08
Darin Tingey
Okay, so if you remember Halloween, all the kids came to our house and they had painted their faces a white.
00:10:14
Mason Ross
okay his white.
00:10:19
Darin Tingey
the we're what it bell is We're white people for Halloween. and I thought it was so funny. Yeah.
00:10:19
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:10:25
Mason Ross
Well, all of us looked at each other. We were like, yeah you can't, you can't do that at home. We're clearly in a third world country.
00:10:30
Darin Tingey
yeah Yeah, that doesn't fly in America anymore.
00:10:32
Mason Ross
but Oh, that was, yeah. Oh my gosh. That was great. And, you remember when we had, uh, what was it?
00:10:44
Mason Ross
Uh, Thanksgiving. And ah the senior couple went out and bought a turkey.
00:10:51
Darin Tingey
Yes.
00:10:51
Mason Ross
And we went and had like eight different meals and then had to go back and eat more turkey. but
00:10:57
Darin Tingey
ah We're like, our stomach's like, we're all about to puke. We're like, gosh, we had so much food.
00:11:04
Darin Tingey
i mean, that meal though with a senior couple was really good.
00:11:04
Mason Ross
oh
00:11:06
Mason Ross
the buttons are straining on your shirt. Oh, it was. it was amazing.
00:11:10
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I feel like e-buy, e-buy, and like Marshall Islands in general, they feed you so much. But e-buy, especially like every house you go to, they're giving you food and you're like trying to be nice and eat as much as you can. But like as some sometimes your stomach just can't take anymore.
00:11:29
Mason Ross
ah you get to a point where you're like, I'm past full. Like if, if I step on a rock wrong, things are not going to end well. That's yeah. That's where you'll be when you go to e-buy.
00:11:40
Darin Tingey
I think I had to, when I came back to my mission, kind of retrain my stomach and mind because I didn't ever feel full until my stomach hurt.
00:11:51
Mason Ross
Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:51
Darin Tingey
And like, that's just how you had to, that's just how you ate, especially starting e-bias. Like you eat till you are, your stomach hurts.
00:12:01
Darin Tingey
That's how you know you're full.
00:12:01
Mason Ross
Yep.
00:12:02
Mason Ross
Until you go home and lay down because that's the only position that hurts the least.
00:12:07
Darin Tingey
That's right.
00:12:08
Mason Ross
Yeah. Yeah, Ebi was the only island that I actually, that was a thing for me.
00:12:09
Darin Tingey
ah
00:12:14
Mason Ross
When I went to the other ones, that was a little bit different. I had to do things a little differently with food on some of the other ones.
00:12:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah, and then another memory I have of you on eBuy is always going to the dock to go fish with Baba Jake.
00:12:29
Mason Ross
Oh, yeah. All the time. We would go catch those little tiny, those little tiny, uh, Cubang. Those little sergeant majors, whatever they are in English.
00:12:35
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:12:38
Mason Ross
Yeah, we would go catch those. That was fun. Those were good.
00:12:40
Darin Tingey
I feel like it was like every morning or every P day. I can't remember. You'd always be like, I'm going to fix Baba Jake. I'm like, all right, that's...
00:12:46
Mason Ross
Going to fish. This is where we're going. This is what we're going to do. Yep. And we did. it was fun.
00:12:52
Darin Tingey
and And then I guess for the audience that doesn't know about the Kool-Aid and ramen that I mentioned on eBay especially, but like Marsh Island, they put Kool-Aid with everything.
00:13:03
Darin Tingey
Ramen,
00:13:03
Mason Ross
Oh, absolutely everything.
00:13:04
Darin Tingey
rice, popcorn, and they love it. Or they'll just eat the straight Kool-Aid packets.
00:13:09
Mason Ross
Oh, that, see that I, that was too, I, oh, I've done the Kool-Aid and in the ramen and in the popcorn, but I tried it once just out of the package and, oh, it is, there's a reason why sugar is added.
00:13:23
Mason Ross
Let's put it that way because that stuff is a straight up pixie stick on steroids.
00:13:24
Darin Tingey
That's right.
00:13:30
Darin Tingey
They loved it though, man. Oh, the Kool-Aid. oh Like your faint you'd see their fingers, they're all red because they just did, yeah, they just did Kool-Aid.
00:13:35
Mason Ross
They're all red.
00:13:37
Darin Tingey
They just had Kool-Aid all the time from their fingers to their mouth every day.
00:13:41
Mason Ross
No, it's and it's not from it's not from Cheetos. Nope, it's it's it's Kool-Aid.
00:13:46
Darin Tingey
Kool-Aid.
00:13:48
Mason Ross
And Kool-Aid and ramen is the one you see a lot too.
00:13:51
Darin Tingey
Yeah. I also remember you um picking me up on Quaj. So I'm the only one from my intake going to E-Buy. So I fly to E-Buy by myself. And that's a weird thing because I hadn't been by myself at all since starting the mission.
00:14:09
Darin Tingey
But i fly into Quaj, go to the dock. You guys are there to pick me up. You, Teal, and Robinson. It's P-Day. You guys picked me up. I'm like, cool, nice to meet you guys.
00:14:19
Darin Tingey
Oh, I had met you in the MTC for like a brief second.
00:14:22
Mason Ross
Like, yeah, like two weeks or something like that. Something something quick.
00:14:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah, and so can't remember. It's like a weird, it's a US base, so there's like a Burger King there, which is crazy. ah It's not quite Burger King, but it's it's basically Burger King.
00:14:37
Mason Ross
Burger King-esque.
00:14:37
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:14:38
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:14:39
Darin Tingey
I think we got a burger and some fries and then, which i was like, I never thought a million years would be having Burger King in the Marsh Islands. um And then we hop on the ferry to go to Ebi.
00:14:50
Darin Tingey
And when you're coming out Quaj and getting like out of the, i towards Ebi and you still haven't seen Ebi yet, you guys are like, see that island over there?
00:15:01
Darin Tingey
That's Ebi, we're going there. And it's like, you know, like super island, coconut trees everywhere. i'm like, this is going be sick. And we turned the corner and we're like, just kidding.
00:15:12
Mason Ross
Just kidding.
00:15:12
Darin Tingey
That's where we're going.
00:15:13
Mason Ross
That's where i we're going. There's one tree and it's in the middle. Yep.
00:15:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah. ah And I'm like, what? That's Ebi? There's like no trees. There's just houses everywhere. It's a concrete jungle, like you said, kind of the New York City of the Marshall Islands.
00:15:29
Darin Tingey
And I remember being like, this isn't what I expected. But then Ebi ends up being like the best place ever ever.
00:15:36
Mason Ross
It's amazing. I was hoping I would end up going back there, but I didn't. And that was okay. Leaving there was tough. It was, I wish I could have spent more time there. How long, how long did you spend there? Cause I was only there for three months.
00:15:48
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I spent three transfers. So one in middle and then two in South.
00:15:54
Darin Tingey
I went to South after you left.
00:15:54
Mason Ross
Okay. And I was in, I was in South for, well, I was kind of South middle for most of the three months that I was there.
00:16:01
Mason Ross
My area was South, but you know, us and the sisters, we kind of split South and middle. There was just some things that went on where people had to move and we kind of had to work double time.
00:16:06
Darin Tingey
right.
00:16:11
Mason Ross
But for the most part, I was i was down on South, which was, i it's a far walk from, it's an air quotes far walk from from the the apartment there.
00:16:17
Darin Tingey
and know
00:16:22
Mason Ross
I think we walked, to I don't know, 150 yards and you're, this is the beginning of South. Yeah.
00:16:28
Darin Tingey
ah know So funny, I think that the only downside was there wasn't like a toilet closer to you guys or something.
00:16:35
Mason Ross
Oh, no, no, no. And when it hits, it's run. It's all out. We got to get back now. We have approximately three minutes to make it back to the to the apartment.
00:16:40
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:16:43
Mason Ross
Yep.
00:16:45
Darin Tingey
And hopefully there's water at the apartment. Please pray that there's water so we can flush the toilet.
00:16:48
Mason Ross
Please, please, please. Is there water? ah
00:16:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah. I remember you being pretty sad about leaving Ebai because then you got transferred to Wuche. Is that right?
00:17:00
Mason Ross
Yep, I went from there to Wiche and leave it.
00:17:02
Darin Tingey
Did you go back to Majuro? What was the logistics of that?
00:17:06
Mason Ross
Yeah, so I flew from, like so I went back, i you know, i got back on the ferry, and went back to Quaj, caught the plane out, went back to Mejito. I was on Mejito for like two days, and I stayed with the APs, and then from there, I flew, I hopped on a little Dornier and flew over to Wache.
00:17:20
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:17:27
Mason Ross
And I had, I was in for ah treat when I got to Wache, because I just went from, it's like, It's like, okay, let's see if we can compare this some way to the United States. It would be like it would be like flying from New York to Anchorage, Alaska.
00:17:45
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:17:46
Mason Ross
That would be, not distance-wise, but change-wise. That's what that's what you're kind of getting into. And the day we flew out, we had a ah pretty nasty crosswind coming in across the the runway, which is just a grass-filled area.
00:18:01
Mason Ross
That was new. That was a new one for me.
00:18:03
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:18:04
Mason Ross
And as the plane's coming down, you know, you're you're flying straight and then you hit this crosswind and you just all of a sudden I'm sitting on the right side of the airplane and I'm looking at the runway out the window.
00:18:14
Darin Tingey
ah Straight on, straight on.
00:18:15
Mason Ross
And I'm like, ah, yeah, so so um' I'm looking straight onto the runway and the plane is coming in parallel to the runway. And I'm like, oh, this is it. this is This is where I go. This is fantastic. I've had a good long life. This is it.
00:18:31
Mason Ross
And then right before we touch down, it spins back and lands perfectly. And it was just smoothest, the smoothest landing.
00:18:35
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:18:39
Mason Ross
it It was so easy. Just right on in and out we
Building Relationships and Overcoming Challenges
00:18:42
Mason Ross
went. That was.
00:18:42
Darin Tingey
So you're you're going into the landing sideways on the plane.
00:18:46
Mason Ross
Yes, we're going in. We are making our descent sideways to handle the crosswind. And then all of a sudden, i feel like it was inches before the wheels touched the ground.
00:18:51
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:18:56
Mason Ross
But obviously it was, you know, once you broke the tree line, it got a little better, but.
00:18:58
Darin Tingey
Sure.
00:19:01
Mason Ross
Yeah, I felt like we were we were going in sideways. I'm like, I'm just, I'm going over. Wings are breaking. There's just going to be there's stuff everywhere. It's just how it's going to be. And it, yeah, right before we touched, we just turned right around and landed perfectly and glided right on into the, to the airport, which was like a 15 by 30 foot shack with a roof on it.
00:19:15
Darin Tingey
Wow.
00:19:23
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:19:24
Mason Ross
was pretty great. ah But yeah, I went from you know lots of people always being able to talk to everybody to talking to just about everybody on the island in about a month.
00:19:37
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:19:37
Mason Ross
So going going from the Iron Jungle to nothing is kind of crazy.
00:19:42
Mason Ross
ah But yes, and when I went out there, I was with um Elder Sheffield, which was another one from my intake. He started, i believe, I remember right, he started on Wiche.
00:19:53
Darin Tingey
That's right.
00:19:53
Mason Ross
So he was out there for three months. I was on eBay for three months and then I was with him for just a transfer. And it's very different, the life out there, because on on eBay, you can get away with speaking English.
00:20:11
Mason Ross
you know Military base is right there. Repelers are always you know coming back and forth. like people for there They know English for the most part.
00:20:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:20:20
Mason Ross
ah Not on Wache. No. no Not on, not on with you. That was not a thing. I was thinking like, oh, I got this. Like feeling pretty good about the Marshallese. Like yeah I can figure this out.
00:20:30
Mason Ross
No, no, that, that did not, it did not happen that way. Um, the first person i I talked to, was G McGlynn, which was the chief of the island.
00:20:42
Mason Ross
He lets us live in kind of like his little compound that's out there. call it a compound.
00:20:49
Darin Tingey
ah Okay.
00:20:50
Mason Ross
Oh, wet though. We got it. We got ah a little town out there, but
00:20:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:20:53
Mason Ross
We stayed in his house. I met Sheffield. We traded out his companion, which I think was, think it was Namak, if I remember right.
00:21:00
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that's right.
00:21:01
Mason Ross
I'm pretty sure it was Namak. So traded Namak out and Sheffield's like, okay, let's go. We're going to go to the house. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm expecting. Like, this is going to be crazy.
00:21:10
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:21:11
Mason Ross
Where are we at? Like, are we in a tree? Like, that's what I'm thinking. And he, we ended up walking over to just this little, this little house that's, I say little, but comparatively to what's on the island, it was a pretty good size. It was ah pretty a pretty good size house. We had ah like kind of two bedroom areas.
00:21:30
Mason Ross
We had and and ah and a living room and a kitchen.
00:21:31
Darin Tingey
Wow.
00:21:34
Mason Ross
ah The bedroom areas, one of them turned into a storage unit, which got overrun by the centipedes. And that's a whole fun story that we'll get into with with with those little turds. I am not a big fan of those things. Creepy crawlies don't bother me too much, but those Those snakes with legs, those bother me.
00:21:55
Mason Ross
um
00:21:55
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:21:56
Mason Ross
Yeah, so we had two we had two rooms. We had a bathroom, and we actually had a water heater. The water heater did not work at all.
00:22:02
Darin Tingey
Wow.
00:22:05
Mason Ross
I don't think it's ever worked. add The toilet, that you could sit on it, which was pretty cool, but to flush it, you got to go out to the water tank, fill up a bucket of water, and dump it.
00:22:17
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:22:18
Mason Ross
And that's, yeah, that's, that's, that's just so much fun.
00:22:21
Mason Ross
I learned real quick that a stove will work and operate just fine. If it's only got one burner, if you've got one electric burner, you're good to go.
00:22:29
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that's right.
00:22:31
Mason Ross
The whole, the whole life out there had changed. And it was one that I was like, okay, at first when I landed, I was like, well, all right, this is, this is crazy. Like didn't really know what to expect. And I went from, you know,
00:22:45
Mason Ross
It's got tons of people to this place that when school is in session, because there is there's a high school out there. It's Wichay High School. That high school, when it's in session, there are like 250 people on the island.
00:22:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah, tiny.
00:22:59
Mason Ross
When it's not in session, it's, i there's like, I swear, there's like 60 people that's out there.
00:23:06
Mason Ross
I fortunately was there from December 15th to ride around April Fool's.
00:23:14
Darin Tingey
Yep, that sounds all right.
00:23:14
Mason Ross
And that's another that's another fun one too, right around April Fool's. um So I was there for the whole school session or a whole school year, which was great. you know We would go over to the library, go go over to the school. You know you'd talk to some of the people that are living there because they're coming in off of of other islands. You've got them coming in off of Rongelap and Ligiup.
00:23:36
Darin Tingey
Our, was our mother lap.
00:23:37
Mason Ross
I don't remember.
00:23:37
Mason Ross
i Yep. Yep. That one was there. Malolap. I don't remember if Island Level Up was there, if that one's on Jalowicz, but I'm pretty, I think they were on Jalowicz. But anyway, you've got all these kids that are put up in this boarding house.
00:23:47
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I think so.
00:23:50
Mason Ross
So you go over and you talk and, you know, you see what but people are wanting to do, if they're wanting to, to you know, have lessons and and figure this out. And you learn real quick that they'll say yes, but it's just to appease you.
00:24:03
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:24:03
Mason Ross
They don't actually care.
00:24:05
Mason Ross
And that's something, you know, anybody who's served in the Marshall Islands, you you figure out kind of, those who want it and those who don't. Because in in the hierarchy out there, you've got, you know, God is almighty. You have God at the top.
00:24:20
Mason Ross
Then you've got the chiefs underneath it, God, Jesus, and, you know, the Holy Spirit. And then you've got the chiefs and then the missionaries.
00:24:24
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:24:27
Mason Ross
So they don't really ever tell you no. You just, you kind of just kind of got to figure it out. But yeah. Yeah.
00:24:34
Darin Tingey
I feel like i got a little i got a little jaded on the mission towards the end from like because everyone would just say yes to everything. And so like, I just like, I just didn't believe anybody anymore.
00:24:42
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:24:44
Darin Tingey
And it was so bad. remember my last companion, Kendrick was like, yo, like have some faith. Like they might come. And I was like, man, I've just been here for too long. Like there were someone says yes to me.
00:24:55
Darin Tingey
I just like, don't believe them.
00:24:57
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:24:57
Darin Tingey
It got kind of bad.
00:24:59
Mason Ross
Yeah. We, yeah it's,
Health Struggles and Continued Mission Work
00:25:02
Mason Ross
it gets to a point where I finally was like, I, you know, further down my mission, I'm working with, you know, younger companions and things like that. And I like, oh man, that's just,
00:25:12
Mason Ross
they're so excited and they're ready to do it. And you're just like, no, no, they're not.
00:25:16
Darin Tingey
ah
00:25:18
Mason Ross
they're They're not quite yet. And you just, you don't have the spirit to, you don't have a heart to break the spirit that they have, you know, cause they're, they're excited and they're ready to be there.
00:25:24
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:25:26
Mason Ross
And um what Jay was a very, was a very tough Island. I, I had a lot of struggles when it came to Jay both kind of, you know, mentally, well,
00:25:43
Mason Ross
Yeah, mentally. I'm going to say mentally. I have never been this far away from home. And I was just on an island where i was I had other missionaries.
00:25:48
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
00:25:51
Mason Ross
I had people that I could speak English to. like i had i you know I had ways to kind of get around the, I'm going to say homesickness, but just the the kind of struggle that I was having.
00:26:03
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:26:03
Mason Ross
Which I didn't have that. I had Sheffield, which loved the kid to death. I had Sheffield, and that's about it. because no one else really spoke English.
00:26:13
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:26:14
Mason Ross
And Sheffield's, Sheffield's Marshallese was really good. He spoke it really well. Again, you get dropped into these islands, you don't really have, you don't have a choice. You just, you gotta, you gotta do it.
00:26:23
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:26:23
Mason Ross
um His Marshallese was really good. I got humbled really good because I thought I was pretty good at Marshallese. I got humbled with that. um So working with Sheffield was, it was fun.
00:26:36
Mason Ross
He, he taught me a lot of, you know Things out here are a little bit different than they are in EBI. Like EBI, you could have 15, 20 lessons a day. you know like Obviously, that's ah that's a high number, but you you could have a ton.
00:26:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah. No, you totally could. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
00:26:50
Mason Ross
You could have a ton of lessons a day. Which I think my best day was nine. i had nine nine lessons.
00:26:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:26:59
Mason Ross
ah We had one kid on date to be baptized. He did get baptized. And that was about as good a success as we had out there.
00:27:09
Mason Ross
We had one, we had one baptism.
00:27:09
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:27:13
Mason Ross
um And that was kind of toward the end of ah chef mine and Sheffield's working together. So I started to realize out there that there are a ton of members that are just inactive and not coming, not coming to church.
00:27:22
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:27:30
Mason Ross
So I, so I kind of started to realize that and thought, okay, well, we probably need to change the game plan a little bit here because if we can, reactivate these members that are, you know, inactive, they're going to talk to their family.
00:27:44
Mason Ross
They're going to talk to their friends and you you can kind of, I'm not going to say member fellowship, but I'm going to say member fellowship because you can only say so much, you know, and when you've talked to everybody on the Island and that includes the 15 year olds over at the, at the high school, like you, you know, you figure it out.
00:27:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:00
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:28:02
Mason Ross
and So when Barrow came out, cause I had, I held the elder Barrow, good old Ben, we we decided to turn toward doing a lot of reactivation work and kind of digging down and finding, you know, talking to some of the members on the island and talking and figuring out who is active and who isn't active.
00:28:21
Mason Ross
And we did fairly well, I would say. Um, we reactivated a lot of these members that weren't there. Um,
00:28:35
Mason Ross
And a lot of them started to have family and friends who were there started to come to church. So now you're kind of starting to get, I'm not going to say restart the pool, but you're getting a little bit of a jumpstart into the work because now all of the sudden like, oh, hey, my friend's going, I'm going to go too.
00:28:48
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:28:51
Mason Ross
That's kind of how life rolls in the Marshall Islands. Your friends go with your friends, you know, friends of family go with your family. Like you kind of tend to just roll together.
00:29:03
Mason Ross
And that was all good and great until one day I got up and went to make food and realized that my cabinets didn't have any food in it. And i looked over at Elder Barrow and I was like, so shopping, we're going to get some food. This was on a P-Day.
00:29:20
Mason Ross
And well, we went over to the little Manwia, which is a store, went over to the little Manwia and they're like, oh yeah, no, we're, we're, we're out. We're, we don't, we don't have, we don't have food.
00:29:33
Mason Ross
I was even have spam? No. Like, well, you got rice? No. Okay. All right. So we're going to have to figure this out.
00:29:38
Darin Tingey
No way. Yep.
00:29:41
Mason Ross
So with these outer islands, the way you get your food is through a boat, a Tima. A Tima shows up, a big ship will show up, and they will deliver all of the food to these Manwias.
00:29:49
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:29:54
Mason Ross
And these Manwias will, you know, you can go and buy it and do all of that. Obviously, doesn't get divvied. It does. There are certain times where it does get divvied up to everybody on the island. But bulk of it just kind of goes to these little manuias.
00:30:08
Mason Ross
And I realized quickly that we had no no food. So i was like, okay, well, we're going have to figure this one out. This is a lot of fun. And we had we'd become really good friends with G. McGlynn.
00:30:21
Mason Ross
And his family was, let's put it this way, he's he's good enough that he does speak English. Because he goes he goes back and forth to Hawaii like all the time. So he he spends a lot of time doing that.
00:30:30
Darin Tingey
ah
00:30:33
Mason Ross
Well, he had a grandson. His name was Ronald Abner. And Ronald is, he became a quick friend to most of the missionaries because he went from Wutje to Mejiru.
00:30:47
Mason Ross
midro And it's hard to live around in Mejiru in the Delip-Uluga area.
00:30:51
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:30:52
Mason Ross
And so I had this kid. This kid helped me so much. and When I learned that he could speak just a little bit of English, I started studying Marshallese with him like so hard. So quick. Got to figure it out.
00:31:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:31:04
Mason Ross
Because I knew that ah Elder Barrow was coming out behind me and he's from your intake. And I mean, i didn't know.
00:31:08
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:31:10
Darin Tingey
Yeah, who knows how good is
00:31:11
Mason Ross
Yeah, I didn't know how good his Marshallese was. So we're going to have to just kind of figure it out. ah So he started teaching me Marshallese. And I got to a point that I could more or less say what I want to.
00:31:24
Mason Ross
by If I didn't know how to say a word, I could beat around the bush and get my point across. I got to that point and I thought, okay. starting to get this figured out. Now I just need to learn vocab and start to get it, you know, back into my typical usage.
00:31:39
Mason Ross
Um, but yeah, so we had no food, started talking with, uh, Gema Glenn and Ronald and some of the other people that lived out there. And we started to fish a lot because i was hungry and Barrow was hungry and the Island was hungry.
00:32:00
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:32:00
Mason Ross
So we we started to do a lot of service.
00:32:04
Mason Ross
I think that's how we're going to say it. We did it started to do a lot of service where we would go out and we would fish in the um lagoon with, usually with Jim McGlynn, because he was the one that owned the boat.
00:32:16
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:32:16
Mason Ross
We would go out with him.
00:32:17
Mason Ross
But the only way that we could go out with him is if we brought an investigator. He said, I'll take you.
00:32:22
Darin Tingey
Nice.
00:32:23
Mason Ross
I'll take you. I have no problems taking you. And goes, so we've got guys who are, you're guys that want to help the island. You're part of the island. You're part
Adversities and Mission Life
00:32:30
Mason Ross
of the family. He's like, I'll take you. He's like, but you got a job to do too. And mind you, Jim McGlynn is not a member.
00:32:37
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:32:38
Mason Ross
So the first few times we took out some investigators and they, you know, we would, we would teach and talk and, you know, fellowship and stuff.
00:32:38
Darin Tingey
Wow.
00:32:45
Mason Ross
And they never, never really turned. It didn't really work out. And then Jim McGlynn, when they started chatting with us about the Book of Mormon, and then we started talking about the Book of Mormon. And now we're, You know, we're going fishing for three or four hours, catching quite literally a boatload of fish and bringing them in and just talking to this guy who's got so many stories and just him asking and curious about the Book of Mormon.
00:33:08
Mason Ross
And why don't we drink coffee? And why why can't you guys drink alcohol and every other church can? Like, you know, these are some of the questions that we're getting into with him.
00:33:14
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:33:18
Mason Ross
And we kind of figured out a way to both understand still be able to preach and do the things that we should knowing that, okay, maybe we don't get Jim McGlynn. Maybe we we're not able to but and a be able to baptize him, but Hey, that seeds planted.
00:33:33
Mason Ross
And if he's going to keep asking these questions, why not, you know, keep answering them for him.
00:33:38
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:33:39
Mason Ross
And, uh, we had a ah big chem, which is a ah first birthday for the, uh, a baby. And we were eating at this place and they had some chicken that was, I like my steak medium,
00:33:53
Mason Ross
you know, a little bit, a little bit pink, some blood.
00:33:55
Darin Tingey
Yep.
00:33:56
Mason Ross
Don't like my chicken that way. There was one of these at this camp.
00:33:58
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:34:01
Mason Ross
And there was some chicken that wasn't quite cooked all the way through. And I took a bite and realized that. And I told Elder Barrow, I'm like, Hey, you don't, don't eat that stuff's not good. And he ended up eating it anyway.
00:34:13
Mason Ross
And he got super sick, super sick. I mean, he was, he was, you know, throwing up, not doing great. And, He just refused to leave.
00:34:26
Mason Ross
I was like, cause we could take, he's like, we got to probably get you off the Island. Like, this isn't good. Like I'm scared.
00:34:30
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:34:31
Mason Ross
You're, you're moving about four times a day. Like we should probably have you looked at by a doctor. And, uh, he refused to do it. So, and I,
00:34:40
Darin Tingey
I don't blame him because you know you only get so many outer islands.
00:34:45
Darin Tingey
and And if you get sick, you get pulled off and you don't get to go back out, potentially you don't get to go to another one. And I i had that same thing when we were in Kitabas in Mayana. I was like...
00:34:45
Mason Ross
that's true.
00:34:57
Darin Tingey
TMI for everybody. Sorry, listeners, but like straight peeing out of my butt for three weeks.
00:35:01
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:35:01
Darin Tingey
and and and I was like, no way am i telling the mission home. like I am sticking it out.
00:35:06
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:35:08
Darin Tingey
like I was in so much pain. and I was bedridden for a few days too, but like just it's just part of the mission. You just got to stick it out.
00:35:16
Darin Tingey
but I will say, Barrow did eventually go home a little bit early because he got super sick. and I saw him, and he must just get like Super sick when he gets sick. Cause man, I thought he was going to die too. I got a little saw him. was like, this guy might die.
00:35:17
Mason Ross
you
00:35:31
Darin Tingey
Like we need to get him home.
00:35:31
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:35:32
Mason Ross
Yeah. and You get, you get scared and I was getting worried and we'd gone about, you know, this was day three when I was probably like, okay, do we need to climb the coconut tree, get reception and call, call president? Because like, you're not doing well, my man, like you, you're not doing okay. He's like, no, I'll be fine. I'll be fine.
00:35:50
Mason Ross
So was like, okay, whatever. So I talked to, Jima Glenn's wife, bounni and we started, she got him on some sort had, she made this little concoction. of like, it was kind of like a Marshallese medicine.
00:36:02
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:36:02
Mason Ross
It basically just kind of helped and soothed, you know, the stomach and everything.
00:36:06
Mason Ross
And well, throughout the time he was sick, I kept, you know, the fish and stuff that we would catch, I would make it and then I would give it to Elder Barrow and he would eat and then throw up and then I would give him most of my portions and then he would eat again, but that would sit and hold like it would, it would settle.
00:36:19
Darin Tingey
Oh,
00:36:24
Mason Ross
So for about a week, I went on basically no food, I would get up in the morning and, you know, what a what up. I would I would eat.
00:36:32
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:36:33
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:36:33
Mason Ross
I would eat the pandanus like that was breakfast.
00:36:35
Mason Ross
That was that's what I did. um But yeah, it got to a point where I was like, OK. And then once he started to get better, I was like, all right, we're good. We're doing better. We're getting out.
00:36:47
Mason Ross
And you you start to realize and appreciate because, you know, coming from the United States, we had anything you could ever want at your fingertips, you know, like now you can order food to wherever you start to appreciate the fact that
00:36:53
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:36:59
Mason Ross
I don't have to, you know, I don't have to go catch my food or I don't have to go run a pig down and string it up a tree to eat. Like, I don't have to do that at home, you know?
00:37:09
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:37:10
Mason Ross
Like, I can go to the store and pick up, you know, pork links and that's what we got for dinner tonight. Like, it's it's simple.
00:37:14
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:37:16
Mason Ross
But this island was one that that helped me kind of figure that out.
00:37:19
Darin Tingey
Which is a really cool. Like, i feel like when you think of Wuche, you don't think of like super outer island because they have a high school, right? Like in my mind, I mean, i have never served there, so i don't know.
00:37:29
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:37:32
Darin Tingey
But yeah. it it's just really a matter of when is the boat coming? Because the boat's supposed to be scheduled, you know, every other month, every three months or whatever it is.
00:37:44
Darin Tingey
Sometimes it just doesn't come. And then you end up actually having to fish. I never had to fish for my food. I was on islands where like, Like food got light, but I would never like say I had to fish for my food necessarily. i ate a lot of, I went a lot of, did a lot of fishing and ate a lot of fish as my food, but didn't actually have to.
00:38:02
Darin Tingey
You having to do that's pretty crazy. And then you're probably trying to fish and like Barrow's sick. So you're probably like, I'm gonna try and go fish Barrow. You stay here.
00:38:11
Darin Tingey
yeah.
00:38:11
Mason Ross
yeah You just don't don't move.
00:38:13
Mason Ross
And we were we did most of our fishing, like either, a lot of it, we we only ever went out in the boat like, you know, four or five times. Like we didn't do it a ton, but we'd fish from we'd fish from the bank and you'd catch the river run, or to the bank, you'd fish from the beach.
00:38:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:38:27
Mason Ross
ah You'd catch like river runners and like skipjack tunas and just like smaller smaller fish, groupers and things like that. um
00:38:35
Darin Tingey
you ever do any net fishing?
00:38:35
Mason Ross
But there was, oh yeah, oh yeah, net fishing, that's the way to go, dude.
00:38:39
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I get a lot from that.
00:38:40
Mason Ross
I've got, I've got a video ah that was taken. Looking back at the video now, was like, huh, okay, that's a fun one. I was cleaning food in front of me.
00:38:51
Darin Tingey
Uh-huh.
00:38:51
Mason Ross
i was you we We had just caught it.
00:38:53
Mason Ross
I'm cleaning it. And you hear somebody behind me start yelling, fish, fish, fish, fish. And they grab these nets. Like in the United States, when you go fly fishing, you've got a net, stick it in the water, you pick your fish up.
00:39:08
Mason Ross
Something like that, but on like an eight-foot shaft. And it's all homemade. And everybody grabs these things. And I look over. And they started yelling at me like, let's go, let's go.
00:39:18
Mason Ross
they threw me one. And a school of these river runners had beached themselves. And you literally just scoop them up and throw them onto the beach like you would dig in a hole.
00:39:28
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:39:29
Mason Ross
you stick you You stick your shovel in the ground and throw throw away your dirt. And this is what you did with these fish. And you've got all of these kids behind us with these sticks. And any time a fish would hit the beach, you would hear, whack!
00:39:41
Mason Ross
And you go, okay, back to one. Okay, give me another one.
00:39:43
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:44
Mason Ross
Whack. And you you catch a whole bunch of these fish, but you never know. Like, you know, if you're not there, you miss it. It's gone because it happens so quick. Like I was only able to scoop out a couple of them where these people that were there 15 seconds before me already have eight sitting in the water.
00:39:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:39:59
Mason Ross
So it's like, you just, you never really know kind of, you know, what you're going to get and things like that.
00:40:04
Mason Ross
But yeah, I went from E-Buy where I ate way too much to Wichae where I like never. so you, you, the the differences that crazy.
00:40:13
Darin Tingey
Did you, would you say you fished the most on Wutche out of any island you served on?
00:40:18
Mason Ross
Um, yeah, I would say, I would say which a was the one that I fished the most on. I did a lot of, uh, that one was a necessity.
00:40:29
Mason Ross
Like we we needed to eat and it's right there.
00:40:29
Darin Tingey
so Yeah.
00:40:31
Mason Ross
So that one, I, I do think we fished the most on that one. Um, I did fish a little bit on Jettowich, but that was for, um other reasons we had an investigator that was crazy neat, not crazy, but crazy good and on track, but just needed that extra little kind of push to kind of get him to understand things.
00:40:51
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:40:53
Mason Ross
But yeah, no, which a was the one I definitely fished the moats on.
00:40:57
Darin Tingey
And did Jima get baptized or never did?
00:41:01
Mason Ross
Nope. Not, not that I know of. Jima has not gotten baptized.
00:41:04
Darin Tingey
But you planted the seed. You planted the seed.
00:41:06
Mason Ross
The, I did plant the seed. Barrow and I, we did we did plant
Transfer to Kitabas and New Experiences
00:41:10
Mason Ross
the seed. But yeah, Nojima, it surprised me when he started asking me questions. Let's put it that way. like I'm close enough with him and I've heard enough about him that I was like, okay, so now you're curious.
00:41:21
Mason Ross
All right, let's let's let's go talk. let's you know let's grab the Let's grab the poll lines.
00:41:23
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:41:25
Mason Ross
Let's go talk. Let's see what we can do.
00:41:27
Darin Tingey
I think that's where the real work comes ah came in the Marshall Islands, like especially on the Outer Islands. like you know They've seen missionaries for a while, but the ones they really like develop relationship with, like once's say you almost have to like develop the relationship first, and then once they get comfortable with you, then they start asking questions.
00:41:47
Darin Tingey
um There was a... an elder was actually a buddy of mine um from before the mission. And he served on Mayanna before I went to Mayanna.
00:41:47
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:41:58
Darin Tingey
And the guy we lived with would just rave about Elder Parish. He's like, Elder Parish the best. He went fishing with me all the time. you know i'm just like absolutely loved Elder Parish.
00:42:08
Darin Tingey
Because he went fishing, he kind of like embraced the culture, like really got to know him. I feel like that was probably you on probably all your areas, but like Wuche, going fishing with Jima. And then... um Ronald, you is Ronald, that's his name, right?
00:42:22
Darin Tingey
The kid?
00:42:23
Mason Ross
Yep. Yep. Right on.
00:42:23
Darin Tingey
I feel like he's gotta be like, Wutche's like, best best thing to come out of Wutche because he went on to serve serve a mission.
00:42:30
Mason Ross
Funny thing is he's actually, he's actually from wrong a lot
00:42:34
Darin Tingey
No way. Okay, so he's he's from Romolap.
00:42:36
Mason Ross
or liggy up. He's from liggy up liggy up. That's what it is. He's from liggy up.
00:42:39
Darin Tingey
Even better, from Ligiep. So tiny island with not a lot of people on it. Goes to Wutche for high school, then goes to Madra, goes on a mission. I think he lives in the States now.
00:42:50
Mason Ross
Yeah. lives I think he lives in Utah somewhere.
00:42:50
Darin Tingey
Uh... Yeah, but like still like member of the church, like he's gotta be the like best success story from Outer Island, Wichae, which is crazy.
00:42:53
Mason Ross
or Yeah.
00:43:01
Darin Tingey
So Wichae, and then is it from Wichae you find out you're going to kiddo this?
00:43:06
Mason Ross
yeah And that is ah that is crazy. So I got a call on April Fools. Okay.
00:43:12
Darin Tingey
Yeah, they told me it from Bulls Day too.
00:43:13
Mason Ross
this is how this is how This is how I know that i was like, yeah. I was on Wiche from, you know, December 15th to about April Fools because I got a call from the APs and they were like, hey, it was about time for transfers and I was out on Wiche for three. I was with Barrow. I was out there for three transfers. I was with Barrow for three months.
00:43:31
Mason Ross
And they were like, hey, it's time for transfers. And I'm thinking, okay, cool. You know, I got my Outer Island. I got to go to E-Buy. Like, you know, now I'm going to go back to Medjaro. And they're like, oh, Elder Ross, you're getting you're getting transferred to Abameme.
00:43:39
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:43:43
Mason Ross
And I went, to where? And they went, and In my mind, I'm i'm like going through all the islands, and I'm like, okay, that's not in the marshals.
00:43:51
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Haven't heard of that one.
00:43:53
Mason Ross
He's like, you're you're getting transferred to Abumame. And I was like, okay, where is that? And they were like, Kitabas. And I went, yeah, okay, well, call me back when you're going to tell me where we're actually going.
00:44:04
Mason Ross
And I hung up.
00:44:04
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:44:05
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:44:06
Mason Ross
I hung up.
00:44:06
Mason Ross
Yeah, I hung up on on the APs. I hung up, and then about about three minutes later, the phone rings again. And I pick up and I was like, all right, like, are you ready to be serious?
00:44:19
Mason Ross
larkin And President Larkin goes, Elder Ross, they are being serious. You are being transferred to Abumeme in Kitabas. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah, I was like, I i've just figured out how to to speak.
00:44:39
Mason Ross
You know, at this point, at this point, I'm about what I'm.
00:44:39
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:44:43
Mason Ross
seven months into my mission, I'm like, i'm I'm just figuring this out.
00:44:44
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:47
Mason Ross
Like I'm to a point now where I'm comfortable. Like I'm not, I'm not like losing my mind. I'm starting to kind of figure out a little bit of the old language, just from talking to some of the boo-boos and jimas that were out there. Like I'm feeling good.
00:44:59
Mason Ross
It's finally, I've got it figured out.
00:44:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:45:00
Mason Ross
And he's like, yeah, no, you're going to get transferred. They're like, well, the plane's supposed to be coming in. When the plane comes in, like, you know, get back here. We'll get your visa and off you go. And theyre he was like, yeah, you're, you're one of six.
00:45:14
Mason Ross
And he listed off the other missionaries, and you were on there, and Elder Mahongo was on there, and ah Sheffield was on there, right?
00:45:18
Darin Tingey
Yep.
00:45:20
Mason Ross
Yes. And Peterson and Hanson.
00:45:21
Darin Tingey
Yep. Peterson and Hansen. and handsome
00:45:26
Mason Ross
Peterson and Hanson. Yep, they were the ones that were on there. And I'm sitting there thinking, okay. So I asked him, well why? Because he told us when we got there, like, you guys probably aren't going to go over there, because that did happen, you know, before President Larkin, like, you moved back and forth a little bit.
00:45:43
Mason Ross
He's like, you missionaries, you're you're probably not going to go over there. And then this happens. And I'm like, ah okay, why? And he yeah, was right.
00:45:50
Darin Tingey
Yeah, what I do wrong? ah
00:45:53
Mason Ross
It's like, you haven't even seen me. i have, I've never even served on that Island. Like where are we at? Where are we not vibing? No. ah He goes, well, there's a great big intake that's leaving and we need to just kind of reinforce a little bit.
00:46:05
Mason Ross
Then we're going to take a few of you guys over there. So I'm like, okay. So, you know, a week rolls by and the plane's supposed to come and plane didn't come.
00:46:16
Mason Ross
Shocker. A lot of things didn't come on that Island.
00:46:17
Darin Tingey
Soccer.
00:46:19
Darin Tingey
Air Marshall, Air Maybe.
00:46:19
Mason Ross
Well, we find out where we're about, we're about most of the way through the rainy season.
00:46:27
Mason Ross
So the grass on the runway is like, I mean, I'm six foot one and it's easy. It's easy up to my chest. Like it's tall and they got a call from,
00:46:35
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:46:38
Mason Ross
uh, Medjaro saying like plane can't land. The grass is too tall. So we spent three days cutting that grass on the runway with machetes and lawnmowers that are probably from the eighties.
00:46:52
Mason Ross
I don't know where they came from or how they're operating, but we spent about three days cutting the the grass and the, the plane was finally able to come in and I got the transfer.
00:47:03
Mason Ross
Robinson traded me out with, uh, um, elder Barrow.
00:47:05
Darin Tingey
That's right.
00:47:06
Mason Ross
And then i Flew down to Kitabas. And I think that was probably, was pretty quick after I got back. It was, it was probably what, three or four days after I got back. We, we took, we flew out there pretty quick.
00:47:18
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah. uh, remember, ah can't remember if you stayed with us in Agile Taghi or what, but, um, remember we just like kind of said our goodbyes to everybody.
00:47:30
Darin Tingey
Um, cause we thought we'd never see them again.
00:47:33
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:47:33
Darin Tingey
We're like, who knows president. President, i remember asking him, was like, well, will I come back? And he's like, i don't know.
00:47:39
Darin Tingey
And I'm like, okay.
00:47:39
Mason Ross
I don't know.
00:47:40
Mason Ross
I don't know if you're going to come back. ah Okay.
00:47:42
Darin Tingey
I don't know.
00:47:42
Mason Ross
I was there with you. You're like, are we going to come back?
00:47:44
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:47:45
Mason Ross
I don't know. ah Awesome.
00:47:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Thanks, President. And, you know, I think everyone was kind of jealous of you a little bit because everyone's like, man, Ross got to start on eBay and he got to go to Wichay and now he's going straight to Kitabas.
00:48:00
Darin Tingey
Like, that's pretty sick, you know?
00:48:02
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:48:03
Darin Tingey
And everyone everyone's a little jealous. Everyone's like, and I, you know, you wonder, like, why did they choose us, right? And...
00:48:09
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:48:11
Darin Tingey
i'm I'm hoping it was because they prayed about or whatever, but I'm sure there's like potential like thought of, like well, Elder Ross is coming off an outer island. He like knows what an outer island is like. so like We're going to send these guys all on outer islands in Kitabas.
00:48:26
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:48:27
Darin Tingey
You and Sheffield were two people who had just come off Wuche.
00:48:30
Darin Tingey
and so It was like, hey, these guys kind of know it. so We know they can handle it. Let's send them out to Kitabas.
00:48:30
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:48:36
Mason Ross
We're going to go back out there and have some fun. And i had never even studied Kitabas, right? not not even up Not even the language, but just like the country itself. Like I was thinking, okay, we're 60 miles apart, right?
00:48:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:49
Mason Ross
Like the Marshall Islands are a little, they're 60 miles from the furthest. Southern Island in the marshales or the Marshall Islands island chain to the furthest north in the Kitabas island chain is 60 miles.
00:49:01
Mason Ross
six zero So I'm thinking, oh, it's got to be a whole it's got to be about the same. you know like it's It's going to be very similar. like it's It's going to be just like Wichae.
00:49:07
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:49:08
Mason Ross
It's going to be just fine. um Yeah, no, it wasn't. It was very dry. i think it rained probably four or five times while I was out there.
00:49:16
Darin Tingey
Yes.
00:49:21
Mason Ross
like It's basically going from like Costa Rica to Arizona. Like, it was very dry, almost kind of deserty.
00:49:26
Darin Tingey
Yeah. I had the same.
00:49:32
Darin Tingey
yeah I had the same um observation. Like, i was like, man, Marshawn's is a lot more green than Kitibus.
00:49:40
Mason Ross
Yes, yes, and
00:49:41
Darin Tingey
Like, It's crazy how just like that little bit of difference, like north of the equator versus like south of the equator. And it's like, March Islands, tons of rain, Kiribati, no rain at all.
00:49:52
Mason Ross
Yeah. Was, was my my Anna, was it South of the equator or were you, were you North?
00:49:56
Darin Tingey
um It was south of that. i was I was south of that. I was just down south of that. So don't have to look on the map.
00:50:03
Mason Ross
I was like and on, on Abamehameh. I was like five miles North of the equator.
00:50:11
Darin Tingey
Okay, so maybe I was, okay, so then I was north of the equator then.
Life in Kitabas: Culture and Survival
00:50:15
Darin Tingey
But still, like, that, just a little bit of difference, and it's like, boom, like, rain, no rain.
00:50:19
Mason Ross
No rain ever.
00:50:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:50:22
Mason Ross
Like you have these well, not wells, you have these tanks in the marshals that always has, you know, good drinkable water in it. There were no tanks on Abamehameh anywhere. There are wells everywhere.
00:50:33
Mason Ross
I dug so many wells. I would build fires on the coral and, you know, you you you make the coral real fragile and then you start hitting it with a pick and you dig wells and break them up.
00:50:35
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:50:43
Mason Ross
That's how you got your water. Like it's it's crazy.
00:50:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:50:45
Mason Ross
And yeah, when when we when we left, I got handed, ah I'm sure you did too. we got handed ah a language booklet from, from the MTC that had the kid of this language in it. And president was just, here you go.
00:51:00
Mason Ross
Good luck.
00:51:00
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:51:00
Mason Ross
Have fun. And it was good luck. And, you know, you kind of forget the language that you've already learned to learn another one.
00:51:09
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:51:11
Mason Ross
So I'm trying to figure out how to speak, you know, this other language. And i was very fortunate, very fortunate. Um, Because i'm going to say the first two companions I had, I was i started out in Beso for about two weeks with Elder Kitchens.
00:51:27
Darin Tingey
Oh yeah.
00:51:27
Mason Ross
And Elder Kitchens, his kitabas, if you were to stand him behind a curtain and have him talk, I would have said, that is a kitabas man right there.
00:51:39
Mason Ross
Not at all. Not at all the case. um His Kitabas was very good. He gave me a very quick crash course on it. He goes, this is how you pray. This is how you say your name. And here's how you start a lesson.
00:51:49
Mason Ross
Great. Then he took me and sent me off to Elder Dale.
00:51:50
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:51:55
Mason Ross
And Elder Dale, he was fantastic. I loved Elder Dale. The way he taught me Kitabas was amazing.
00:52:06
Mason Ross
ah During our language studies, we would play Kitabas card games. And you would you would learn, I learned how to do the letters, or not letters, I learned how to do the numbers, and basically how to play these small games and learn how to speak the language playing these games. Because you can go play these games anywhere.
00:52:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:52:25
Mason Ross
And you're going to play the game, but if you want to interact with people, you got to talk.
00:52:29
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:52:29
Mason Ross
So he would help me figure out how to talk and interact, and my brain's not thinking about, okay, don't screw this word up. It's, okay, well, I've got this card. He's got this card. got to be able to play this. And you you just start talking.
00:52:42
Mason Ross
And then all of a sudden, it just starts to make sense. And I was with Elder Dale for ah six weeks. And i after after six weeks of figuring out the language there, I felt like I was more capable of speaking Kitabas than I was with Marshallese.
00:53:00
Darin Tingey
Isn't that crazy? i felt the same way. um and that might've been because we learned a language. we learned We knew how to learn a language kind of.
00:53:10
Darin Tingey
um i mean, I'm not sure we'd say we were experts, but like we had six months of learning how to learn a language and then we had to do it over again.
00:53:18
Darin Tingey
And I feel like, i mean, two things. One, I think Kitabas is an easier language than Marshallese, at least for our tongues.
00:53:18
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:53:26
Mason Ross
Mm-hmm.
00:53:26
Darin Tingey
And then two, yeah, Two, it was just like we knew how to learn one. and And so like i i have I had Elder Tui, who was previous companion to Elder Kitchens. he He always talked about how great Elder Kitchens was.
00:53:45
Darin Tingey
But he taught me Kitabas as well, and he did a great job as well. And it's just like he left after two months, and then it was like, all right, you got to do everything now, Elder Tingi.
00:53:55
Mason Ross
Yeah.
00:53:55
Darin Tingey
You're the senior companion. Yeah.
00:53:57
Mason Ross
Yep.
00:53:57
Darin Tingey
um my other My next companion was like pretty shy. so it was just like, all right. And I feel like i picked it up faster than I did Marshallese.
00:54:04
Mason Ross
Yeah. Yeah. and Elder Dale didn't give me a choice. He he just was, you're doing the lesson. Go. Good luck. Have fun.
00:54:11
Darin Tingey
but
00:54:13
Mason Ross
I'll be here. I'll be here in your corner. Like you got this. um I'll help you out, which is what I needed. You know, I needed that because that's kind of how I figured out how to speak Marshallese too. I needed that kind of kick of like, all right, go.
00:54:25
Mason Ross
Here's how you going to do it. And being out there was crazy because I had an additional island on Abememe called Abesiku. And Abesiku, we would go to about one once a month.
00:54:40
Mason Ross
We would spend a week out there. And the the population out there was about, i don't know, maybe 100.
00:54:43
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
00:54:50
Mason Ross
But there was enough members out there that they wanted church and things like that too. So they would boat in. And then once once a month, we would go out there and we would teach and and we would you know commit to lessons and and do all of that out there. But I am 98% certain that the only food that people that live on Abasiku eat is octopus.
00:55:12
Mason Ross
Because I've had it every way that you could ever possibly think of. Fried, boiled, boiled in coconut milk, ah grilled. I've had it dried. I've had like any way that you can eat food.
00:55:25
Mason Ross
I ate octopus that way.
00:55:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:55:27
Mason Ross
That is a very interesting food to say the least.
00:55:33
Darin Tingey
Yeah, you always wonder, like, i ate a lot of octopus on my Anna, too. Probably more so than I did in the Marshalls.
00:55:40
Darin Tingey
And, which is which is funky. You know, there's, like, different... fish in the marshes than there are in Kitabas and more octopus, more eels, it felt like. But, like, the octopus, like, I'm like, man, how many octopus are there out there?
00:55:40
Mason Ross
Oh, 100%.
00:55:54
Darin Tingey
Because I feel like every day they're bringing in, like, 20, you know?
00:55:57
Mason Ross
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they're not little guys either. Like there are these there's some some good size.
00:55:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah, they're big. Yeah.
00:56:02
Mason Ross
There's some good size octopi, whatever.
00:56:05
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:56:07
Mason Ross
don't know how to. Yeah, they're pretty big. And one day I got curious. I was like, how how do you guys catch these? Like, explain this to me. And all it is is ah hook that's about three feet long. Well, it's a it's a piece of iron that's about three feet long with a little hook at the end.
00:56:24
Mason Ross
and they literally would just run it underneath the coral shelves. And when it would hook on something, you'd see a tentacle come out and wrap around it. You yank it out and out it comes. And that's how they do it.
00:56:34
Darin Tingey
yep they did unlie the same way yeah in the marshals they did the same way but i did i definitely just had it more often in kitabas uh the kika right the kika i think it's kika um what uh
00:56:44
Mason Ross
Oh yeah, that was a staple food. Yep, Tequica. Tequica and that I had an experience out there. i learned
00:56:55
Darin Tingey
Go
00:56:55
Mason Ross
What's that?
00:56:56
Mason Ross
I learned real quick what Teika Nibeka is.
00:56:59
Darin Tingey
ahead.
00:57:00
Mason Ross
That was... That was a...
00:57:02
Darin Tingey
Did you have it? did Did you really have it?
00:57:03
Mason Ross
Oh, my dude. Yes, I did. And Elder Dale didn't tell me what it was. I'm sitting here thinking like, you I gotta eat this because it's food.
00:57:09
Darin Tingey
Oh, man.
00:57:12
Darin Tingey
tell Tell our listeners. sir
00:57:15
Darin Tingey
Tell them what it is.
00:57:15
Mason Ross
Okay.
00:57:16
Mason Ross
so So Teika Nibeka. So Teika is the fish. It's how you say the fish in Kitabas. Nibeka. is of poop.
00:57:30
Darin Tingey
Yeah, poop.
00:57:30
Mason Ross
So I'm, I, when it gets translated out, you're like, what? Ew. Well, the fish itself is delicious. It tastes amazing. It is a very good food, but the instant it hits your stomach, your rear end is not the same as it should be.
00:57:49
Mason Ross
And the first night I had it, I ate two of them. And the first night I had it, we were about 15-ish miles from the house. And now you know we got we got to drive home.
00:58:00
Mason Ross
So I'm driving home, just to feel the stomach started to get a little weird. And Elder Dale starts laughing at me. and I'm like, what? goes, you know what you just ate? I said, no, it's a fish. He goes, yeah, they ate guinea becca. And he explained it to me.
00:58:13
Mason Ross
And I'll bet you about every mile on the money, we had to make a pit stop because i could not And it finally got to a point that when I got back to the house, I just i drove my bike into the ocean.
00:58:27
Mason Ross
And just i everything that I had on got taken off and cleaned and hung to dry.
00:58:33
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:58:34
Mason Ross
And then I took my bie my bike back and put it away and went to bed. But for about two weeks, anything you eat comes out immediately.
00:58:42
Darin Tingey
yeah oh two for two weeks like that that's awful i can't imagine i i'd always heard about dikani beko but i never had i feel like i just mostly had bonefish uh dikari um
00:58:52
Mason Ross
Bonefish, I had ah had that a lot. That was really good too.
00:58:57
Darin Tingey
As far as like Ebamehameh as an island, I remember I was and did a podcast with Tate Dale actually. talked about how like long it was, like super long, right?
00:59:06
Darin Tingey
Take your hours. Was it wide? I know Wichae, from i' talking to Sheffield, Wichae was actually pretty wide.
00:59:07
Mason Ross
Super long.
00:59:13
Mason Ross
It was pretty wide.
00:59:13
Darin Tingey
But...
00:59:15
Mason Ross
Abamame was not. it was very It was very narrow. It was more it was more kind of built like
00:59:19
Darin Tingey
Okay. Okay.
00:59:23
Mason Ross
Kind of built like, a I'm going to say from kind of like a Azotaki to Delup. Kind of like that.
00:59:33
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:59:34
Mason Ross
Like it's built kind of in that same kind of way that makes, it not built, it's not built, but it is kind of that way.
00:59:40
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:59:40
Mason Ross
Like Wutze is very wide. Jalowich has kind of both, but no, Abimem, it was very narrow. And at some places, the only way that you were connected to the next island was a bridge.
00:59:53
Mason Ross
They just bridged all of these islands together and made one great big island.
00:59:57
Darin Tingey
Huh. Did, when the when the tide would go out, was it super sandy?
01:00:03
Darin Tingey
where is it Was it shallow?
01:00:04
Mason Ross
Yes.
01:00:06
Mason Ross
It was sandy and shallow and Elder Dale and I went out again. Shocker. Went out and tried to go fishing. We didn't quite make it out to the reef's edge in time and the water started to come back in and we had to turn and and and make tail back to the house before the
01:00:17
Darin Tingey
Oh, shoot.
01:00:22
Mason Ross
The tide came in, but yeah, it was very sandy and very shallow.
01:00:26
Darin Tingey
Which is another difference, at least that I experienced in Marshalls versus Kiribati. On Mayanna, the same thing. Tide would go out. It was like so shallow, and like it was just super sandy like as far as you could see.
01:00:40
Mason Ross
for as far Yeah, as far as you can see. It
01:00:42
Darin Tingey
But Lai, in the Marshall Islands, like it never got like that. like It was it was like sandy, but not that way. like The coral was like right there on the island, basically.
01:00:50
Mason Ross
it was right there. And it was deeper. the lagoons The lagoons and stuff were deeper in in the marshals.
01:00:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah, super deep.
01:00:56
Darin Tingey
And I wonder ah wonder if that's like the Marsh Island Atolls are like older, um so the middle's like sunk in more or something. But i don't I don't know why that is, um of why Kitabas is more like sandy, shallow lagoons versus marshals.
01:01:14
Mason Ross
Yeah, i never I never really thought about that, actually, until you just brought that up. Yeah, that's that is a good point.
01:01:19
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's just... It's just like, i mean, I only had, you know, Lai and the Marshall Islands and Mayanna to compare like outer island life. But i I always thought that was interesting. Like Lai was like more rainy green and like deeper lagoon and Kiribati and like more like kind of circle shaped.
01:01:38
Darin Tingey
And then in Mayanna was like kind of one long strip ah and like super shallow lagoon, very dry.
01:01:39
Mason Ross
yeah
01:01:43
Mason Ross
yep.
01:01:49
Darin Tingey
But, I mean, life's basically the same, except for like Kiribati, like in Mayanna, they had like stick huts, right? And on Lai, their houses were a little bit nicer.
01:01:56
Mason Ross
yep
01:01:58
Darin Tingey
And I wonder, you know, part of that is like the government in the Marshall Islands probably gifted people like tin roofs to catch all the rainwater, you know?
01:02:10
Mason Ross
Yeah, yeah.
01:02:10
Darin Tingey
And so, and Kiribati, like you don't have rainwater, so like the tin roof isn't really needed. And and they like, they prefer the traditional houses, right?
01:02:19
Mason Ross
Those traditional houses are very comfortable too. They don't look like it, but when you lay down on them, they get they can become very soft very quickly.
Final Reflections on Mission Experience
01:02:29
Darin Tingey
Yeah, the the breeze is nice too.
01:02:30
Mason Ross
The breeze is amazing. You don't have to worry about walls because it rains about, oh, I don't know, 12 times a year out there. So you don't have to worry about getting wet.
01:02:39
Darin Tingey
It's funny like when a house in Kitabu is like no walls. like I feel like we can't fathom it. We're also like there's no privacy, right? But like I guess they just don't need it.
01:02:50
Darin Tingey
They're also will take their shirts off in front of you and no one gives a crap.
01:02:53
Mason Ross
Yeah. Yeah.
01:02:56
Darin Tingey
Old men will open their bays in front of you completely naked, readjust it.
01:02:57
Mason Ross
when
01:03:02
Mason Ross
They'll readjust and then re-wrap. ah
01:03:04
Darin Tingey
Dude, that, man, so many old men. ah Things I did not need to see there.
01:03:11
Mason Ross
I made a mistake of looking up when someone was getting me a coconut. Never do that again. I learned real quick. No, no.
01:03:18
Darin Tingey
Did you drink a lot of coconuts in Kiribati? Because I didn't.
01:03:21
Mason Ross
I did. i drank I drank quite a bit actually on Aba Me Me, but they were very, they were smaller almost than the ones that we had in the Marshalls.
01:03:22
Darin Tingey
I...
01:03:29
Mason Ross
They weren't um quite as big.
01:03:30
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:03:32
Mason Ross
That makes, yeah, they just weren't, they weren't as big, but I did. i did drink it fairly often. Not as much as I did in the Marshalls though.
01:03:38
Darin Tingey
Yeah, i feel like... In the Marshalls, it was like, maybe because it's more rain, I guess. um But i drank a lot of coconuts. And then in Kiribati, I'd have to like ask people if I could have the moemoto.
01:03:51
Darin Tingey
If I could have a coconut to drink when we had dinner or something like that. Or like, what do you want to drink? I'm like, can I have a coconut? I feel like it was never like given to me that much. And I don't know why.
01:04:01
Darin Tingey
I wonder, part of me thinks, they're thinking, this is 20 cents. this is a dollar like This is money to us because once it falls on the ground,
01:04:07
Mason Ross
Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:10
Darin Tingey
And we can go to bin like oh cut then like dry out the coconut. like That is money to us. And I wonder if that is a mindset of like, we don't drink these as much because this is money for us.
01:04:22
Mason Ross
This is money. Yes. Yeah. That's that's actually a very good point. Yeah, that is something that is something there that was, I don't want to say, I'm not going to say it, but it's not how I mean it. Primitive.
01:04:33
Mason Ross
Okay. It's not, life there was a little bit more air quotes primitive than it was in the Marshalls, but they had no cares at all about it.
01:04:34
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
01:04:43
Mason Ross
Like it was just life, you know, like that's just another day in life out there, which that was, that was so cool to be able to see that, to be able to kind of get immersed in a culture that I was like, okay, like,
01:04:43
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:04:47
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:04:56
Mason Ross
You're walking down the street and there's like six little naked children just running. And they're just, hi! As they're running by you and off they go. And you're like, your life is great. you You love your life. Good for you, little man.
01:05:08
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Were you out on Abamehameh for July Independence Day?
01:05:13
Mason Ross
Yes. Yes, I was.
01:05:14
Darin Tingey
Did they do a big botaki, big celebration and party?
01:05:18
Mason Ross
Yep. Yep, I was. i They had a monster one out there. Everybody from the island came in. And the cannabis ties that everybody wants that has the little seal on it.
01:05:31
Mason Ross
I, uh, I played a card game for somebody for his and, uh, I, I won.
01:05:35
Darin Tingey
No way. No way.
01:05:37
Mason Ross
It was one that Elder Dale had taught me from the beginning. And he's like, all right, this dude's pretty good. Like he's kind of hyping me up in the corner. Like, all right, you got this. And I played the cards and cards played out right.
01:05:47
Mason Ross
And I ended up winning his tie. And I thought was gonna be like, no, you can't have it. And it was just a, it was just a, uh, it was a blue one. It was a blue one, but I was like I was thinking he's like, oh, no, you can't have it.
01:05:56
Darin Tingey
yeah.
01:05:59
Mason Ross
But he just undid it off his neck and handed it to me. And I gave him mine. And he goes, you keep yours. I have more. was like, OK.
01:06:07
Darin Tingey
No way.
01:06:09
Mason Ross
And then he he leans over. He goes, I would have given it to you without you like playing for it. He goes, but what's what's what's the harm in having a fun little game?
01:06:19
Darin Tingey
Yeah, they're always willing to give stuff off their back, ah you know. And as missionaries, we're always get a little scared to ask, but they're always like, oh yeah, here you go, you know.
01:06:28
Darin Tingey
Here it is. Yeah.
01:06:29
Mason Ross
Yeah.
01:06:30
Mason Ross
And you learn you learn in their culture, both cultures, when you ask for something, they just give. So like you you pick and choose what you ask for.
01:06:35
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:06:39
Darin Tingey
Yeah. what ah What was your favorite memory about Abba Mamma?
01:06:44
Mason Ross
My favorite memory about Abamehameh, honestly, it was i liked the culture that was down there, if that makes sense. I like the fact that um people were still living in huts.
01:06:57
Mason Ross
You know, I mean, the house I lived in was a step up from a hut.
01:06:58
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:07:00
Mason Ross
it was just a cinder block house. But I had a hut in the backyard that I could have gone and slept in. And I did a few nights like and and you can do that.
01:07:07
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:07:09
Mason Ross
I just loved the fact that you are. This culture is so different from what we have in the United States or even compared to what you have in the Marshall Islands. Like the culture itself is still very different, and like the Sulus and things like that. Like we didn't have that in the Marshalls. That was something new.
01:07:27
Mason Ross
Um, just the way they lived, I, I loved, you know, like it's the culture for me in Kitabus was the part that I was like, I love this the most. Like, I don't have one specific memory that makes me go, yes, it's that.
01:07:41
Mason Ross
My, my best experience and favorite experience was just the culture and being able to be blessed enough to be immersed in it and to be able to, to, to learn from it.
01:07:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah, they really love their culture. They really to to keep it the same for generations, something they really value, which is really cool. um Okay, so Abamehameh, you're there for like four and a half months, same time as, same as me and Mayanna, and we both get pulled off.
01:08:07
Mason Ross
Four and a months.
01:08:11
Darin Tingey
And I remember you and our president wants to meet with us. of And I don't remember where you were, but I came in from the Puerta on Tarawa and came in.
01:08:27
Darin Tingey
We met at Morona High School is where we met president. It was so fun to see
01:08:30
Mason Ross
i was I was back in Beso again.
01:08:33
Darin Tingey
bea
01:08:33
Mason Ross
Beso is where I was at.
01:08:35
Darin Tingey
So it was like, it was like super dope to like see you again. And then, and then ah don't I don't know if I think you went in before me. What was that like? me the president.
01:08:46
Mason Ross
So I went in and transfer time is coming in. And um from everybody I hadd talked to, like Elder Dale and other kitchens, they were like, so you're going he's going to want to talk to you when you come off. And he's like, he just wants to know how the work is, how things are going. He's like, it's just a ah simple talk. I'm like, oh, okay, cool.
01:09:05
Mason Ross
Because that's how it was. So I'm thinking, all right, we're going in, going have our talk. I was like, where am I going? Am I going to go back to BESO? Like i've already kind of made friends down there. Like it's going to great.
01:09:14
Darin Tingey
Right.
01:09:15
Mason Ross
And I go in and I sit down and he goes, Elder Ross, how are you? I said, I'm good. How are you, president? He goes, good. He's like, well, we've got you transferred. We know where you're going. was like, okay, where am I going? goes, going to Dellup.
01:09:28
Mason Ross
And I went, where? He goes, you're going to Dellup. I said, is there a Dellup here? There can't be because there's no L's in this language. Like, ah really?
01:09:37
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:38
Mason Ross
he goes, no, that's back in the marshals. You're going to go serve on Medjaro. And I I'm not joking with you when I tell you I sat back in my chair and just went, you have got to be kidding me.
01:09:53
Mason Ross
And it's, it's not, it's not that I was like mad that I'm going back to the marshals. It's just the fact that I'm like, okay, well, I just learned this language too.
01:10:02
Darin Tingey
Yeah, the whiplash.
01:10:02
Mason Ross
i don't remember Marshallese. Like, i don't know how I figured that out.
01:10:07
Darin Tingey
Right.
01:10:08
Mason Ross
So for me, it was, i it was, are you serious?
01:10:13
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:10:13
Mason Ross
And again, it's not that I wasn't excited. It was just, ah again, like not not even something, like I can't even have something. So at this point, you know, I'm a year into my mission.
01:10:25
Mason Ross
So I've only got a year left. And i'm I'm sitting here thinking, well, okay, what's my next transfer going to be after that?
01:10:26
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
01:10:30
Mason Ross
Am I going to Namu? Am I going over to to Guam? Like that's what's running through my head.
01:10:37
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:10:38
Mason Ross
But yeah, it wasn't like I was mad. It was just like, wow. Okay. So.
01:10:42
Darin Tingey
Just shocked.
01:10:44
Mason Ross
I'm going back to work again. but's let's Let's do this again. Let's go relearn it.
01:10:49
Darin Tingey
I, yeah, dude. And it's just fun hearing your side because you and I experienced it within like 15 minutes of each other. um Because I don't think President told you that I was going back with you and I was going in right after you. you know and I thought the same thing. like oh I sent him to the outer island in Kiribati. Now it's probably like time to serve on Tarawa, the main island in Kiribati. It would be fun to get to know some of the missionaries here and continue on learning the language.
01:11:18
Darin Tingey
and yeah Same thing. He's like, I'm sending you back to Maduro. For me, he's like, I'm sending you to Long Island and you're going open a Kiribati branch. and I was like, President, that's lot to say all once, you know, it's like, like yeah, I'm like, oh my gosh.
01:11:32
Mason Ross
That's a lot to throw on my plate.
01:11:35
Darin Tingey
And then, and I don't think he told me that you were going back either. And so the same thing, just total shock. It's kind of like, why did you send us to Kitabas? Like, why did you do that? Like, I don't understand why you sent us to Kitabas.
01:11:46
Mason Ross
Yes.
01:11:48
Darin Tingey
If you were going to send us to an outer island and then right after that, just send us back home, or send us back to the marshals.
01:11:51
Mason Ross
And just going to go back. See ya. Yeah.
01:11:53
Darin Tingey
Like, it doesn't make sense.
01:11:54
Mason Ross
Yeah.
01:11:55
Darin Tingey
Um, But like, I mean, it's, it's really cool experience. We're like, how many people got to say that they got to just go to spend, uh, an outer Island and kid of us, then come back to the marshals.
01:12:06
Darin Tingey
Like, like no one, no one else besides a few of us But, um, Yeah, and I remember coming out of the meeting and we looked at each other like, you going back to marshals? Like, go back to the marshals.
01:12:06
Mason Ross
yeah Right.
01:12:17
Mason Ross
back.
01:12:18
Darin Tingey
Like, yeah.
01:12:19
Mason Ross
Yeah.
01:12:20
Darin Tingey
Which made it so much better to like go back with you. If I was going back alone, i would have been pretty sad. But going back with you, you're like friend that I'd had from the beginning of my mission,
01:12:26
Mason Ross
Agreed.
01:12:30
Darin Tingey
It was like, and like okay, like we're going back. And then, so we go back to Maduro. We stand in Tarawa for a little bit, go see Peterson, say hi, and i kind of reminisce.
01:12:30
Mason Ross
hmm.
01:12:41
Darin Tingey
And then we fly back with President. Everyone's kind of shocked to see us back in the Marshalls.
01:12:48
Darin Tingey
Like, what are you doing back here already?
01:12:48
Mason Ross
Because i don't think I don't think they knew that we were coming back either.
01:12:52
Darin Tingey
No, no one knew. And everyone's like, what are you guys doing back here?
01:12:53
Mason Ross
ah What are you doing?
01:12:55
Darin Tingey
Like, we thought we were touching.
01:12:55
Mason Ross
and you're like, don't know. We're back though. Hi.
01:12:58
Darin Tingey
Yeah, like, I guess, I guess president wants us back here. Hopefully you guys accept us. And then you got to dial up, be district leader. And then like one transfer later.
01:13:10
Darin Tingey
so I'm doing the kid of us branch in Long Island. I'm like, president, like, give me Elder Ross. Like, I don't know why you didn't both just, you didn't just put us both on Long Island to do this kid of this branch. Like you stuck me with Elder Dunn, which other than it's fantastic, but he doesn't speak kid of us.
01:13:25
Darin Tingey
You got me to do this kid of his branch.
01:13:25
Mason Ross
And I was with, I was with, oh, what's his name?
01:13:30
Mason Ross
the It's from Vanuatu. totally forgot his name. Or no, not Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea.
01:13:36
Darin Tingey
You're from Miva, Miva, I'll do Miva.
01:13:38
Mason Ross
Yeah, Elder Miva.
01:13:40
Darin Tingey
So i was like, okay, you did a transfer there and then and then you came to Long Island with me, which was so fun, we got to be companions.
01:13:48
Mason Ross
And we were companions. We working the the branch together, which was fun. But I was only with you for A transfer.
01:13:55
Darin Tingey
One transfer, yeah. Like in the three three transfers, so four and half months, I did the Kinvass branch. I had a new companion each time.
01:14:06
Darin Tingey
So other Dan, then then Insua.
01:14:10
Mason Ross
Yep.
01:14:12
Darin Tingey
Or Laupepa. He changed it whatever whenever he wanted to. But...
01:14:17
Darin Tingey
Dude, like talk to me a little bit because you and i both experienced the thing. Like Marshallese, Kitabas, back to Marshall Islands. Okay, now we're learning. Now we're speaking Marshallese again. And like for my case and for your case because you then came and helped me with the Kitabas branch is like we got to speak both every day.
01:14:34
Darin Tingey
We got to speak Kitabas and Marshallese.
01:14:35
Mason Ross
Yes.
01:14:36
Mason Ross
And Marshallese every day.
01:14:37
Darin Tingey
ah And that is taxing on the brain, man.
01:14:40
Mason Ross
is a headache and a half. but
01:14:43
Darin Tingey
Like what what was like how was what was your mindset?
01:14:44
Mason Ross
Yeah.
01:14:46
Darin Tingey
Because for me, like by the end of that four and a half months, I was exhausted and I was like, president, like send me back to Kitabas or to Nader Island.
01:14:50
Mason Ross
Oh.
01:14:54
Mason Ross
Yep. I, so I was, so my first transfer when was with Amoeba, I, I would start i' start a lesson in Marshallese.
01:15:05
Mason Ross
I would start it off, and then I would keep talking, and then I would you know finish what I was saying, and I would look at my investigator, and I'm like, okay, we seek it away.
01:15:14
Darin Tingey
if
01:15:16
Mason Ross
And Elder Miva would lean over to me. He goes, hey, um I don't know what you just said. He doesn't know what you just said. We understand the beginning, but we missed everything after that.
01:15:28
Mason Ross
So I mixed, it took me a minute to figure out how to distinctly be able to talk and to be able to use both. But it was, i mean, it was a headache.
01:15:36
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:15:37
Mason Ross
I mean, you and I would have lessons where it would be in Kitabas and then we would turn around and have one of Marshallese. And then we'd have two or three Marshallese and go have another one in Kitabas.
01:15:42
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:15:45
Mason Ross
And then amongst all of that, you know, you're getting calls from people in the in the district. So you're you're you're talking English too on top of it. So you're using three languages in
01:15:54
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:15:56
Mason Ross
Yeah, no, it was the whole first year of my mission. I had a headache. It didn't go away. I just kind of learned to to deal with the headache right between the temples and above the eyes.
01:16:08
Mason Ross
Like you just learn to figure out how to live with it because it was, I mean, it was a headache.
01:16:12
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:16:15
Darin Tingey
It was, i mean, yeah, we, it was crazy because we were doing both Marshallese and Kitabas, like, lessons all the time. And my favorite was, like, trying to figure out who was Kitabas and who was Marshallese.
01:16:28
Darin Tingey
And we we we kind of figured it out.
01:16:30
Mason Ross
we could figure Yeah, we figured it out.
01:16:31
Darin Tingey
weve we We figured it out. and like Towards the end, like you and I could tell Kiribus person every time we saw him.
01:16:35
Mason Ross
Immediately. Yep. Yep.
01:16:37
Darin Tingey
like The other missionaries could didn't know. but My favorite is we'd go and be like, ya but ya wait and they'd be like, I don't know what you're saying.
01:16:45
Mason Ross
What?
01:16:45
Darin Tingey
They'd give you a confused look. They're whoa!
01:16:47
Mason Ross
Whoa! Yeah.
01:16:49
Darin Tingey
ah You guys speak Kiribus too? like That was so fun. I loved that. and The Kiribus branch was so fun too because They just loved having elders speak Kitabas to them.
01:17:00
Darin Tingey
And it was helpful to have some Kitabas sisters in the area that helped us a bunch.
01:17:03
Mason Ross
Yep.
01:17:05
Darin Tingey
um But yeah, were you were you my companion when we went to Laura and the sisters crashed the car?
01:17:16
Darin Tingey
i don't know if you're my companion.
01:17:17
Mason Ross
i wasn't. I wasn't. I missed that. When did they crash the car?
01:17:21
Darin Tingey
Oh, man. Elder Teal's been wanting me to tell this story because he was AP at the time. It must have been when Elder Dunn and i but So President you know was like, hey, you guys can go anywhere on the island, anywhere there's a kid of this person.
01:17:36
Darin Tingey
So we're trying to tell every kiddos person on Maduro that we're having church in the kiddos language in Long Island. And the sisters and laura Laura were like, hey, there's a kiddos community out here. You should come out here.
01:17:47
Darin Tingey
So we'd borrow the AP's car and we'd drive all way out to Loda. It's like freaking hour drive. And we'd pick up the sisters.
01:17:58
Darin Tingey
I don't know if we were allowed to do that or not. But we'd pick them up and they like bring us to where the kiddos people were living. And I'm like, it's like ah it's one of those like tiny little roads, dirt roads in Laura.
01:18:12
Darin Tingey
Cause Laura is wide enough that there's like little back roads.
01:18:15
Mason Ross
There's little, yeah, there's frontage roads.
01:18:17
Darin Tingey
Yeah. So I, I like, we take one of those and I like hop out of the car and we're like, sisters stay in the car. Like don't do anything. we're going to run in real quick and just give them a flyer and say hi or whatever.
01:18:30
Darin Tingey
We run in and we're like speaking Kitabas. And they like, oh, wow. Like these elders speak Kitabas. They're like talking to us. And I'm like, okay. And it ends up going a little bit long. We come out and I come out and I see Sister Key is from Samoa, never driven a car in her life in the driver's seat.
01:18:49
Darin Tingey
And I see her like,
01:18:50
Mason Ross
Oh no.
01:18:51
Darin Tingey
See, I think there was a truck behind them and they needed to get by. And so she felt like needed to move the car. And she drives over like mini tree like a mini tree and like rams into it and then like reverses super fast, rips off the front bumper and backs into a coconut tree and smashes the back.
01:19:12
Darin Tingey
And I'm like, oh, I'm watching the whole thing.
01:19:13
Mason Ross
oh no
01:19:15
Darin Tingey
And I'm like, oh my gosh. And I run over there. I'm like, sisters, what are you doing? um Because neither of them ever driven cars before. And like,
01:19:26
Darin Tingey
It was like the biggest like walk of shame or drive of shame, like driving that car back to the APs and like giving them their car just like totally crashed.
01:19:36
Mason Ross
Sorry. Yeah.
01:19:37
Darin Tingey
like Sorry, guys. Oh, man.
01:19:40
Darin Tingey
That one hurt. But Teal, Matt, I hope you're listening because that story is for you. that was a tough one. But, man.
01:19:40
Mason Ross
ah
01:19:49
Mason Ross
Oh, I totally missed that. I must have i was i must have been gone for that one. Yeah, i
01:19:53
Darin Tingey
Either you were... Yeah, it must either if it could have been like before or after you were there, my companion. but Oh, man. So you're back on Maduro for two transfers, and then they're like, Elder Ross, you're going to Jalowicz.
01:20:07
Mason Ross
And off to Jalowich I went. I...
01:20:09
Darin Tingey
Another Outer Island. And everyone's like, screw Elder Ross.
01:20:11
Mason Ross
yep Yeah, I went
01:20:12
Darin Tingey
He gets all these Outer Islands, and he's barely spent any time on Maduro. Yeah.
01:20:19
Mason Ross
I was, yep, and right back out to Jalowicz with Elder McFall, which that was fun. I learned, so, all right, so Jalowicz, so you have Jalowicz, Jalowicz, and you have Jabor, Jalowicz.
01:20:27
Darin Tingey
Yeah, what's Jalowicz like? We haven't talked about Jalowicz on the podcast at all.
01:20:36
Darin Tingey
ah Okay.
01:20:37
Mason Ross
ah You live on Jabor, so it's kind of teardrop shaped.
01:20:38
Darin Tingey
Okay.
01:20:41
Mason Ross
Jabor is, it has enough island to be able to put people. Does that make sense? Everything else is basically a road that's just been built up.
01:20:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:20:50
Mason Ross
There are people that live on Jarowicz-Jarowicz, but there's, I mean, it's, you're like 14 or 15 miles away from Jabor.
01:21:01
Mason Ross
So have to ride your bike all the way out there and it's on a dirt road and most of the dirt road is coral. So it's like, this sucks. So we didn't do it a lot, but we did it enough.
01:21:08
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:21:10
Mason Ross
um Yeah. And Macfall, he was very, um, He actually, he wanted to go and he wanted to do, he didn't want to sit. He, if he wanted to do something, we're going to go do it.
01:21:22
Mason Ross
And Elder McFall, he's, he was, he was older than us. He was um right around that 26, 27 age.
01:21:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:21:29
Mason Ross
Like he was, he was an older missionary, but he just wanted to do. And that is what we did. We, we, when he said, we're going to Jalowicz, Jalowicz, we are going, we're leaving at 6 AM and we're out of here because it takes you forever to get up there.
01:21:44
Mason Ross
Well, You live on Jabor. You live right across the street from the high school that's out there. And Jalowicz, I think even without the high school being in session, it's still a more populated island. So Wutze was definitely my most Ibuk island. It was my my furthest, my most outer island island of all of them.
01:22:07
Darin Tingey
Okay.
01:22:07
Mason Ross
um But we lived right across street from the high school.
01:22:09
Mason Ross
And ah but the basketball court was in our front yard. So the amount of lessons that we would have where it was, hey, elders come play us.
01:22:19
Darin Tingey
Okay.
01:22:20
Mason Ross
And Elder McFall is like, well, you're the tallest dude on the island, so let's do it. And we would you know we'd go play basketball. But if we win, you take a lesson. If not, never have to talk to us again.
01:22:33
Mason Ross
We had so many lessons that came from that. And ah few of them worked out. we did We did end up putting um some people on on date and baptized a few people through these lessons.
01:22:45
Darin Tingey
Wow.
01:22:46
Mason Ross
And the tough part about when we would baptize, so we baptized in the ocean.
01:22:52
Mason Ross
And when the tide would go out, if you're if you're trying to baptize between 6 and 8 or something like that, or 4 and 7 or 4 and 6 p.m., if the tide's out, you have nothing to to baptize in, right?
01:23:00
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:23:07
Darin Tingey
Right.
01:23:08
Mason Ross
Well, about a mile up the road from Jabor, you have a bomb crater in the coral from World War II. That's deep enough that you can get people in it to baptize when the tide goes out.
01:23:20
Darin Tingey
No way.
01:23:22
Mason Ross
So we had four baptisms set for a day, and we baptized all four of them in a bomb crater from World War II.
01:23:31
Darin Tingey
That's the coolest story ever.
01:23:33
Darin Tingey
That's so cool.
01:23:33
Mason Ross
And
01:23:35
Mason Ross
It's I have some pictures left. One of these days, I'll see if I can go find them. I'll send them over to you. But um you can see us walking out across the coral and then just stepping into this pond.
01:23:47
Mason Ross
I thought I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. Like you've got a pond right here. That's fantastic. You always have water.
01:23:51
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:23:52
Mason Ross
And then about a week later, I was like, OK, this was the Pacific theater for World War Two. So that's not a pond. That is bomb crater. And it was a big one.
01:24:03
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:24:03
Mason Ross
So now you've got all of that running through your mind.
01:24:05
Mason Ross
And all of a sudden I was like, i when I work out in the morning and I bench, I'm bench pressing a plane axle from the world war two, like it's wrapped up in a bunch of like old t-shirts.
01:24:16
Mason Ross
So you're not getting rust, rust on your hands from when you're benching. And, um, you just kind of figure out a way to, to live and work with what you've got. And Jalowich, I think to me, it was one of the islands that had the most, uh,
01:24:35
Mason Ross
it resonated the most with me. I had, I had an experience out there where, um, I will never forget it.
01:24:36
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:24:43
Mason Ross
And it's one that has proven to me that the church is true and that heavenly father is looking out for his people. Um, I had an investigator that was working on a house, not a house. He was actually building a new building out there, but he was using metal studs and he's about,
01:25:04
Mason Ross
15 feet off the ground and he touches that metal stud to a telephone pole.
01:25:08
Darin Tingey
Oh, gosh. hmm.
01:25:09
Mason Ross
Get zapped, falls off the building, lands on his head and can't feel his legs at all. And in the marshals at the time, i don't know if it's changed now, but at the time they were making about $2 an hour.
01:25:24
Mason Ross
If you had a job, you're making about $2 an hour. ah To put it into perspective to the listeners, $2 an two dollars an hour doesn't get you much when a can of spam is only is six bucks.
01:25:36
Mason Ross
So like you're, you're really trying to feed your family. Well, this guy did a lot of fishing and we would go fishing a lot with him. And he fell off the, ah this building and his wife came and found us as me and Mac fall.
01:25:51
Mason Ross
His wife came and found us and we went in and I gave him a blessing. And I, I know I said one thing in my blessing that I gave him. it was, you will stand to provide for your family.
01:26:02
Mason Ross
uh, go forth and provide. And I know he was paralyzed because I, so I knelt down on the end of his bed and I, I sat on his foot and I was like, Oh, sorry. And you know, like I, I kind of backed off. He's like I didn't feel that.
01:26:18
Darin Tingey
Wow.
01:26:19
Mason Ross
And was like, what are you talking about? So I took his spear for spear fishing and I stabbed him in the foot with it. At first I kind of poked him, you know, pretty good just to see if he would feel it.
01:26:29
Mason Ross
Nothing didn't feel anything. Then I stabbed him hard enough that all three prongs were bleeding out of his foot. And he goes, I didn't flinch, didn't move, didn't wince, didn't didn't even know what was going on.
01:26:39
Darin Tingey
wow
01:26:42
Mason Ross
And I gave him a blessing and he stood up and ah went and provided for his family and told me that he will be done drinking coffee and done smoking.
01:26:56
Darin Tingey
Wow.
01:26:57
Mason Ross
And we we put him on date and, you know, obviously things,
01:27:00
Mason Ross
You know, things happen. You have to move things a little bit here and there. But yeah, Jalowich is an island that I will never forget. That's an experience that i will forever take with me moving forward.
01:27:12
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that's an incredible story. And the I feel like a lot of those crazy things just happen on, on these tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific. And you're just, you just get that sense that like God does love every single one of his children so much so that he sent me to this tiny Island to preach the gospel to these people who you think wouldn't matter because there's like hundred, only a couple hundred people on the island.
01:27:39
Mason Ross
Yeah.
01:27:39
Darin Tingey
You, you know, there's so many other places that you could send a missionary, but we're sending them these tiny islands and just shows you that God loves all of his children and
01:27:40
Mason Ross
Yeah.
01:27:48
Darin Tingey
It's really cool. That's a crazy story. Yeah.
01:27:50
Mason Ross
That was, that's what did it for me. That's that still thinking about it today. still kind of hits me a little bit. And I didn't want to talk about that because I knew that it would make me do what I'm doing now.
01:27:57
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:28:03
Mason Ross
um But yeah, that was the experience that from my mission that made me go, wow. Okay. All right. There's, I've met a lot of people in my life, especially in the line of work that I'm in now. I, I made a lot of people from the South and I meet, you know, a lot of people from all over, you know, the United States and Latin America. And those people that I meet that are, don't believe in a God or don't believe that God is there. I'm like, how?
01:28:29
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:28:30
Mason Ross
Like, I just explained to me your logic, like how, you know, i just want to know.
01:28:34
Mason Ross
Because I have had experiences like this where I'm like, yeah, no. He's is there. he He is there.
01:28:40
Darin Tingey
Yeah. um Well, last few questions for you.
01:28:49
Darin Tingey
What was your favorite area and favorite food? Let's go favorite food first and then favorite area.
01:28:58
Mason Ross
Okay. Oh, the favorite area one going to be tough, man. um favorite Favorite food and I hope this doesn't get me in trouble but sea turtle.
01:29:09
Darin Tingey
Yeah, sea turtles so good.
01:29:10
Mason Ross
I really really like sea turtle. That one. that and I would say that and dolphin are probably you know neck and neck. They're right there with yeah one another.
01:29:21
Darin Tingey
Where did you have dolphin? What island?
01:29:21
Mason Ross
had whale
01:29:25
Mason Ross
Jalowich but that one
01:29:27
Darin Tingey
haven't had it, maybe.
01:29:28
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:29:28
Mason Ross
and i had ah i had whale on ja
01:29:30
Mason Ross
but that one The one wasn't as good.
01:29:33
Darin Tingey
Okay.
01:29:35
Mason Ross
But yeah, dolphin and sea turtle, I think are my, my top ones that I had out there.
01:29:40
Darin Tingey
Both, both two animals that like Americans would never think about eating.
01:29:42
Mason Ross
Never. It's just, you, you can look at them in America. That's all you got.
01:29:50
Darin Tingey
That's right.
01:29:51
Mason Ross
ah But yeah, no, I think those are my favorite. and My favorite area. Gosh, that is tough. and
01:30:00
Mason Ross
It was, it's, oh,
01:30:03
Mason Ross
I would say it's probably Woodjay because of, yeah.
01:30:05
Darin Tingey
Yeah, you had texted me that earlier. i was wondering if you're gonna keep saying it.
01:30:10
Mason Ross
Yeah, Woodjay is probably my favorite. i i i felt and saw myself grow so much on that island. And I do firmly believe that it has changed me.
01:30:26
Mason Ross
It's changed a good portion of me to the man that I am today, if that makes sense. Like I had to figure out how to do things myself. you know I couldn't rely on anybody.
01:30:33
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:30:34
Mason Ross
I had to figure it out. i had to figure out how to learn. It kind of taught me how to just knuckle down and get it done with time when times get tough um because most of time out there was tough.
01:30:46
Mason Ross
But um yeah, no, I think Wichay was my favorite.
01:30:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:30:50
Mason Ross
it's It's an island that if I go back to the marshals and you know they look at me and say, you're only allowed to travel to one island over here. What is it? Wichay, that's where I'm going. I'm going back to Wichay.
01:30:58
Darin Tingey
Let's
01:31:00
Mason Ross
And it's not that I didn't like Jalowich and you know my companions out there were Elder McFall and Elder Dunn. And I've never shaved a man's head before. That was a new experience for me. Shout out to Elder Dunn there. Hope you're listening.
01:31:11
Darin Tingey
go. They're done.
01:31:12
Mason Ross
It's a fun time. Sat down. I'm going need you shave my head. What? um Yeah, but no, I think Witchet is probably my favorite. And i would say Abba Maymay is pretty close behind that.
01:31:24
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:31:26
Darin Tingey
Yeah, the outer islands, there's nothing better than the outer islands. But, and everyone has a different experience on on each island. So just, there's always one that sits in your heart that's like, yeah, this is this is my island.
01:31:39
Darin Tingey
This is mine.
01:31:40
Mason Ross
Yep. Yep.
01:31:41
Darin Tingey
Well, Mason, thanks for coming on the pod. ah love I love, again, I stand by what I said. You might've had the greatest mission of all time. Most of your time off main Island, doing cool things, having great experiences. And it was fun to serve a lot of the mission with you.
01:32:00
Darin Tingey
So thanks again for coming on the pod.
01:32:03
Mason Ross
Yeah, thanks for having me, man. This is great.
01:32:06
Darin Tingey
All right. Thank you.