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Episode 35: Pearce Nally - Kiribati - Kiritimati, Abaiang, Butaritari, Tarawa
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In March 2020, missionaries across the globe were sent home overnight.
But on a remote island in the Pacific, Pearce Nally and three other elders were left behind.
What followed was months of uncertainty, isolation, and a journey home few missionaries will ever experience.
#MarshallIslandsKiribatiMission #Kiribati #Tarawa #Kiritimati #Abaiang #Butaritari #Fanning #TheIslandsPodcast #theislands #PacificIslands #PacificIslanders #Micronesia #Covid
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Pierce Nally's Story
00:00:11
Darin Tingey
All right, we are on with another episode of the Island's podcast. Today, we've got a ah guest, Pierce Nally. And the reason I really wanted to get Pierce on is because I remember seeing an article on him on on the news, like elders stuck in Christmas Island during COVID. So that's a little sneak peek into what we're going to hear about today.
Pierce's Background and Mission Call
00:00:35
Darin Tingey
But we'll start from the beginning. Pierce, where are you from?
00:00:39
Pearce
I'm from Peoria, Arizona.
00:00:41
Darin Tingey
Okay. You had a 602 number, so i I figured you're from Arizona. What high school did you go to?
00:00:46
Pearce
Yep. I went to Liberty for a year and then I went Glendale Prep. It's just a little charter school.
00:00:52
Darin Tingey
Okay. Yeah, I'm familiar with Liberty because I went to Mountain View and Mesa.
00:00:57
Pearce
Yep, sick.
00:00:58
Darin Tingey
um And did you go on your mission right after high school?
00:01:05
Pearce
Yeah, so I graduated high school in May of 2018 and then I left for the MTC in August of 2018.
00:01:13
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:01:13
Pearce
Yep.
00:01:14
Darin Tingey
And you got your call Kiribati. Did you have any idea where that was?
00:01:19
Pearce
No, I didn't even say it right, which I'm sure most of us didn't, but Yeah, i and I had no idea. like I think one of my grandmas at the mission call opening looked it up. She's like, that's in the middle of the ocean. And was like, oh, cool. That's crazy.
00:01:34
Darin Tingey
And did you end up like talking to anybody about the mission before going or just kind of went in blindly?
00:01:41
Pearce
I talked to one person that had been there, I think a few years before. I think his name was Melvin Otto. um And I don't even remember how he connected.
00:01:49
Darin Tingey
Okay. Yeah.
00:01:52
Pearce
i think, actually, I do just i did just remember. It was a family friend had served, I think, in an MTC with him. And he wass like, hey, dude, this is the only guy I know. You should just follow him and on Instagram, see if he can share anything with you. And basically all he said was,
Arrival and First Impressions in Kiribati
00:02:07
Pearce
oh, nice, bro. You're going to the better half.
00:02:09
Pearce
I was like, that's all you got to say. I mean, he was he was right, but i was like, yeah okay, cool.
00:02:14
Darin Tingey
that
00:02:15
Pearce
I guess I'll just figure it out when I get there.
00:02:17
Darin Tingey
Yeah, thanks for the insight, dude.
00:02:19
Pearce
Yeah.
00:02:19
Darin Tingey
feel feel like there wasn't a lot about our mission back then. There's a lot more resources now. um But kidobis like was your MTC group pretty big or was a small group?
00:02:32
Pearce
Yeah, we were big. we had There was 15 of us.
00:02:35
Darin Tingey
Okay. Okay.
00:02:36
Pearce
So we were replacing, the, actually the one episode, sorry, i need to listen to more, but the one episode I have listened to was, uh, Steven Sheffield.
00:02:45
Darin Tingey
Oh, yeah.
00:02:46
Pearce
Cause he was one of my MTC teachers for a little bit. And, uh, I think their intake was kind of big.
00:02:49
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:02:51
Pearce
So we were kind of replacing ah bigger intake that was going home.
00:02:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah, because you were, you said August of 2018 is when you entered the MTC?
00:03:01
Pearce
yeah
00:03:02
Darin Tingey
Okay, so you were finishing, or sorry, you were starting right as I was finishing in Sheffield and... um
00:03:07
Pearce
Gotcha. So you're with those guys Yeah.
00:03:09
Darin Tingey
yeah so Yeah, there was some big intakes right around then. I feel like the summer is usually kind of when a big inflow comes in. um But, okay, 2018, yeah, big group. well how How many people were with you roughly? 15?
00:03:25
Pearce
there's fifteen fourteen elders and sister.
00:03:28
Darin Tingey
ag Yeah, that's a big group. Okay, so you guys MTC and then fly to Kitabas and larkin's you're Larkin's your mission president, right?
00:03:29
Pearce
yeah
00:03:40
Pearce
Yep. Yep. We had Larkin for the first, don't know, whatever that was, nine or 10 months.
00:03:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:03:47
Pearce
And then we got, uh, president Foster for the rest.
00:03:50
Darin Tingey
Okay. And when you got to Kitabas... what What was your first impression?
00:03:58
Pearce
Dude, i I took my – had socks on because they didn't let us leave the MTC with like just your jandals. <unk> And actually when I went to the MTC, I only took jandals. So I had to have my mom send me some like actual shoes.
00:04:13
Pearce
But yeah, so I remember – I actually remember Fiji first walking off that plane. You walk off like right out of that little terminal gate. And I just remember feeling the wave of humidity and I was like, boy, this is not like Phoenix.
00:04:26
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:04:28
Pearce
ah
00:04:28
Darin Tingey
Yeah, totally different heat. Totally.
00:04:30
Pearce
Yeah. And so I kind of got that first humidity wave and off the right off the plane in Fiji. But right as I walked off the plane, everyone's like shaking the mission president, President Larkin's hand and talking to probably what I assume now is like the APs and ZLs. And I was behind everyone else, like sliding off my jandals, taking my socks off, shoving in my backpack. i was like, all right, I'm good.
00:04:52
Darin Tingey
ah
00:04:53
Pearce
Because it was hot. Oh, I
00:04:55
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I can't imagine if we had to wear socks. Like, our so our feet would have stunk.
00:04:59
Pearce
would have been terrible.
00:05:02
Darin Tingey
would have just been gross and sweaty and...
00:05:05
Pearce
Yeah, I knew a couple guys that tried to wear shoes actually for the first couple weeks, and I think they lasted a couple days. They're like, yeah, never mind.
00:05:12
Darin Tingey
Yeah, not worth it. Not worth it at all.
00:05:13
Pearce
No.
00:05:14
Darin Tingey
I had brought, I brought like water shoes because I, the previous mission president before Larkin had still required them to wear like closed toe. They wear like Crocs or something. So I brought like these water shoes.
00:05:24
Pearce
No.
00:05:25
Darin Tingey
And then once I got there, everyone's in flip flops and jandals. I'm like, all right, I'm, I'm getting some jandals and flip flops and rocking those for two years.
00:05:32
Pearce
yep
00:05:35
Darin Tingey
Um, okay. so and what were your, what were your areas walking through of areas?
Challenges in Abeyang
00:05:41
Pearce
Oh, so I started Abeyang, which I was like the one person probably in our intake that did not want to go Ibuk, like right away to an outer island.
00:05:44
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:05:51
Pearce
And then I think one guy went to Christmas, which doesn't count because it's nice. ah And I was the only other one.
00:05:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:05:57
Pearce
And Abeyang wasn't terrible because it was like, it's the closest one to Tarawa. But I started there and then i served in
00:06:06
Pearce
Oh shoot, where did I go after that? ah It was the Kauai Bo. It was like Boota.
00:06:13
Darin Tingey
Yep. yep
00:06:13
Pearce
um So like the very end of Tarawa before Taravilleta. And then went to Putaritari. I went back to Tarawa and I was Bikini Biu Wawa and then Teareguit Teareguit Tawana.
00:06:27
Pearce
And then I went to Christmas and I started in Banana and then I worked Tamayku 1 and 2 then I ended in London. and then before we like actually got home,
00:06:40
Pearce
Uh, we ended up getting back to Tarawa and there was three of us that were just like in a van and because president, we might get into this little more, president Foster was no longer there. he like got sent back. He was in America again at that point leading through like technology.
00:06:58
Darin Tingey
Uh-huh.
00:06:58
Pearce
And so we're just in a van, just driving all over Tarawa.
00:07:01
Pearce
So I don't even know, like we didn't have an area. We were just everywhere for like two weeks. It was crazy.
00:07:08
Darin Tingey
Well, that is crazy. Okay, I'm excited to hear about that.
00:07:11
Pearce
Thank you.
00:07:11
Darin Tingey
But let's start up on Abbey Young. Why did you not want to go Ibuk first or Outer Island first?
00:07:17
Pearce
because I was like I'm not I'm not like a city boy but I'm a city boy man like i like having like the nicest things but like decently nice things and I wanted to just like understand what where even I was a little bit before I went somewhere crazy like that because everyone's like oh you go to an outer island and it's so sick and it's fun and like all these cool things. I'm like, so I don't want to do that if I'm like not ready.
00:07:45
Pearce
And I went out there and we were literally in like, the people were chill.
00:07:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:07:48
Pearce
I don't really remember anyone, but it was like the worst area ever. um Like we were there.
00:07:53
Darin Tingey
Abayong was the worst area.
00:07:55
Pearce
Yeah. Well, okay. So there was two sisters out there too. And they were in like an area and it was kind of cooking and they were like doing well, but the area we were in was like, terrible because everyone had joined our church and then they had joined like four or five other churches that were all in that a village.
00:08:11
Pearce
And so they all just hated like all the churches. And so like no one, everyone knew who we were. no one wanted to talk to us. It was just like brutal. um
00:08:20
Darin Tingey
Interesting.
00:08:21
Pearce
And so they actually, so I was there for one transfer and then they whitewashed it and they were there for, i don't know, two or three transfers maybe. And then they, I think they closed it Some CEOs went out and they're like, this is what you guys are doing.
00:08:33
Pearce
Like, this is not okay. Like we're closing this.
00:08:35
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:08:37
Pearce
Yeah. So they ended up closing it.
00:08:37
Darin Tingey
which is Which is funny because eby young like i feel like the work was like pretty good, but I guess it was just certain villages were better than others. Is that right?
00:08:46
Pearce
Yeah, I think so. And, like, dude, for someone that had just got there, like, we didn't have a house. We were we were sleeping in the – I mean, you remember those dick, like, chapels?
00:08:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:08:56
Pearce
Like, that's what we – we just, like, set up the bungas every night, the bug nets. And we slept on the floor, and it it was on some, like, raggedy plastic old Chinese mat.
00:09:07
Pearce
And I was like, where – like, that whole first transfer, I was like, where am I? Like, what am I doing? Like – This is crazy.
00:09:13
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:09:14
Pearce
People hate us here.
00:09:17
Darin Tingey
a Did you, uh, did you have a companion that was, was an American companion or
00:09:18
Pearce
So...
00:09:23
Pearce
Yeah, his name was Elder Davidson. He was from, oh, that's so bad. I think he was from Utah. I don't remember where in Utah. But yeah, he was American. So it was nice to be able to speak like English to him.
00:09:31
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:09:33
Pearce
But he'd been there for a couple of transfers and it was already rough before I got there.
00:09:34
Darin Tingey
right
00:09:39
Pearce
And then being trained out there, i was like, this is, this rough.
00:09:42
Darin Tingey
Yes. he maybe was a little jaded by the area and, um, I, it, there's like pros and cons of starting outer Island, like pro, like you might learn the language a little bit faster, but like the con is like, you're just thrown into and it kind of sucks ah for a long time at the beginning there.
00:09:46
Pearce
yeah
00:10:00
Pearce
Yep. And there's like in that area too, there was just, there was less like members. So there was a couple of members that were, that were good and they were fine if we like stopped by and said hi and stuff.
00:10:12
Pearce
But it wasn't like some of those big Ottawa like wards or branches where you have like just tons of families and like Unainés that are like, oh, just come over whenever you're hungry and all.
00:10:23
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:10:23
Pearce
I'll fry some made chips for you. And like, just didn't have that. i was like, and I didn't, I didn't like fish either before my mission. so I was like trying to get used to that. um So yeah, I was just, it was, I mean, it is for everybody, but it was, it was a growth period, 1000%. So yeah,
00:10:43
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Did you have an email, though, from Abby Young or no?
00:10:48
Pearce
so A few months later, i think they, yeah, so we did, but we had to bike, we had to bike an hour up to the sisters area. And then i go by the little,
00:11:01
Darin Tingey
ah could the
00:11:01
Pearce
What do they call them? I can't remember what they call him but you know what i'm talking about.
00:11:03
Darin Tingey
The card, like for the minutes?
00:11:04
Pearce
Yeah, you had to buy the card for the minutes, put it on the phone, and then we had to like go sit.
00:11:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:11:10
Pearce
I think we found this little bench thing somewhere. like Sit where there was like a decent signal, and like it would take like five minutes to send one email.
00:11:18
Darin Tingey
Uh-huh.
00:11:19
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:11:19
Pearce
So it was like the slowest.
00:11:20
Pearce
i mean, and it was slow everywhere, but... Yeah, so I probably sent like maybe two or three emails, if not less than that, back and forth with my parents. and My mom's probably freaking out because I'm the oldest.
00:11:33
Pearce
And my dad, like, he was probably fine. But yeah, my mom, it was crazy.
00:11:36
Darin Tingey
So little you got a little taste at home.
00:11:39
Pearce
Yeah, a little bit. So I wasn't completely cut off by any means. Like people had been in the mission, like a few, even probably just a few years earlier, like some on those outer islands, like you did not have email.
00:11:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:11:52
Pearce
So we had, we had something, it was just slow.
00:11:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah. guys
00:11:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah, fair
Transition to Tarawa
00:11:56
Darin Tingey
enough. Yeah, I served on an outer island in the Marshalls and I had, yeah, there was no internet. I was writing letters and giving them to the pilot pilot saying, please take this to the post office.
00:12:02
Pearce
Yeah. That's crazy.
00:12:07
Darin Tingey
um But, okay, so... Abbey Young is kind of kind of confusing because like yeah I hear, like oh, the church is blowing up or whatever. Or um you should listen to Wayne Ig's podcast because he talks about it as well and how like some areas in Abbey Young, everyone had joined the church and then left the church, which sounds like it's your area and just made everything like super rough.
00:12:24
Pearce
Yep. Yep.
00:12:34
Darin Tingey
So how many, just so i know, how many like – villages were you guys doing church in or how many like places had like ah a branch versus a group that you guys were leading okay
00:12:48
Pearce
i I want to say that there were two branches out there, but think it might have been one branch in a group. I i think it was two branches because they had ah like a church building where we were and then up where the sisters were.
00:12:59
Darin Tingey
okay
00:13:15
Pearce
And so there was like the one village in the south, one kind the middle, and then ah like a handful of members up up north. And I think I met them like maybe once or twice.
00:13:22
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:13:26
Darin Tingey
So you were focused on the South, South area.
00:13:28
Pearce
Yeah, so we stayed more on the on the south side, at least while I was there.
00:13:32
Darin Tingey
Also, like, I'm always surprised that they were able to put elders and sisters on Abbey Young with no, like, senior um
00:13:41
Pearce
couple
00:13:42
Darin Tingey
couple there. Cause I've heard like, that's a reason of why they haven't done that in the past, but did they just not, I don't know. They just didn't care. Yeah.
00:13:51
Pearce
I have no idea my comp was just like right we have some sisters and i was like cool right sounds good I don't I have no idea man
00:13:52
Darin Tingey
ah
00:13:59
Darin Tingey
Will you hang out with them every P-Day?
00:14:01
Pearce
um Not every… we'd like them I think every P&A but we didn't really… we maybe played volleyball with them and some like youth and YSA once or twice but we didn't… I don't think we like hung out with them necessarily other than playing volleyball.
00:14:16
Darin Tingey
was or What was typical P-Day for you on AVN?
00:14:20
Pearce
ah
00:14:22
Pearce
probably wake up, feed, go bike to the email for a little bit. I'd probably email for like an hour and then he'd send a couple emails.
00:14:34
Pearce
um And then we'd grab some groceries and like bike back and like put our wash and then just grab some soap, fill the tub with water, do some wash, like hang it up.
00:14:43
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:14:44
Pearce
That was probably hit.
00:14:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah. A true P-Day. No, sounds like it.
00:14:47
Pearce
yeah
00:14:48
Darin Tingey
Especially on Outer Island where you got to wash your clothes by hand. And it really takes, it takes a long time.
00:14:51
Pearce
Yeah.
00:14:54
Darin Tingey
The best is when you could get like a member to like, if you like gave them the soap that they would do it for you or something like that.
00:14:54
Pearce
Yeah. It was a terrible.
00:15:06
Darin Tingey
Seriously. How long were you on Abbey Young for?
00:15:09
Pearce
I was only there for a transfer. So only six weeks.
00:15:11
Darin Tingey
Okay. So by the end of Abbey Young, were you like, man, I hate Outer Islands?
00:15:13
Pearce
Yeah.
00:15:17
Darin Tingey
or or And like you were excited to get back to Tarawa? Or were you like, maybe that just, like, it was just a bad transfer?
00:15:24
Pearce
i was I was excited to get back to Tarawa because I knew there was nicer stuff or at least better food. um But like, I i don't know. i i wasn't like anti-Outer Island by any means.
00:15:36
Pearce
ah But I was like, I just, I think I need a couple months on Tarawa, which ended up happening because we got pulled in for a zone conference because we were close. So they pulled us in for a zone conference and then they transferred us out and whitewashed. So was like, oh, that works out.
00:15:52
Pearce
Sweet.
00:15:52
Darin Tingey
But just look at that.
00:15:53
Darin Tingey
Did you fly in from Abayana or did you take the boat?
00:15:53
Pearce
yeah
00:15:56
Pearce
Yeah. we took the boat. Yeah. took the Liahona.
00:16:01
Darin Tingey
was it Was it a comfortable ride or was it kind of rough?
00:16:04
Pearce
I remember being alright. think I like put a bandana on and I like took a nap, so I think it was okay.
00:16:10
Darin Tingey
Nice. I always wanted to go on the because I was on Mayana. So like it wasn't that far either.
00:16:16
Pearce
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:16:17
Darin Tingey
And the senior couples came on the Liahona. But i when I got transferred there and back, it was just a plane ride. And it slowly like, you know, like 10 minutes just pops up.
00:16:26
Pearce
Right, it goes up and goes down.
00:16:27
Darin Tingey
and Yeah, it was so quick. um But it was fun. My end was great. i honest I think it's probably pretty similar to Abayang, given like how close it is.
00:16:39
Darin Tingey
Maybe not like culturally or necessarily, but in probably the cargo and advancement of the island, just because they're so close.
00:16:42
Pearce
Yeah.
00:16:46
Pearce
Yeah.
00:16:51
Darin Tingey
um So you go back to Tarawa, and you
Life in Boata and Butaritari
00:16:55
Darin Tingey
get transferred. You're like, great. is it Did it end up being what you hoped it to be on Tarawa?
00:17:03
Pearce
Um, I honestly, so I didn't really know what to expect there either. Cause had been there for like a couple of days when we first got there and then I was like gone. So like, I don't really know anything about that all either. I just knew that they like had chicken and I was wanting some chicken, uh, which was like such an immature thing, but I was like an 18 year old kid and I, you know, I didn't know anything, but.
00:17:21
Darin Tingey
Dude, chicken makes a big difference. You don't get that on Outer Island.
00:17:24
Pearce
No, it was, and it was great. i I, loved it while I could have it. Um, but it was, it was good. Like I wasn't in like the nicest Ottawa area by any means, but we were in that Boata branch and there was four of us that were working over there.
00:17:38
Pearce
And one of the other kids was from my intakes. Like it was a little more familiarity, which was good. um I actually had a, a Marshallese companion while I was there for those two transfers. So that was, that was, that was good.
00:17:50
Darin Tingey
Oh,
00:17:51
Pearce
His name was Nebo, Ante Nebo.
00:17:53
Darin Tingey
oh nice. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:55
Pearce
Yeah.
00:17:55
Darin Tingey
I know him.
00:17:56
Pearce
So he was he was great. um Just spoke like broken English. But he wanted to work hard and I wanted to work hard, so it worked out. We had fun and worked hard.
00:18:07
Darin Tingey
I mean, yeah, like going back to that.
00:18:07
Pearce
so
00:18:09
Darin Tingey
Oh, I'm going to pull That's like, yeah, you're, you're kind of still outer Island feel.
00:18:12
Pearce
it's It's kind of in between, yeah.
00:18:13
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:18:16
Pearce
but But, okay, I just remembered they got this random shipment of like Malaysian Oreos. And this one store had like a box and I bought a whole box.
00:18:29
Pearce
And it was like for one sleeve, it was like two or three bucks. And I like saw them and i was like, you know what those are? And the lady was like, no. And I was like, Socrates, like that's chocolate.
00:18:40
Pearce
And she's like, Oh, and she's like, are they good? And I was like, yeah, they're good. I was like, how much for a sleeve? She's like $2. Like, give me the whole box. You're like, that's $40.
00:18:47
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:18:48
Pearce
And I was like, I know, give me the box. And so the next time I went back, she got more and she's like, Hey, I tried those things. They are good. And I was like, yeah, I know.
00:18:55
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:18:56
Pearce
So literally every night I was eating like one or two sleeves of Oreos. It was really bad, but it was like my little, I was like, thank you. Heavenly father for giving me some Oreos.
00:19:05
Pearce
This is fantastic.
00:19:06
Darin Tingey
yeah the luxury you needed just an oreo not even a true brand not even a true brand of oreo that was the bummer about kitabuz is the cargo wasn't the united states cargo uh
00:19:09
Pearce
Yeah. Just an Oreo. Nope.
00:19:18
Pearce
Yep. Except for Christmas.
00:19:20
Darin Tingey
I guess Christmas. Yeah, except for Christmas. Because in the Marshalls, we got American Cargo. So we had all the American brands. I mean, they were crazy expensive, but we got them.
00:19:30
Darin Tingey
and We also got the China stuff and all that crap.
00:19:30
Pearce
Dang.
00:19:32
Pearce
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:33
Darin Tingey
But um I would say the one thing that Kitabas had that the Marshalls didn't have was the chow. Bro, I love the chow. I don't know how much you like the chow, but it's so good.
00:19:41
Pearce
Chao's good.
00:19:43
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:19:43
Pearce
Yeah, Chao's good.
00:19:45
Darin Tingey
um Did you stay in that that Boota house right by the chapel?
00:19:51
Pearce
Yeah, yeah, that's where we were.
00:19:54
Darin Tingey
I that's ah the few days of Tarawa that I was there. That's where I stayed as well. So slept on the floor right right as you walk in.
00:19:59
Pearce
nice. Yep, right there when you walk in. Yep.
00:20:05
Darin Tingey
um remember they left the door open. I was like we're sleeping the door open. All right, cool.
00:20:08
Pearce
Yeah, like didn't lock.
00:20:08
Darin Tingey
You know.
00:20:10
Pearce
Sometimes the wind would blow it open. It actually, while I was there, it was like one of the craziest rainstorms that they'd had like ever. It rained for like a week straight, like hard rain.
00:20:22
Pearce
And i don't know how accurate this is, but I heard a rumor that if it rained for like another like five to seven days like that, like the island would have been underwater. And you know, cause you know what that blow at the house?
00:20:32
Pearce
i don't know remember. There like a step, like a foot and a half right in front of the house that you stepped up onto.
00:20:35
Darin Tingey
Uh-huh.
00:20:37
Pearce
And the water was like up to that and like starting to to go over that.
00:20:41
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:20:42
Pearce
It like leaked in that, in the back door. Like our kitchen was kind of flooded. Yeah. So it was like, it was crazy rain.
00:20:49
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that is crazy raining, especially for Kiribati. Kiribati doesn't get a lot of rain.
00:20:52
Darin Tingey
So I remember like Mayena, it like rained in the summer for like a good solid week or two.
00:20:52
Pearce
Oh, it was wild.
00:20:54
Pearce
It's
00:21:00
Darin Tingey
And I remember riding our bikes, those dirt roads, man, it was the worst. It was so muddy and just wet everywhere. And the bikes were breaking down because of it.
00:21:10
Darin Tingey
And I was like, dude.
00:21:10
Pearce
yep yeah it's rough when it starts raining
00:21:11
Darin Tingey
ah
00:21:15
Darin Tingey
uh like marshals it rained a ton but it's like greener there so like you don't get as much mud and and but in kiddo it's like so muddy so muddy anyway
00:21:24
Pearce
Yeah, and the bike like flips it up on your shirt and pants. Yeah, it gets everywhere.
00:21:30
Darin Tingey
how how are you with that aspect are you like you know do you like to be clean or are you okay like getting a little dirty
00:21:37
Pearce
um I would say I'm usually pretty clean, but I don't mind getting dirty. like
00:21:42
Darin Tingey
You were fine with that aspect?
00:21:42
Pearce
i didn't really It didn't bug me. Yeah, I was like, I don't care. so long as it's like...
00:21:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:21:46
Pearce
Because dirt, I don't care. much I don't care. it feels like... dog poop or something that kind of stuff like gross but yeah like flipping up mud i i could have cared less
00:21:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah. how was ah How was the work in Puerta?
00:22:00
Pearce
uh both was good photo was I mean, it was a little slow, um i think, compared to like other spots on Tarawa, but it was a branch, so like it was still kind of smaller.
00:22:12
Pearce
um but it was good. I'm trying to remember, I think we had like maybe one or two baptisms. um while I was there, but the, the branch president was awesome. His family was super cool and super great to us while I was there.
00:22:26
Pearce
um I was actually just messaging with his wife a couple days ago and like seeing how their family's doing and stuff. They've got like a couple girls in college and I'm like, that's insane. That's crazy.
00:22:35
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:22:36
Pearce
I feel old.
00:22:37
Darin Tingey
ah Yeah, it's been a while. You know, what is that? Eight years for you when you started.
00:22:44
Pearce
Yeah.
00:22:44
Darin Tingey
um And Facebook's so great for being able to message everybody back in Kitabas.
00:22:45
Pearce
Yeah. Almost.
00:22:50
Darin Tingey
It's like you thought.
00:22:50
Pearce
Yeah, and they're all over it. You message and they respond in like a couple minutes.
00:22:54
Darin Tingey
Oh, yeah, except nothing else to do all day.
00:22:56
Pearce
Right.
00:22:56
Darin Tingey
So.
00:22:57
Pearce
Yeah, it's true.
00:22:58
Darin Tingey
ah ah So how long were you?
00:22:59
Pearce
But yeah, Boto was it bad. I was there for two transfers.
00:23:03
Darin Tingey
Okay. So double the time of Epe Young.
00:23:06
Pearce
Yep.
00:23:07
Darin Tingey
And at this point, were you feeling like language was was pretty good? i mean, having having a Marshallese elder who spoke broken English, did you guys try and speak more kitabas together?
00:23:19
Darin Tingey
Did you feel like that your kitabas got better?
00:23:20
Pearce
Yeah, yeah, we definitely did a more of a mix. um And it, yeah, it did get better. It was still, I mean, I'd still only been there for like four months at that point.
00:23:28
Pearce
So it's still not like great by any means, but I could like communicate enough to get around at that point.
00:23:30
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:23:34
Pearce
Yeah. And like teach lessons and stuff.
00:23:36
Darin Tingey
Yeah, you're feeling confident, feeling good.
00:23:38
Pearce
Yeah.
00:23:39
Darin Tingey
Because I will say that is the downside of um starting on an Outer Island in the sense of, like you said, you don't remember a lot of people there. Probably because like, one you were only there for six weeks, but two, like you just didn't speak the language.
00:23:53
Darin Tingey
So...
00:23:53
Pearce
Yeah, I couldn't talk to anyone.
00:23:55
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's like you're just kind of there hanging out, you know.
00:23:56
Pearce
At least well.
00:23:59
Pearce
Yeah.
00:23:59
Darin Tingey
And you're like, yeah i always thought it was great to go around once you like kind of got a little more comfortable with the language because then you felt like your impact was bigger and better.
00:24:07
Pearce
Right. Yeah.
00:24:11
Pearce
Yep.
00:24:11
Darin Tingey
um
00:24:11
Pearce
That's how I felt later on. So it's so true.
00:24:14
Darin Tingey
Yeah. So, okay, both of our two transfers and then remind me next place is
00:24:19
Pearce
went to Putari-Tari.
00:24:20
Darin Tingey
So, okay, so there's only two transfers on Tarawaf before you go back to Outer Island.
00:24:23
Pearce
Yep. Yep.
00:24:25
Darin Tingey
And at this point, like, President Larkin had, like, basically every Outer Island open, right?
00:24:30
Pearce
Um, yeah, I think so, except for the ones that they wouldn't let us go to, but yeah.
00:24:34
Darin Tingey
Yeah, besides Tomenon Arde probably Bonapé. Okay, so you go to Bo...
00:24:41
Pearce
But yeah, everyone else was open, I think, except for maybe tab south, but they ended up opening an it.
00:24:44
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:24:46
Pearce
So I remember it being open.
00:24:49
Darin Tingey
Yeah. um Okay, so, butari-tari, like, were you pumped to go back out around, or were you still like, dang, I wish I was on tarot for a little bit longer?
00:24:59
Pearce
I think a little bit of both. I was like, okay, sick. like I'm going back. Cool. um and not But I was going out to and a kid for my intake and we didn't like butt heads or anything, but we didn't like just we didn't like get along super well in the MTC, but we also just like never really talked.
00:25:15
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:25:17
Pearce
So I was like, oh, great. We'll see how this goes. um But there were some guys from my intake that I did get along with were still Tharua. They started there, they were still there, and like, dude, you're already getting a second one.
00:25:29
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:25:29
Pearce
And they're like, we're staying here.
00:25:30
Darin Tingey
Jealousy.
00:25:30
Pearce
I'm like, yeah, well, you got stay here and like play basketball on PDAs. And they're like, yeah, that's true. like, we want to go out, dude. And i was like, yeah, I'd rather stay and play basketball a little bit.
00:25:37
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:25:39
Pearce
But it was, I was excited to go up there. I heard it. It was like nice. And I don't know.
00:25:44
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:25:45
Pearce
I didn't have like much to complain about. So like, all right, i'mnna I'm going, I guess.
00:25:49
Darin Tingey
And you did you fly out there or you take the boat?
00:25:51
Pearce
Yeah, no, I flew. it's It's too far to take the boat because it's closer to the Marshalls.
00:25:58
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:25:59
Pearce
I think it's closer to Majiro than it is Ottawa.
00:26:02
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah, it's like the Butardarian Mak'in, the furthest north islands of Kiribati. So, which I've heard, it's pretty green there.
00:26:11
Darin Tingey
Does it rain a lot?
00:26:12
Pearce
Yeah, super green. Rained a lot.
00:26:13
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:26:14
Pearce
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:15
Darin Tingey
That's a taste of the marshals right there. What did you got?
00:26:17
Pearce
was it, yeah, it was kind of nice.
00:26:17
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:26:19
Pearce
It was like kind of cooler on some days, but then like, you know, it's going to rain if it was super, super hot one day, you're like, okay, it's probably going to rain tomorrow.
00:26:27
Darin Tingey
Uh-huh. Describe Bhutatari to me for someone who's never been there.
00:26:33
Pearce
ah So it was it was cool. Like I, um, Like I clicked with a couple people pretty quick, which was nice. And I was like, okay, that means my language is like good enough to at least become friends with people now. So that's good.
00:26:46
Darin Tingey
ah
00:26:46
Pearce
um But honestly, the people that like, i think I was best friends with out there weren't even members and like never got baptized. I still message them every once in a while and like, they're awesome. But there was it was It was very Catholic, um which was good because people were super, super nice in general.
00:27:05
Pearce
But they were also like not nice to us all the time because we're like the elders, right?
00:27:11
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:27:11
Pearce
We're the white guys, bike around in white shirts and ties with the little black tags. And they're like ministers are like, hey, don't talk to those guys, right? And you're like, dude, I just want to buy donuts from this old lady. I don't.
00:27:25
Pearce
You know what I mean? Like we became, there was this one lady that would just always sell donuts to elders. Like every elder knew her house. um And she was just super, super nice, but not a member. But she was like, anytime you want, you come stop at my house. We're like, okay. So we did probably like once or twice a week, if not more than that.
00:27:43
Pearce
um But yeah, people were just super nice. Um, Sundays were kind of crazy because we would we would have a little thorough melody like in the village where we lived and then we would bike two hours north every Sunday and back. So four hours total like flying too. Not like slow biking two hours, like flying two hours.
00:28:03
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:28:04
Pearce
um Like to the point where you're like almost biking and you're like using your lower half for your body. Like your core is like shifting the bike to get around potholes and your the top half of your body is like stabilized in the same place just because at a certain point you kind of knew like, hey, you're biking on that side, I'm biking on the side You knew where all the potholes were like for the whole two hours.
00:28:22
Pearce
um And we would stop. There was there are like two stops we'd make on the way. Sometimes three if people randomly saw us. But we'd stop and just give, yeah, we do church to like a little family here.
00:28:31
Darin Tingey
To do church?
00:28:35
Pearce
And then like one random person. that was a teacher at one of the primary schools. Um, and then there was one family up and it was called Gume was the village all the way up north. And we'd bike all the way up there and do church with them. And then they'd feed us. So it was a good little trade off, but people were just, yeah, people there were so nice.
00:28:57
Darin Tingey
you spent all day Sunday doing church.
00:28:59
Pearce
All day Sunday was church. We'd get home. i have pictures. Um, One in particular I'm thinking of where my tie is loose because you're like biking. strike I'm not cinching my tie up all the way.
00:29:10
Pearce
Like that's too hot.
00:29:11
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:29:38
Pearce
um I remember one time it rained and I think my comp's chain kept falling off and like he was getting mad and he almost said some nice words to his bike.
00:29:44
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:47
Pearce
Like it was, there was some fun times. Fun times on Putaddy Duddy.
00:29:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah. the just memories that you'll have forever. Cause I, I think about like, we had such a similar thing on my end out, like all day was all day. Sunday was church and you're riding your bikes to the furthest villages hours away.
00:30:07
Darin Tingey
And, um, yeah, bikes always breaking down, dude. That was the most frustrating thing, especially when like your seats broken. So it's just like, you can't even sit on your bike or your chain.
00:30:19
Pearce
At one point, my comp's tire he had a pothole.
00:30:19
Darin Tingey
And then, m
00:30:23
Pearce
don't even want to call it a pothole because it's not a pothole, but like a divot in the dirt road, and his back tire just basically bent in half. And we didn't have a spare. So we like just walked everywhere for about a month just cause they couldn't, they couldn't get a, like get a tire out and like, Hey, we got to find a tire.
00:30:34
Darin Tingey
Oh gosh. did Did you ever?
00:30:38
Pearce
And then they found the tires like, Hey, we're sending it this week. And like, I, sorry, we didn't get it out this week. We'll send it next week. So by the time we got it, like we'd just been walking everywhere for about a month. So we're like, hey, sorry, we ah we don't have bikes yet.
00:30:51
Pearce
So the the people, the family that we'd go to up north, we ah they had a motorcycle, which was kind of annoying because like, why don't you just ride on the motorcycle for 10 minutes and like you're here, but that's okay.
00:30:54
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:31:01
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:31:02
Pearce
um We saw them like at the airport to pick up a different package, I think. And we're like, Hey, one of our bikes is broken. We're sorry. We haven't been able to get up there the last couple of weeks.
00:31:13
Pearce
It'll probably be another couple of weeks before we make it up. And they're like Oh, no worries. Like, thanks for letting us know. And then they show up to the sacrament the next week. You're like so you could get down here if you wanted to.
00:31:22
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah. You're like, why are we, why are we, wait you know, like spending all our energy, two hours of bike riding when you could have been here, like you said, and in 15 minutes, did you ever borrow a motorcycle to get to them?
00:31:39
Pearce
Uh, we did once cause it had been a few weeks and my comp grew up riding motorcycles. So he's like, Hey, should we just do this? And I honestly was uncomfortable with it. Cause was like, I don't know, bro. Like we're not super, like, we're not really supposed to but like, I trust you. Like if you're comfortable on it, like let's go do it. And so we did it and it was fine.
00:32:00
Pearce
And I was like, actually that was kind of sick, but yeah.
00:32:02
Darin Tingey
yeah ah Mike Komp and I did it a few times too. And it was so nice. it was awesome. Yeah.
00:32:09
Pearce
Yeah, it saved like an hour and a half.
00:32:09
Darin Tingey
ah
00:32:11
Pearce
It took 15 minutes to bike up there on a motorcycle and like 15 minutes back. And then like, oh, what do we do with the rest of the day? Like, i guess we'll go do what we usually do.
00:32:18
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:32:21
Pearce
But yeah, we did.
00:32:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I have so many memories, like you said, just like riding back in the dark and like if the if the moon was a full moon, it was like so fun because it was like lit and you just ride and you're like, I'm running next to the ocean on this outer island in the middle of nowhere.
00:32:29
Pearce
Yeah.
00:32:35
Darin Tingey
Like, like this is so cool.
00:32:36
Pearce
Yep.
00:32:38
Pearce
Yeah. The full moon bike rides were were cool.
00:32:39
Darin Tingey
um the did you get
00:32:42
Darin Tingey
So fun. Did you guys have a lot of success Butari Tari?
00:32:46
Pearce
No, nope. I think we baptized one girl that was like nine.
00:32:50
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:32:51
Pearce
Uh, and that was it. So like, guys so we did, we tried, like, we try a lot different things that one of the guys I became really good friends with, um,
00:32:54
Darin Tingey
Did you...
00:33:00
Pearce
And not to like toot my own horn, but he ended up naming one of his sons after me, which was pretty cool. um
00:33:05
Darin Tingey
That's sick.
00:33:06
Pearce
He wasn't a member. he was Catholic. He had married an RM and they... I think her dad had like a little hotel resort kind thing on the island and they kind of were the ones that would run it. But he would he was just a good influence. He was a good dude, like actually went to church, like good guy. And he tried to like just be a good influence on all the like young men, like all the theny-mane.
00:33:31
Pearce
And he was like, every night we're going to play rugby. And he just had a rugby ball. And he would get all these young men together and'd like play rugby every day. So we'd go like a few times every, every week and go play with them just to try to like become friends with all these kids and like try to get into their houses. So we like, we tried a lot of different stuff.
00:33:50
Pearce
Um, But yes, we became good friends with that guy and then all those young men um to the point where a couple of times we'd be like biking around these little like street, like back road streets. And they'd be like, hey, elders, what's up? And then their parents like, don't talk to them.
00:34:06
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:34:07
Pearce
Gosh, this is crazy. Okay. we play We play rugby with your kid like three times a week, but that's cool.
00:34:12
Darin Tingey
yeah that's the fun part about playing like sports with them is like they realize like you're just normal people you know and you you know that like you said the the ministers are telling them don't talk to the elders but then their kids like wow they're like normal if they're normal dudes you know
00:34:12
Pearce
um So.
00:34:18
Pearce
Yep.
00:34:28
Pearce
Yeah, exactly. So were there different things we could have done and maybe should have done different? Obviously, probably. But like playing rugby three times a week opened a lot of doors, I think.
00:34:39
Pearce
um And then I also became...
00:34:41
Darin Tingey
And probably a lot of future doors.
00:34:43
Pearce
Yeah, no, absolutely.
00:34:43
Darin Tingey
you know Yeah.
00:34:44
Pearce
With some of those kids, like if we were good influences and they like had a good time around us, hopefully in the last few years or somewhere down the line, when they're old enough to make their own choices, they're like, hey, those guys were cool.
00:34:56
Pearce
Like these other guys are biking by and maybe they don't play rugby with us, but like, let's just talk to them. You know what i mean? You just never know like what could come of that.
00:35:03
Darin Tingey
Totally.
00:35:05
Pearce
So we became friends
Move to Christmas Island During COVID
00:35:06
Pearce
with those kids. And then like the head police officer on the island, I became good friends with him. And he like randomly knew how to make cakes and like he would like steam them.
00:35:17
Pearce
And so he made them a couple of times. I like, dude, how do you know how to do these? Like YouTube. And us I was like, okay, that's crazy, but cool. So like he was a good resource because – Like every once, like when I was leaving, he's like, Hey, I made you a cake. and was like, dude, that's like, that's so kind of you. Like, thank you so much.
00:35:33
Pearce
And so, yeah, I don't know. Um, I guess, okay. So you asked if you if we had a lot of success and I said, no, I'm going to take that back. I'm just going to say the success was different because like we made some really good friends and planted a lot of seeds.
00:35:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:35:48
Pearce
Um, we just, we didn't have a lot of baptisms, but
00:35:51
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that's success. I agree. I totally agree with that.
00:35:54
Pearce
yeah.
00:35:54
Darin Tingey
If you get someone to like, like to make you a cake, that's how you know you had an impact, you know, like this, this dude, like, you mean Hey, I made you a cake before you leave, man.
00:36:00
Pearce
Yeah, seriously.
00:36:05
Darin Tingey
Like that's, that's a big deal.
00:36:07
Pearce
Yeah, it was pretty cool.
00:36:07
Darin Tingey
Uh, did your, did your village that you guys live in, like, did they invite you to like the Botakis and were they kind of accepting of you guys or not really?
00:36:19
Darin Tingey
Dang.
00:36:19
Pearce
Not really. I think we maybe got invited to one And I think we actually had a dinner with another member that night and they were like, hey, elders, we're so excited to see you guys tonight. And we're like, God dang, can't cancel.
00:36:33
Pearce
So wait I don't think we even went. We had to like go karate. I'm going be like, okay, sorry, we won't make it Thanks so much for the invite.
00:36:39
Darin Tingey
Dang.
00:36:39
Pearce
Let us know when the next one is.
00:36:41
Darin Tingey
Oh, there not that many botakis on Butari-Tari?
00:36:46
Pearce
I think there were some, like we'd hear them. It was just always at like the Manjeb in Nicatorreja.
00:36:48
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:36:51
Pearce
Like they'd always have their own little parties at the Catholic and we just weren't super invited.
00:36:52
Darin Tingey
ah Yeah.
00:36:57
Darin Tingey
So they weren't at the village, not the village Meneves, but the Catholic Meneves.
00:37:01
Pearce
Yeah.
00:37:02
Darin Tingey
Interesting.
00:37:04
Pearce
And I think the one we got invited to was at the village one and we couldn't go. i was i was upset. I was pretty sad about that.
00:37:11
Darin Tingey
uh dude i went to so many on mayana like mayana loves to party holy cow like i swear half my time was just spent in the inside the minnebe um which was a lot of fun it didn't help that we lived right next to the minnebe too so like we we literally had no excuse to not go um thank what was your living situation like
00:37:28
Pearce
To not go. Yeah.
00:37:33
Pearce
So we had, It was like a bouillie, but it was like a raised, I don't remember the word for it. It was like a raised bouillie. It was literally like a chain link fence, like a i could fence, like you'd see it, like a park. That was like the wall to our house.
00:37:47
Pearce
And then you'd like open the little door that we had like a bike lock on. um And then there was a little like area, there a little table downstairs and like a little gas stove or kerosene stove.
00:38:00
Pearce
um And there was two like just plastic, like long chairs that somehow got out there. And so we'd like sit and study in those downstairs. And then there was a little tiny ladder that went up where we'd sleep.
00:38:12
Pearce
Um, but yeah, it was like, was pretty open, not a whole lot of privacy. we had a money, but where we'd like, just have to get water to, like there was like a toilet, but it obviously didn't flush. Like we had to like, just dump it.
00:38:27
Darin Tingey
Yeah, one of those like cement, cement toilets.
00:38:27
Pearce
So we'd like fill up a bucket. Yep. Yep. So that's what we had. Um, yeah.
00:38:34
Darin Tingey
For your, so your well, your money bar.
00:38:36
Pearce
So typical, typical outer Island.
00:38:38
Darin Tingey
Yeah, no, totally. For your, for your money bar at the well, did you guys then, did you boil the water or did you use um a filter?
00:38:49
Pearce
There was a filter that they had out there that we'd pump to drink from.
00:38:51
Darin Tingey
Like, like the bike pump-ish looking one?
00:38:54
Pearce
huh.
00:38:54
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:38:55
Pearce
Yep. And it was so slow.
00:38:56
Darin Tingey
Nice.
00:38:58
Pearce
It was just like to fill up like a 16 ounce water bottle probably took me like a minute or two. it was just crazy.
00:39:02
Darin Tingey
Yeah, but...
00:39:04
Pearce
But honestly, for some, like, people would come look at our our well and they'd be like, it is so clean. Like, yeah, we don't know why it's so clean. But it was like, honestly, maybe the cleanest or like one of the cleanest wells like I ever saw.
00:39:16
Pearce
And like, i don't know if that's just a blessing, like for the elders because we live here or like what. But like showering with it was never an issue. Like we never had issues with the water, which was nice because I heard of other elders that had a lot of issues with water.
00:39:26
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
00:39:32
Pearce
So.
00:39:33
Darin Tingey
Did you, so yours, you could see into your well and you guys just use like ah a can and a string to pull it up.
00:39:39
Pearce
Yep.
00:39:40
Darin Tingey
I love that.
00:39:40
Pearce
Yep. Yeah, one of those big corn...
00:39:42
Darin Tingey
Ours was like
00:39:45
Pearce
What was that? The beef.
00:39:46
Darin Tingey
the Beaumont, the Beaumont or no, not the corned beef.
00:39:49
Pearce
No. Yeah, corned beef.
00:39:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:39:52
Pearce
yeahs Yeah. I don't know. Dude, i'm like I'm losing the word sometimes.
00:39:54
Darin Tingey
Uh,
00:39:56
Pearce
Okay.
00:39:56
Darin Tingey
Bro, i'm I'm losing the words. This is the only that keeps it going for me. But Arwell and Mayanna was kind of funky. Like somehow they had like,
00:40:07
Darin Tingey
the family that we lived with had made like these pipes from the well. So we used like, you like pulled the pipe and like pushed it in and it like water came out.
00:40:18
Darin Tingey
It was, I don't even know how to describe I don't know how to describe it, but yeah.
00:40:19
Pearce
What the heck?
00:40:21
Darin Tingey
We just like pull it and pump it out. Like it's like this PVC pipe that just stuck out of the ground. Like, and you just, yeah, it was really cool.
00:40:28
Pearce
Dang.
00:40:30
Darin Tingey
it was really nice. I don't know. Again, I don't even know how they did it, but yeah.
00:40:35
Pearce
That's crazy.
00:40:35
Darin Tingey
That's ah so I have no idea what the well actually looked like, but um that's ah the family we lived with. They were pretty like one of the wealthier families on the island because he had started ah his own store and then she kind of built it up.
00:40:47
Darin Tingey
Did you guys was that house like connected to a member family or just some random family you guys rented from?
00:40:48
Pearce
Nice.
00:40:52
Pearce
Yeah. So the, the like group leader out there, it was, he owned it, I believe.
00:40:57
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:40:58
Pearce
And he lived across the street.
00:41:00
Darin Tingey
Did you guys ever go to Makin when you were on Putaridari?
00:41:03
Pearce
No, there was a, was open. They had other elders out there.
00:41:07
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:41:08
Pearce
Yeah.
00:41:09
Darin Tingey
Dang. We're doing fun to go.
00:41:10
Pearce
I know. So we never, usually, usually they would have us go, but there was a, There was two other guys out there. And I guess because I talked, so there was it was me and then another kid from my intake on Putaritari for my first couple transfers out there.
00:41:24
Pearce
And then another kid from our intake was out Makin with another elder. So I talked to him about that afterwards. like, dude we bike around. We could bike around the whole thing in 30 minutes. It was like a little circle.
00:41:34
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:41:35
Pearce
And we knew everyone. Everyone knew us. And he was like, it was brutal. So it sounds like the work out there as far as like teaching lessons and stuff was pretty similar or just kind of slow, but like they met some cool people and, yeah, it would have been, would have been sick to go out there, but we, uh, we didn't get to.
00:41:47
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:41:52
Darin Tingey
mean, Butatatari is huge, right? So I'm assuming you guys is like...
00:41:54
Pearce
Yeah, it was pretty big.
00:41:55
Darin Tingey
You almost wish you had another set of elders to cover different villages. You probably passed by a bunch of villages and never even did any work there.
00:42:02
Pearce
Yeah. There's some that we didn't even Yeah.
00:42:05
Darin Tingey
Yeah, i I felt that way in my Anna. ah Did you have internet on Bhutadarit?
00:42:10
Pearce
Not when I first got out there. When I first got out there, again, there this random dude about an hour bike ride away. It's like halfway across the island. um Randomly had a satellite dish.
00:42:22
Pearce
Like, don't know how he got it. Don't know where it came from, but he had it and it worked. And when we first got out there, he was charging like five bucks for a whole day. we bike up there. And again, like you pay five bucks, you only have one phone.
00:42:35
Pearce
So I'd email for an hour and a half or so.
00:42:35
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:42:37
Pearce
My comp would email for about an hour and a half or so. And then we'd bike back and like shop and play rugby with those kids. Like,
00:42:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:42:46
Pearce
do whatever else you do on a P-Day, wash your washher clothes and then go to dinner or make dinner or whatever. um But then, i don't know, a few months into me being there, they they finished a cell tower that I didn't even know was like being built. They're like, hey like did you hear like there's a cell tower? And I'm like, oh, what the freak? Cool.
00:43:04
Pearce
And so then we would just buy the go to like the ATH and buy a little SIM card and we could sit in our house and the signal was decent enough that we could we could message from there.
00:43:18
Darin Tingey
That's awesome. That's so nice.
00:43:19
Pearce
which kind of Which felt weird because that was like against everything I'd heard about Kitty Best.
00:43:20
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:43:24
Pearce
was like, what the?
00:43:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah. It's weird when you live in like a stick hut yet, like you can email from your phone, like you have in and internet on your phone, the smartphone, you know?
00:43:32
Pearce
Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild.
00:43:35
Darin Tingey
yeah Yeah, I've said this on multiple podcasts. i Sorry for everyone that listened. But like, that's how I felt when I because I went to kid with Audi before I went to Marshall's Audi.
00:43:46
Darin Tingey
And so like on my end, I'm like, I'm living in this stick hut. But I have like these people have smartphones and I can like email my parents from this smartphone.
00:43:53
Pearce
Right.
00:43:54
Darin Tingey
And then I went to the Marshall's and I'm like, I'm living in like a nicer house, but i don't have internet or anything close to that. And so it's just like the trade-off was like so different.
00:44:02
Pearce
That's crazy.
00:44:04
Darin Tingey
It was just so weird.
00:44:05
Pearce
Yep.
00:44:06
Darin Tingey
um But, and like like the phone, there was like one phone on the island where we could call the APs and it would run off solar and it, like it would die after,
00:44:17
Darin Tingey
45 minutes so and that was on the marshals side so like it was just like so it was just like weird it was like so weird that how like i'm gonna stick hut in mayana and have internet but then i'm in a nice house and the marshals and have no internet it didn't make any sense but um what uh oh i was gonna ask you about is it is it true that the women are prettier on butari daddy
00:44:31
Pearce
Yeah, that's I...
00:44:42
Pearce
Dude, I don't, there was like a couple, like there was some, some good looking girls. I think so Sheffield actually served out there too, I think. And I remember him saying something about it and he kind of laughed and i was like, huh.
00:44:52
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:44:52
Pearce
And I had, I'm not going to throw them under the bus. I won't name names. If anyone listens that knows who he is, they'll know exactly who I'm talking about. But one of my comps thought one girl was like pretty cute and he thought she was older and obviously he wouldn't have done anything, but like he left.
00:45:09
Pearce
My next comp got out there and like, he's doing like Ike Kinas and stuff. And he's like, Oh, like, you don't need to. And she's like, that we met the one. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this girl's 11 years old, man.
00:45:17
Darin Tingey
No way.
00:45:22
Pearce
And so, yeah, I, I don't know if I ever, I think I told him that after, but he like, dang, that's crazy.
00:45:25
Darin Tingey
man.
00:45:28
Pearce
But yeah, you just, I don't know. i there was like, people say that, but I, they're all the same, man. Like,
00:45:36
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:45:37
Pearce
They're all brown. They all look the same.
00:45:40
Darin Tingey
Sheffield said they they were a lighter, they're lighter skin.
00:45:43
Pearce
They were a little bit lighter. i don't know how. Maybe because they it rained more and they weren't quite in the sun as much. There were still some that were really dark, but there was like a couple that were like, dang, you're like not quite uppercast, but you're like pretty light, relatively speaking.
00:45:57
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:45:58
Pearce
Yeah.
00:45:58
Darin Tingey
Oh, man. Okay, so, butaritari for how many transfers?
00:46:04
Pearce
Three.
00:46:05
Darin Tingey
Three transfers. And were you were you sad to leave when you left?
00:46:09
Pearce
I was sad because, i like i I said, I had made some pretty good relationships, but I was ready to – it was like bittersweet. I was like, okay, like this has been awesome, but honestly, I was ready to go.
00:46:19
Darin Tingey
ah Did you do any fishing on butaritari?
00:46:23
Pearce
think we cut down a little bit.
00:46:26
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:46:27
Pearce
But other than that, we didn't.
00:46:27
Darin Tingey
did you did Did you guys try and like do like what kiddos people do like, uh, or anything like that?
00:46:34
Pearce
I didn't Koro Karebe on Butari-tari. We did Orobin a lot.
00:46:38
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:46:39
Pearce
ah That's it. That's all that I can remember right now.
00:46:43
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:46:43
Pearce
i wish I had Koro Karebe out there.
00:46:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:46:46
Pearce
i don't think i don't think it quite clicked for me.
00:46:47
Darin Tingey
know there's things that I look back on im like, dang.
00:46:50
Pearce
Yeah, I think I was still learning about some of that stuff and like figuring it out and trying to figure out why they do it and what it even is.
00:46:50
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:46:57
Pearce
so like the couple of things I did know about, we tried to do.
00:47:01
Darin Tingey
Yeah, which is fun to just kind of embrace the Kiribati culture and the outer island life.
00:47:05
Pearce
Yeah. Right.
00:47:07
Darin Tingey
ah So you're ready to leave Butaridari and you go back to Tarawa to which, where was it again?
00:47:12
Pearce
Yep. I was in Bukinibu 2. Bukinibu, whoa, whoa.
00:47:17
Darin Tingey
but can It can be two for how long?
00:47:19
Pearce
oh Oh, two trains. I think I was there for two trains because we whitewashed that as well. And I got put with another kid for my intake. um
00:47:27
Darin Tingey
Dang.
00:47:28
Pearce
And I was actually in that same MTC room as him. So I was – we were friends. um And so that was awesome. And we were there for two transfers. And then I got – transferred out and then he trained a kid.
00:47:41
Pearce
So he's, he got to stay, but that was, that was good because we taught a lot of lessons. And so it wasn't, as much of like informal conversation which is what we did a lot on puttari tari because finding people to teach was a little bit harder but in bikini we taught a ton of lessons like we became friends with a ton of people we taught a lot of lessons um we had some baptisms but like i was with elder austin in bikini butu too tanner austin and we had a good time and he's like the most happy dude so he just is like
00:48:12
Darin Tingey
and was
00:48:14
Pearce
I don't want to use the word bubbly because that's kind of feminine, but like he's like a bubbly, like just fun guy. like He's just happy and laughs a lot.
00:48:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:48:21
Pearce
So it was good.
00:48:23
Darin Tingey
Makes the work a little easier when you got someone happy to do it with you.
00:48:27
Pearce
Yeah, absolutely.
00:48:28
Darin Tingey
And when you have a lot of people to teach, which I'm sure is like a bunch of referrals from members. And I thought was so good at that.
00:48:34
Pearce
Yeah.
00:48:35
Darin Tingey
Like there's so many members.
00:48:36
Pearce
Yep.
00:48:37
Darin Tingey
Everyone's like, oh, come teach my friend or come over here. You know, it's like great.
00:48:39
Pearce
Right. Especially in a ward. Like that was the first ward I'd been in and it was a big difference.
00:48:47
Darin Tingey
Did it feel so good not to have to run church yourself?
00:48:47
Pearce
Yeah.
00:48:50
Pearce
Yeah. It was awesome. It was fantastic. It was a little bit of a breath of fresh air, but i think they still probably had to speak like every month.
00:48:59
Darin Tingey
Really? And now the elders will speak like, Oh, all right, here we go.
00:49:00
Pearce
Yeah.
00:49:02
Pearce
Yeah. And then you get up there and like, sorry, the other guy didn't show up and you're like yeah, i figured.
00:49:09
Darin Tingey
Too good. So it sounds like you guys had a lot of success in that area.
00:49:10
Pearce
But it was good.
00:49:14
Pearce
Yeah, we had some good things happen.
00:49:16
Darin Tingey
What, um, what would you say of your areas on Kiribati you had on Tarawa you had the the most fun and most success in, I guess?
00:49:28
Pearce
Mmm.
00:49:29
Pearce
I don't know, we honestly, we killed it in that Bikinibut 2 war. When we first got there, they whitewashed. No one wanted to be there. Someone heard Bikinibut, they're like, now you're going to Bikinibut. They're like, oh dude, that's awesome. They're at Bikinibut 2. And they're like, dang, that sucks. And i was like, what does that mean?
00:49:43
Pearce
And Bikinibut 1 at the time, the 1-0 was like booming. Everyone wanted to be in Bikinibut, the 1-0. It was awesome. And Wowa was like trash. And so we kind of just built it up. So I think from that point of view, like I love that area because we like took it from nothing to like a place where people wanted to be again.
00:50:03
Pearce
So that was pretty cool.
00:50:04
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:50:07
Pearce
After McKinibuy Wawa, I went to Charareketawana and The first transfer there was a little rough. um And then i I trained after that. And that was that was fun. we I was there with um that new elder for two transfers.
00:50:25
Pearce
And we had a good time. And I don't know, we probably didn't baptize as much there as I did in Baking Butu But like we worked hard. We met a lot of people like did some good things there too, where it again was a little bit slower and like, I don't say dying, but it was kind of just had been slow for the last couple of transfers and we kind of picked it up again.
00:50:44
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:50:44
Pearce
So I don't know, those two areas were similar in that way for me, but um me and Elder Austin had a lot of fun in Bikinibu, just working hard and like having a good time with people. So
00:50:58
Darin Tingey
And you're probably like at your year mark by that point or a little over.
00:51:02
Pearce
yeah, so I was just, when I was there, I was just under a year. And then when I switched over to Tararekita, I hit a year. Like right in between those was a year mark.
00:51:10
Darin Tingey
okay
00:51:12
Darin Tingey
And then you, and then you trained, um, where was the, where was your, your son from?
00:51:20
Pearce
He was from Georgia.
00:51:21
Darin Tingey
Nice.
00:51:22
Pearce
Yeah.
00:51:23
Darin Tingey
Did you like training or not really?
00:51:23
Pearce
So, Yeah, it was, I mean, it it's, I don't know if you did or not, but it's just different. Like you got this kid that doesn't speak a lick of Kitabas and he's trying his best.
00:51:35
Pearce
And you just are there trying to help him and like help him learn the language, but also trying to help him work hard and help him figure out what's important and stuff. um But yeah, it was a good time.
00:51:46
Pearce
remember one of his first weeks, I tried to get this family to like tell him that they wanted him to dance for him. And I was like so close to getting it to happen. And then he like, i think I started smiling. I couldn't hold it and he was like, you're messing with me, aren't you like, no, dude, they they want you to dance.
00:52:02
Pearce
And it was a bunch of like, it was a family of like a mom and dad and like a day nine in it. And so I was like, dude, they usually will dance for people, but like they want you to dance.
00:52:07
Darin Tingey
Yes.
00:52:11
Pearce
Cause he was like six, six long and lanky. Like, and so he was like, he like turned bright, right?
00:52:14
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:52:16
Pearce
he's like, wait are you serious? I'm like, yeah, bro. Yeah. So he didn't end up doing it, but I'd heard of trainers that did a lot meaner things. So i was like, this isn't that mean. So we'll see if I can make it happen.
00:52:28
Pearce
But it was fun.
00:52:29
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:52:29
Pearce
He was fun and he was a happy guy too.
00:52:29
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:52:31
Pearce
And he, he was super determined to learn the language and to be great at it. And so that was, that was awesome.
00:52:37
Darin Tingey
Yeah, always good when you want someone that that learns. We get someone that learns and wants to learn. that I mean, having your companion dance, like that's just normal in kiddo best. So, i mean that was great.
00:52:46
Pearce
It would have been awesome.
00:52:47
Darin Tingey
That's so good. Oh, man. They would have loved that, too. All the kiddos people would have thought was hilarious.
00:52:52
Pearce
Oh yeah, they would have, they would have done their little cackle laugh and they would have died.
00:52:57
Darin Tingey
Yeah, they would have ate that up. du that The kiddos people are like so... They love to joke around. like They just have so much fun doing it.
00:53:01
Pearce
Yeah. Yep.
00:53:04
Darin Tingey
I always thought it was...
00:53:04
Pearce
They're so fun.
00:53:06
Darin Tingey
um OK, let's talk about Christmas.
00:53:09
Pearce
Yep.
00:53:09
Darin Tingey
so
00:53:10
Pearce
So, so I'm, I'm I'm I, mean and I could, honestly, I could have talked about this for like a whole, probably five episodes of the podcast.
00:53:10
Darin Tingey
Because this is this where it gets wild.
00:53:18
Pearce
Like it was crazy. Um, I meant to get the one on transfer. They're coming up. It's right after Christmas, I think like the holiday Christmas and,
00:53:29
Darin Tingey
OK.
00:53:30
Pearce
The APs were, so it was ah Elder Austin, who was my companion in Bukinibu too, and then Elder Haskett, Haskett, Noah Haskett, who I was, they were comps in MTC.
00:53:41
Pearce
And so I was in the same room with them.
00:53:41
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:53:43
Pearce
Like I said, and I was good friends with both of them. Like Haskett and I played basketball together in MTC and like, we just, we were good buddies. um They call us to be like, hey, transfer coming up. Like,
00:53:54
Pearce
They would never tell you where you're going, but they're like, Hey, like you need to pack your bags. Hey, you're going to be staying.
00:53:59
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:54:00
Pearce
So like, all right, well Shay, like you're still going to be there for another transfer. um finish out your, or I guess his training was done, but like, you're going to stay there. And then now you're, you got to pack your bag, man. You're leaving out. And they're like, you're such a lucky dog. I'm like, what do you guys mean they're like, you're getting another one. i' like, oh shoot. was like, where am I going? And like, you're flying out Monday though. Like, wait, that's before zone conference. Like, yeah, you're flying out Monday. I was like, Do you know where you're going? or like, oh shoot guys, that Christmas? And they're like, you're going to Christmas, bro. And I like, oh my goodness, I'm going so far away. This is going to be nuts.
00:54:34
Pearce
um And I'd heard a little bit about Christmas, but I like not a whole lot. I just heard everyone that went out there loved it. Like that was, it was cool.
00:54:40
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:54:42
Pearce
Um, yeah, so I was stoked. Packed my bag, flew out. It's crazy. Cause to go to Christmas, you gotta fly through Fiji.
00:54:52
Pearce
Cause they didn't, I think now they have a flight that goes straight.
00:54:52
Darin Tingey
Right.
00:54:55
Pearce
And they're supposed to, at least, i don't know if it's even up and running, but, uh,
00:54:55
Darin Tingey
but think I think i think they do, yeah.
00:54:59
Pearce
We, like, I flew to Fiji and I stayed in a hotel by myself in Fiji for a day. And it was awesome. Like air conditioning and hot water. Like, it wasn't even nice. it was like a trash hotel. Like in America, it would not be, it would be cheap. We'll just say that.
00:55:15
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:55:16
Pearce
And I thought it was the greatest thing. And so I got a taxi there. taxied back and then flew over to Christmas. And it was cool because I got there January 1st of 2020, like as the sun was about to rise and walking off the plane, you get this, like the couple other random white people that go out there and this sign that's like, she's got i love science because she was like, and actually maybe not, that's kind of,
00:55:41
Pearce
premature to say, but she was, let's just say scholarly because she was like walking off and she's like, you guys are about to witness the first sunrise of this decade. And i was like, oh, that's cool.
00:55:52
Pearce
Like I never would have thought of that, but that's actually sick. And so, because Christmas is that is at first, the timeline like goes straight down and then drops right around Christmas, you know?
00:55:54
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:56:00
Pearce
So it's literally the first sunrise every day. um
00:56:04
Darin Tingey
Yep.
00:56:05
Pearce
So we were the first people to see see the sunrise in in this decade, which was it was pretty cool.
00:56:09
Darin Tingey
That is really cool.
00:56:10
Pearce
But, uh, yeah, so Christmas I was in banana. Um, my comp had been there for three transfers. Um, there was four sisters out there at the time and then two other elders and the two other elders and four sisters were all like within a 10 minute bike ride of each other like the more North side of the island. And we were further down.
00:56:30
Pearce
Um, And we had a, we had a truck so that we could drive around.
00:56:34
Darin Tingey
were you wait Were you by the airport or were you...
00:56:36
Pearce
Yeah. So we were by the airport.
00:56:37
Darin Tingey
Okay, okay, yeah.
00:56:38
Pearce
was tour by the airport and banana. Um, So I was, I was there for a transfer with him and like, it was fine. I'm just kind of like getting to know the area and and getting to know everyone who lives where, who does what, who should become a church.
00:56:51
Pearce
Who's not like at that point, like I knew what i was doing right here a year out or over year out, I guess at that point.
00:56:55
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:58
Pearce
and i was like, all right, I got six months here probably. And then like, I'm going back the thought of when I'm going home, like I'm going to kill it.
00:57:03
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:57:04
Pearce
And banana was kind of a weird area too. Cause there's a lot of members, but a lot of less actives. Um, And so I was with him and he was, he was cool, but the work was just a little slow still.
00:57:18
Pearce
And so I remember I was on a call and I wasn't, maybe I was, I hope I wasn't knocking on that comp, but he was like probably in the shower bathroom and the APs called and they were like two of my best mission friends.
00:57:31
Pearce
And so I was like, guys, like you got to send me somebody that's like ready to work. And I dropped a couple of names I was like, Elder Reeve is awesome. One of them had worked closely with him. i like, Reeve's good. He just works.
00:57:43
Pearce
was like, someone that's going to work. So like, all right, we'll we'll see what we can do. So transfers roll around and they do all the other outer islands. They do Tarawa. They do everything. Christmas is last.
00:57:53
Pearce
And they do, they start in London. They go to Tabakea one, tab two. and they're like, all right, banana. And at that point I'd like lost track. i was like, there's only one elder that hasn't been called. And I have no idea who it is.
00:58:04
Pearce
Like i can't think of who it was because elder Reeve, who I asked for had already been called to Christmas.
00:58:05
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:58:09
Pearce
He was going to London. And I was like, what the, I'm like, guys, what are you doing? Like, that's who I wanted.
00:58:12
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Give them to me.
00:58:13
Pearce
Like,
00:58:13
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:58:14
Pearce
He's going be great. I'm excited he's coming out here. Like, who's left? And then they they said Elder Richens is going to be going to Banana with with Elder Nally. And i was like, oh, dang. Like, I've heard he's cool too.
00:58:27
Pearce
And Haskett, who was the other AP, he had worked with him and he was like, you're so lucky dude. Like he's so sick because he played back hasket played basketball in high school. I played in high school. Richens had played in high school and I hadn't had a lot of interaction with him.
00:58:40
Pearce
And he already had two outer islands as well. So everyone was like, you guys are just the luckiest sons of guns because you both had two outer islands And Richens had maybe spent two, three or four transfers total on Tarawa.
00:58:50
Darin Tingey
And Christmas.
00:58:54
Pearce
So I had a little bit more time on Tarawa than he did. But yes, then Richens getting sent out to Christmas too. And like you lucky dude. So I was getting him and he was, he was great. Um, and honestly, like looking back hindsight's the best site he was meant to be there because we, like you said, like we ended up getting stuck. So, um,
00:59:15
Pearce
I had a transfer with him. that was like beginning of February, maybe mid February where he came out and Reeve. um but Beginning of March, ah we start hearing about this COVID thing and we're like, okay, cool.
00:59:30
Pearce
Like it's probably never going to get here. Like whatever. Yeah.
00:59:32
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Were you hearing it from your parents or like, how were you hearing about COVID?
00:59:35
Pearce
Yeah. Parents, parents on P-Day, my brothers, ah a couple friends had sent emails and like, dude, are you hearing about this COVID thing? I was like, no, not really.
00:59:45
Pearce
Like we're still so doing our thing.
00:59:47
Darin Tingey
Yeah, we're on a remote island, you know.
00:59:49
Pearce
um so yeah, we're just having a good time. Because like I mentioned, Rich and I played basketball. So our P-Days, there was a little like, of course, we go play like three on three with these group of guys.
01:00:00
Pearce
Found out some of them were less active. Some of found out some had lessened with others. Like, we're just meeting a ton of people trying to like boost kind of member morale and banana.
01:00:10
Pearce
And like, there've been some, there's some beef between some members who are trying to like mitigate that and like, take it out.
01:00:11
Darin Tingey
Yeah,
01:00:17
Pearce
Like, right guys, you got fix this, like chill out anyways.
01:00:19
Darin Tingey
yeah. yeah
01:00:21
Pearce
So we were just having a good time working hard to find people and make sure members weren't like continuing to be mad at each other for no reason.
01:00:30
Pearce
Um,
01:00:31
Pearce
End of March. So they they called us zone leaders out there so that I think they could give us a truck, but we were really just like more like a district leader.
01:00:40
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:00:41
Pearce
But so our president, President Foster, was like messaging us and calling us. He's like, hey, like this COVID thing is getting more serious. I might have to pull all you off the island. And we're like, what?
01:00:51
Pearce
Like, no, no, no, no. I don't think you understand.
01:00:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:00:54
Pearce
Like, there is a lot of good stuff being done out here. Our area is fine, but like in those other areas, there are so many people that are like great and like ready to be taught.
01:01:03
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:01:03
Pearce
um And so we were like, I don't think you should do that. President, whatever revelation you get, like great. But ah this is how we how we feel.
01:01:16
Pearce
So at one point he was kind of going back and forth for about a week. He's like, all right, i'm gonna take all the sisters off. I'm leaving all the elders. We're like, great. That sounds awesome.
01:01:24
Darin Tingey
like Please.
01:01:25
Pearce
Yeah. And so then, then he's like, actually, i'm gonna leave all of you guys.
01:01:26
Darin Tingey
Please take them.
01:01:30
Pearce
We're like okay, that's fine too. Like, as long as we're still here, like we're fine. And then at one point he's like, right I think I'm just gonna leave you two. He just, he was all over the place going back and forth. Then at one point he's like, all right, I think I'm gonna leave two people, but it's gonna be the other two elders. I need you two to get the sisters back here. And we're like, what?
01:01:49
Pearce
And we like sat for probably 10 or 15 minutes talking about what we were going to respond to our mission president. Cause he just messaged us that he didn't call anything. And we sent him this long message that was like, president, we feel like we're here for a reason. The Lord has sent us here and we feel like you put us here as ill leaders. We understand you want sisters to be safe. The other two others are more than capable
01:02:12
Darin Tingey
but
01:02:13
Pearce
And be like, we will respect whatever you decide, but we really, really would love to stay and we feel that we would like be able to do some great things if we stay.
01:02:25
Darin Tingey
Thanks for suggestion, Mr. President, but we are actually going to not hop on the plane. No way.
01:02:30
Pearce
Yeah, seriously. And so within seconds, we said that within seconds, he goes, that was a great answer. That was a test. You guys are staying. And we're like, are you kidding me, bro?
01:02:39
Darin Tingey
no way
01:02:41
Pearce
We're like, we just spent 20 minutes like sweating and freaking out about this. And you, that was a test. And he's like, Yeah, that was honestly a great answer because within that long text, we said also something like, we feel like the Lord needs us here and we're here for the Lord.
01:02:54
Pearce
If he knows us here for an extra week or a month or a year, so be it. Like, we're fine.
01:02:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:03:00
Pearce
There's nothing else better we could be doing. School's always going to be there. School can wait. Like, we wanted to be there.
01:03:06
Darin Tingey
So he wanted to see that he could trust you guys to stay out there.
01:03:08
Pearce
Yeah.
01:03:09
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:03:10
Pearce
And um so he ends up going back and forth a little bit, and then ah he ended up just leaving the four elders. So very end of March, I don't remember what day, like late March, he we we put the four sisters on a plane to Fiji.
Missionary Life Amidst COVID Restrictions
01:03:23
Pearce
And the next day... We get a call from him and he's like, did you guys know that they're going closing the borders in Fiji? And we're like, what? No. Like, like that was the last plane.
01:03:33
Pearce
Like they just announced today they're closing their borders. That was the last plane off of Christmas. Fiji's closed. We can't get the sisters back to Tarawa. And I was like, oh, shoot. was like, that's terrible.
01:03:44
Darin Tingey
Thank God.
01:03:45
Pearce
he's like, if I knew that, I would have put you guys on the plane. And I was like, well, if we knew that we wouldn't have told you so that we couldn't have made it on the, anyways, you know how that goes.
01:03:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:03:54
Pearce
So anyways, at that point, sisters were stuck in Fiji and like the very end of March, beginning of April, like that was when we're officially like stuck. Um, sisters, two of them, two of the sisters were from Fiji. So they were like, awesome. We're like, we're home. We're fine. Like, this is sick.
01:04:11
Pearce
Um, the other one was from Kitty Bess. And then the other one was from America, I think Alaska and Utah, maybe. Um, so they were just there and they ended up being there until a couple of weeks in into April when they sent a huge plane to pick everyone up.
01:04:27
Pearce
Um,
01:04:27
Darin Tingey
Okay. So they went home with all the Fijian called missionaries.
01:04:31
Pearce
yep.
01:04:32
Darin Tingey
Got it.
01:04:32
Pearce
And, and, um, and Kitabas. So like mid April, maybe two weeks in April, I think everyone else goes to flies to Fiji on a big plane.
01:04:37
Darin Tingey
Okay.
01:04:42
Pearce
And then everyone else, like they sent a lot of the Polynesian elders and sisters or Americans that were serving in Micronesian Polynesia to Fiji. And then they sent a huge plane, picked them all up and took them home.
01:04:54
Darin Tingey
Okay, so so all the missionaries from Tarawa or from Kiribati that weren't on the Christmas set area side, they all took a plane to Fiji.
01:05:06
Darin Tingey
And then, like you said, the other island countries all have got sent to Fiji. And then Fiji, big plane with all the missionaries.
01:05:12
Pearce
Yep. And like April.
01:05:13
Darin Tingey
Okay. Okay.
01:05:15
Pearce
And so at that point we're like, dang, our friends are gone, man.
01:05:17
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:05:17
Pearce
Like there's four of us. And so it was me and my comp, it was me and Richens. And we had, we had a truck, like I mentioned, but ah something broke, which ended up being a small tear that like months later, like a month before we left, we ended up finding a guy that could fix it. We're like, dang, that's unfortunate, but okay. Yeah.
01:05:34
Pearce
Um, so we ended up, we were originally in Banana. We ended up going to work in Tapaqea, Tawana, and Wowa. And then we'd go check on Banana. We'd have someone take us like once a month in their car to go, or their truck to go check on the Banana people for like a day or two.
01:05:51
Pearce
Um,
01:05:51
Darin Tingey
So real quick, what did president say to you guys? Because I'm assuming he got transferred off too. like
01:05:56
Pearce
No, so they let him stay because he was only, he was less than a year into his time as mission president.
01:06:01
Darin Tingey
Okay, so so he stayed in Tarawa?
01:06:02
Pearce
they're like, he's probably going be fine. Yeah. so he's on Tarawa with like New Zealand elders, Papua New Guinea elders, Tonga and Samoa, like anyone from the islands.
01:06:11
Darin Tingey
Basically the ones that couldn't get home, yeah.
01:06:13
Pearce
Yep. Yep. So he's there with them and we were on Christmas and all the other Americans were gone.
01:06:21
Pearce
So we're just, yeah, so the four of us are just on Christmas and he's basically telling us like, hey, we're doing all we can to get you a flight. um We're trying to figure out if you can get back to Tarawa or if we're going have to like charter plane.
01:06:36
Pearce
Like they're trying to figure it out. And we were like, okay, well, just let us know.
01:06:37
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:06:40
Pearce
We're going to keep doing our thing. But for the next three or four, think it August. So the next like three, three and a half months, it was just back and forth like that.
01:06:51
Pearce
And so it was kind of hard, honestly, because there were some days where it's like we had very little motivation because we're like, hey, we're probably going leave in like two days. Like we don't want to go find people.
01:06:58
Darin Tingey
right
01:07:01
Pearce
to teach because if we're going be gone, we don't want them to be like, oh, like the elders are supposed to come teach me and now they're just gone. Like, that's not a good, good look. um
01:07:11
Darin Tingey
Were your parents freaking out? Like, oh, they're stuck on Christmas?
01:07:13
Pearce
My mom was freaking out. Yeah.
01:07:17
Darin Tingey
and like I mean, that's a long time to be stuck from from March until August.
01:07:20
Pearce
Yeah.
01:07:23
Pearce
Yeah. So, well, we were stuck longer than that.
01:07:24
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:07:26
Pearce
August. Yeah. i I'll get to August. So my mom, I take that back. My mom wasn't freaking out yet, but she was getting more and more concerned as any good mom would.
01:07:35
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:07:36
Pearce
Uh, but she was like, are you going to able to come home? Cause I wasn't supposed to go home till July. So basically up, up till July, they were like, okay, whatever.
01:07:41
Darin Tingey
Right.
01:07:44
Pearce
Like, as long as you can come home in July.
01:07:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:07:46
Pearce
And i was like, yeah, that'd be sick. i don't know if that's going to happen, but we'll we'll see, I guess. But they like, dude, they had Like every other week, probably, I think six seven times six or seven times maybe, they they' were like, hey, we're we're coming, like a plane's coming next week or a plane's coming in two days.
01:08:02
Pearce
And then there was one time even where they were like, hey, a plane's supposed to come tomorrow. And were like, what? Okay, I guess we got to go tell all the leaders of the church here, like, hey, we're going be gone.
01:08:08
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:08:13
Pearce
Like, you guys got to step it up a little bit. Um, and the branch or the district president at the time was honestly like a really, really good guy. And he was doing a lot of good things. Um, so they were going to be in good hands, but, uh,
01:08:27
Pearce
Yeah, it was, it was kind of crazy. Like just there's days and sometimes like a week or two at a time where we just had a little motivation, just like, what are we supposed to do? Like they're telling us we're going home, but, and it wasn't even like a trunky, like we weren't packing even.
01:08:39
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:08:42
Pearce
were like, we're not packing it until they tell us like, Hey, there's a plane that's on its way. It's in the air. Then we'll start packing. But it was just, it was hard. Um,
01:08:51
Darin Tingey
Were you nervous at all about it all or were you kind of fine with it?
01:08:53
Pearce
No, like I was fine because we we never like closed down. COVID wasn't there. um They did the at home church thing because that was instructed by the prophet, you know, at one point.
01:08:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:09:06
Pearce
um And we, but we would go, there was a couple, there was ah a family, it was an old lady and her kids. and grandkids, we go to church with them. Then there's one older one other old lady whose husband wasn't a member. And so we go to do the sacrament with her as well. And we had like some really good experiences doing church with them.
01:09:25
Pearce
And so that was only for like a month maybe. And then we were back to normal. um So we were still, I mean, when we weren't being told that we were leaving, like we were still doing normal stuff, meeting people, finding people,
01:09:39
Darin Tingey
Did you take advantage of like being on Christmas and like go explore and go fishing and yeah.
01:09:43
Pearce
Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
01:09:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:09:46
Pearce
up So you have, there's like this little, on the opposite end of the island, it's like right across from London. So you could either take a boat over, and it's probably a couple minutes, but we didn't do that.
01:09:58
Pearce
where you take like a two-hour truck all the way around. And so there was like a YSA picnic and like they did some branch picnics out there. So we like – we did some fun stuff. We had picnics with like the branches and um yeah, there's a lot of – I mean fishing is huge out there.
01:10:14
Pearce
There's people that like go fish for the Binao, the milk fish.
01:10:14
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:10:18
Pearce
Like they pay thousands of dollars to fly from America and go fish that. And there was a ah guy we knew that was ah that was a yeah a guide.
01:10:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's a big-time place.
01:10:26
Pearce
And so he like took us and like showed us. It was pretty cool. um Yeah, so we did all kinds of fishing. um We did actually, me and my comp, Koro Kareved, there, we had someone make us katasas.
01:10:39
Pearce
And I was left-handed, so like, hey, can you like do it? But on the other side, because it's super.
01:10:43
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:10:44
Pearce
like I don't know if you ever did it. like The way you cut it is important, but like the side the blade's on is like, They sharpen it a certain way. And so it's just like it's super technical.
01:10:51
Darin Tingey
Interesting.
01:10:54
Pearce
And so my comp had done it on, I think, Onotoa. And so he was good at it and he like helped me learn how to do it and stuff. And it was there was this shorter tree um right next to our house. And so we just we did it right there and it was was awesome. So we did a lot of that.
01:11:10
Pearce
Christmas probably isn't the place to learn that and like get good at it, but like we did get good or better at all that stuff.
01:11:14
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I mean, you're stuck there for
01:11:16
Pearce
And yeah, so we did a lot of that to the best stuff.
01:11:18
Darin Tingey
I mean, you were there for you were there for nine months eight months.
01:11:22
Pearce
I was actually, so so august August rolled around and our mission president says, all right, guys, lock in.
01:11:22
Darin Tingey
No.
01:11:30
Pearce
You're going to be there for a little bit. that's So that's what happens in August. I didn't get off on August.
01:11:34
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:11:36
Pearce
So I was already supposed to be home in July. um August rolled around and he said, buckle in. And we're like, okay, at least we know like we're going to be here. And so we like started grinding again. We like had all these friends that we'd made.
01:11:49
Pearce
My comp and I, like I said, both played basketball in high school. And right in front of that court, President Larkin was, I think, influential in this. There was a court, a little cement basketball court right in front of the um dablin daramodi out there in tabakia so we played probably two to three times a week at night and we made friends with like 40 or 50
01:12:00
Darin Tingey
Right.
01:12:11
Pearce
um And they just all like loved us because like we were good. We played like in America on varsity basketball teams. And we were just like giving them pointers and then like talking to them, getting to know them.
01:12:20
Darin Tingey
right
01:12:25
Pearce
It was a really good environment. like I don't know. For us, it was like, hey, we're just going to use our skills to do missionary work. And so other people may not have done that and other people may not like that we did that.
01:12:36
Pearce
But it was a way that ended up like bringing a lot of blessings because we ended up teaching some of those guys and getting into their homes and just laying groundwork. um it's Kind of like that that rugby situation on Putari Tari.
01:12:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:12:51
Pearce
So August rolled around. Actually, we also had helped coach like a team for the Surai tournament.
01:12:58
Darin Tingey
I love that. and
01:12:59
Pearce
And so we like... A couple mornings a week, we wake up and our exercise was like 6 or 6, 8, 6.30 a.m. All these guys showed up and we'd practice and we like pushed them. We're like, all right, you're running suicides. We're doing shooting drills. We're doing defense drills. Like we like put them through a practice for about an hour and then we'd shower and change and study and then go about the rest of our day. um But that was fun because we got have a lot like a lot of exposure to guys that we usually – probably wouldn't have gotten exposure to.
01:13:27
Pearce
um And we even got all of them to agree to lift the word of wisdom for like a couple months. We're like, all right, no drinking, no smoking. If we find out you do, you're not playing.
01:13:38
Darin Tingey
Oh, that's so good.
01:13:38
Pearce
um And there was another guy that was like the the coach captain kind of guy, like he was the leader of the team. And he was like, yep, sorry guys, anything they say goes. Cause he was a member, he was in one of the branch presidencies and we got super tight with him. He was cool.
01:13:52
Pearce
um But ah yeah, so after a couple of weeks into this, they're like, dude, i I'm like not getting tired when I'm running. I'm like, that's cause you're not doing Coben while you're playing, dude.
01:14:02
Pearce
Like you're not, you didn't drink last night.
01:14:03
Darin Tingey
Yeah. think
01:14:05
Pearce
You're not doing Coben. You're not smoking at work. Like, Yeah, so you see little blessings like that, and they recognized it as well.
01:14:09
Darin Tingey
Crazy how that works. Yeah.
01:14:14
Pearce
Then they went pretty far in the tournament, actually. they ended up losing, I think, in the semifinal, maybe. And like that night, they all went and got drunk and stuff.
01:14:22
Darin Tingey
Blastered. Yeah.
01:14:23
Pearce
Yeah, and then the next day, they come to play, and you could tell, you're like, hey, you drank last night, didn't you? Like, yeah, how'd you know It's like, you're slow again, man. Yeah.
01:14:29
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:14:29
Pearce
So just little, little things like that, but we, yeah, yeah we just had a lot of people and the other two elders out there were awesome as well. So we kind of just helped each other out.
01:14:39
Pearce
Um, we went on a lot of splits with those guys cause we were both there forever.
01:14:45
Darin Tingey
yeah sure you guys got pretty really tight yeah
01:14:45
Pearce
But in August, um, Yeah. So I was supposed to go home go home in in July. Six weeks later, one of the other elders, the one I'd asked for, Elder Reeve, he was a transfer behind me.
01:14:56
Pearce
And then Elder Richards, who was my comp for the long time, was supposed to go home and transfer after him. So August rolled around and Elder Reeve's about that time where he's like supposed to be done. So we got transferred. So I got i got moved to to be with him in London.
01:15:10
Pearce
um And then Elder Stephen, Caden Stephen, got put in Tapa Kea with Richens. and Like all four of us were just such good friends at that point that didn't really matter.
01:15:22
Pearce
But we, uh, Richens and I had had a lot of success and even Caden or even, sorry, Steven had a lot of success as well.
01:15:22
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:15:31
Pearce
Um, and that just, that kept going. Like once we were transferred at that point, we'd been told like, Hey, buckle in. And so we just both were, we're all just killing it. And Richens and Reeve and I had been out for a long time. So like at this point, we have like over two years of speaking experience. Like our language is great.
01:15:48
Pearce
People like were telling us we sounded like natives, which is like the best compliment you can ever receive.
01:15:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:15:54
Pearce
had one time i was speaking church actually and Richens afterwards and his accent was like way better than mine for the longest time and still is probably...
01:16:04
Pearce
ah But there was one time afterwards, he's like, dude, i for a second, I looked down and I looked up and I was like oh, that's Nally speaking. He's like, I thought, I thought you were a native dude. It sounded good. And I was like, yes.
01:16:13
Darin Tingey
Let's go. ah like I've made it.
01:16:14
Pearce
And I was like, that was the best compliment Richens has ever given me. Um,
01:16:18
Darin Tingey
i can finally go home. to let me go home.
01:16:19
Pearce
Yep. Yep. was like, right, I can go home now, President. You can send the plane around if ready. ah No. So they, so what happened in August was we we got a call. It was a P-Day on that Monday morning.
01:16:33
Pearce
And our President Foster goes, all right, guys, there was supposed to be a plane coming today. And it got canceled last night. And we're like, so were you going to tell us that? Like, that's great. Cool.
01:16:44
Pearce
um But the government, I guess, backed out last second because they were just they were worried about COVID for whatever reason. And they didn't have the necessary medical equipment and stuff. And so that's when he was like, right, buckle in. Like, we don't know how long it's going to be now.
01:16:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:16:57
Pearce
So they had chartered that flight. The only person that can approve charter flights for the plane, according to the things that I've heard, is the profit. So he was well aware and I'm sure the first presidency as a whole and the Cormac 12 well aware, like where we were, who we were, what, what was going on?
01:17:08
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:17:15
Pearce
Like it was nuts.
01:17:15
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:17:17
Pearce
And so they had approved this plane and it wasn't going to come anymore.
Community Engagement and Successes
01:17:22
Pearce
So yeah, like I said, we got transferred. We just kept working. Like we had,
01:17:27
Pearce
Again, not to toot our horns by any means, but we just were doing good stuff. And those relationships we'd built started to pay off. And we saw, like honestly, some miracles and some of the greatest things happened that like I've ever experienced.
01:17:41
Pearce
um We had a Saturday where between the four of us, there was 16 people baptized. um And it was this it was just a cool it was this cool, cool, special day.
01:17:48
Darin Tingey
Wow, dude, that's awesome. Yeah.
01:17:52
Pearce
And you know how it is on some of those little islands. there's such like this feeling of like camaraderie. And so when you get baptized, like they remember a lot of the people that they were baptized with, like, because they know who everyone is.
01:18:02
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:18:03
Pearce
So like, Oh, I get to be baptized with that person. That's cool. So they're like, they're all just so stoked for each other.
01:18:06
Darin Tingey
now
01:18:08
Pearce
And we're also stoked for all of them because we both kind of been in all over the areas. We like knew who everyone was. Um, the areas are so close. People are back and forth. So it was just, it was really just a good, good time.
01:18:22
Pearce
Um,
01:18:23
Pearce
And so for a couple months we were doing that. Beginning of November comes around and our mission president calls us again. He's like, right, guys, we don't think we can get a plane out there.
01:18:35
Pearce
We're trying to get approval to put you on a boat to get us back to Thadaua, which is like 2,000 miles, like the width of the United States.
01:18:42
Darin Tingey
Yeah, why why are they trying to Tarawa and not to Hawaii? Is that just because it's like within the country?
01:18:49
Darin Tingey
Okay.
01:18:49
Pearce
Yep. Um, and if we got, if they had gotten a charter plane, they would have, it would have been sent from Hawaii, which like you said, is way, way closer.
01:18:51
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:18:56
Pearce
Christmas is like straight underneath Hawaii.
01:18:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:18:59
Pearce
Um, so if the plane had been able to come, they would have 1000% picked us up from Hawaii, taking us back to Hawaii.
01:19:06
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:19:06
Pearce
Um, but so we were like, holy crap, are we going to get on a boat? Like, that's going to be crazy. And, There was a boat. It was called the Melody.
01:19:17
Pearce
And it usually was just like for cargo and like taking a Tainimane and a Tainaini and whoever else wanted to get on back and forth for for school.
01:19:25
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
01:19:25
Pearce
And so the Melody comes and it had already come and gone once while we were like, quote unquote, stuck, maybe even twice. And but beginning of November, they're like, hey we're trying to get this approved.
01:19:36
Pearce
The whole, I think the... I may be wrong, but I want to say that I remember somebody saying the whole quorum of the 12 had to approve it in the first presidency. so I was like, dang, so they're legit like praying for us.
01:19:47
Pearce
They probably know our names. They'd probably know my birthday. They know all the dumb things I've done in my life. Like this is crazy.
01:19:52
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:19:54
Pearce
Um, so it gets approved and we were like, holy crap, we're going to get on a boat and we're going to be on that boat for two weeks. Um,
01:20:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's a long trip.
01:20:05
Pearce
Cause it was, it was a long, like, like I said, it's like 2000 miles. So we kind of just started saying bye to people. They, they, at that point we'd already told people we're leaving like once or twice, they'd already thrown us like two or three Botox.
01:20:18
Pearce
Like we love you guys.
01:20:19
Darin Tingey
ah
01:20:20
Pearce
We're going miss you guys. Um, it's like, Hey, we, we think we're leaving for real, but don't throw us a Botox until like we're ready to go. And So they did a couple weeks before he left, it was Rich and his, Awabi Metawana. So like he had his 21st birthday out there and it was awesome. One of the best Botox I've ever been to. Cause like so many people came to support. It was him, it was combined. It was him and a and a girl that lived out there. Both of them turned 21. So it was like super sick, like awesome dances, like ah some cool merodos. Like we all did a dance together.
01:20:57
Pearce
um it was it was great.
01:20:59
Darin Tingey
That's cool.
01:20:59
Pearce
It was so cool. And so we're like about to leave. They threw us a good Bible talk. We said bye to everyone. Like we told all the members like, hey, these are the people we just baptized. We need you to like fellowship them and minister to them and like keep them active and come to church and stuff.
01:21:15
Pearce
And we were, I feel like for the most part, the four of us were pretty good about not baptizing people that we didn't feel confident in. Like we made sure they understood their covenants.
01:21:21
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
01:21:24
Pearce
They understood the importance of baptism and like setting a goal to get to the temple with their families. um That was like a huge thing for us. And so, yeah, so we ended up just saying bye which was hard.
01:21:38
Pearce
But at the same time, you're like, well, we've been out for over two years at this point. So like, we love you guys, but we got to go like,
01:21:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's time.
01:21:46
Pearce
So we get on we get on the boat and we stop at Teraina and, gosh, what's the other one called? It's Washington and Fanning.
01:21:56
Pearce
It's Taraina and...
01:21:56
Darin Tingey
yeah, yeah.
01:21:58
Pearce
oh gosh, that's terrible.
01:21:59
Darin Tingey
That's cool.
01:22:00
Pearce
ah boy on Thank you. um And Reeve and Steven had gone out there. They flew out there to check on people once or twice already. So they were a little bit familiar, but Richens and I hadn't been out there.
01:22:10
Pearce
So on the way back, we stopped at both of those for about a day each and they're unloading cargo and stuff.
01:22:10
Darin Tingey
that's cool
01:22:17
Pearce
at each one and we got off on both we had we had church one of the days was a sunday i don't remember which island it was on um well do but i don't remember which which name it was because i wasn't as familiar we had church with some of the people on one of them we borrowed someone had some extra shirts and they were all like extra or like extra extra larges so we all just have these baggy shirts and like our bany bc and we just looked trashy um
01:22:17
Darin Tingey
Thank you.
01:22:37
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:22:46
Pearce
And, but it was, it was cool. We had like a cool little experience with like a handful of people on one of those islands. And then on, i don't remember if it was the same one or the other one, the one that has the little freshwater pond in the middle.
01:23:00
Darin Tingey
Yeah, Teraina.
01:23:02
Pearce
Did I know?
01:23:02
Darin Tingey
Washington.
01:23:03
Pearce
We, we, uh, so we get off on that one.
01:23:03
Darin Tingey
Washington, yep.
01:23:06
Pearce
We're talking to people, meeting people that they already knew. And we're like, Hey, let's go see the the little pond. Like the boat's going to be unloading cargo for a while. So we walk all the way to that freshwater pond or little lake, whatever you want call it.
01:23:21
Pearce
And we didn't like swim. Cause you know, we're not going to do that, but we were just like looking at it right. Dang, this is sick. Like, this is so cool. And, but you had to like walk through this like little volcanic area.
01:23:33
Pearce
Like it was literally like a jungle, like mud floor, like tons of coconut trees, like other little plants.
01:23:35
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:23:38
Pearce
And some kid comes up is like, e dollars the boat's leaving. And we're like, are you kidding me?
01:23:45
Darin Tingey
Oh gosh.
01:23:46
Pearce
like We're going to get stuck on here and they're going to kill us. The church is going to kill us. Our parents are going to kill us. Everyone's going to be so mad at us for getting stuck here. Like this is worse than being stuck on Christmas.
01:23:57
Darin Tingey
Yeah, absolutely.
01:23:57
Pearce
Like as far as getting us off goes. So we barefooted. We all picked up our shoes. We were booking it. like sprinting through like Boa Kanekai to get back to this boat and I have it on camera it was like crazy i was like guys I feel like I'm in a movie right now like we're about to get stuck on the side we are sprinting through a straight up jungle to get back to this this boat and so we like we're sprinting like we're on p-day clothes because we just we're on a boat and it's dirty and gross um
01:24:29
Pearce
And we get to the main street and someone's like, why are you guys running?
Returning to Tarawa and Home
01:24:32
Pearce
We're like, they said the boat's leaving. and like, oh no, it's not. Just the little, the small boat's leaving. It's going back to get more cargo. we're like, are you...
01:24:40
Pearce
Kidding me.
01:24:40
Darin Tingey
but
01:24:41
Pearce
And so we started, we walked all the way back, but we're like, we should probably just go get back on the boat just to be safe.
01:24:45
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:24:47
Pearce
And so I think, I think Steven like needed to switch out his contact. I don't know. Someone needed something with contacts. So I ended up going back with someone. i think the other two elders may have actually slept on the island. I think they stayed overnight maybe.
01:25:01
Pearce
And so it didn't leave obviously until the next day. But so we get back on the boat, but that was kind of a scare.
01:25:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:25:06
Pearce
My mom would have killed me.
01:25:06
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:25:08
Pearce
um we get back on the boat and then we're on it for another 12 days to get back to tarawa and it was the water was like light brown like it was gross it was ah it was like it's a chinese little cargo boat it's can't be more than like 50 or 60 meters long like it's short and it's small there's a sign on the inside that says max occupancy 200 and there's probably three or four hundred people on that boat like no life jackets no life vest no nut like no life boats nothing
01:25:15
Darin Tingey
Yeah. twelve days
01:25:37
Pearce
It's like if we got in a like storm, we were dead.
01:25:42
Darin Tingey
yeah was it was it smooth sailing mostly or
01:25:42
Pearce
um it was Yeah, it was. So we actually we didn't really hit any storms or anything, but you just felt like you were in a snow globe for like two weeks. um
01:25:53
Darin Tingey
that's a long time that's a long time
01:25:53
Pearce
Just water everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, so it was it was super long, super crazy. like The food wasn't great. Yeah. We got, there was like a cold going around.
01:26:05
Pearce
So a couple of us got like cold and it was like an achy cold. So that was not fun. Um, I think I actually, yeah.
01:26:11
Darin Tingey
Did you guys go straight to Tarawa or was it, did you guys stop on any? Okay.
01:26:15
Pearce
So after, after that, I know that boy had on, we went straight to that all.
01:26:19
Darin Tingey
Okay.
01:26:20
Pearce
Um, But yeah, I mean, again, on the boat, like we were on it for two weeks. There's still some cool stuff happening. We did a little like, I don't know if we did sacrament. We may have done sacrament.
01:26:30
Pearce
um wely We did like a thought of melody with some of the other religions. Even we like sing some of their songs. They sing some of our songs. um And it was kind of cool. Like they like, hey, there's like you guys are leaders.
01:26:40
Pearce
Can you like do a little church thing for everyone? So we like gave talks and stuff.
01:26:43
Darin Tingey
That's cool.
01:26:44
Pearce
Kept it short and sweet. It was pretty cool. But we get back to Tarawa and we're there for two weeks. And that was Elder Steven, who still had six or seven, eight months left of his mission, went and he like had an actual companion. He was reassigned.
01:27:02
Pearce
But then me and Richens and Reeve, they said, hey, here's a mission van and our mission president. At that point, his wife had had pneumonia in one of her lungs or I think that's what they said. So they, but they thought it was a mini heart attack from some scans that they'd taken.
01:27:11
Darin Tingey
Oh, gosh.
01:27:15
Pearce
So they had been sent back to Hawaii. They were in Hawaii for a long time running the mission from Hawaii, like basically over Zoom. And at some point they're like, Hey, we were just going to send you back home. So at some point they were in Idaho running, running the mission.
01:27:27
Darin Tingey
Okay, running the mission. Okay, gotcha.
01:27:30
Pearce
um So they're not there. It's all the New Zealand people had sent gotten sent back home. So it's like a couple Papua New Guinea elders and sisters, maybe one or two from Samoa or Tonga maybe.
01:27:40
Darin Tingey
Mm-hmm.
01:27:42
Pearce
i can I think the Tongan elders and sisters were all sent home too. so i think it was Papua New Guinea and maybe a sister from Samoa maybe. I could be forgetting someone. i don't remember. And maybe 20 natives that like had gotten calls and just stayed there to work.
01:27:52
Darin Tingey
Dude, that's so crazy.
01:27:56
Darin Tingey
And just stuck there, yeah, yeah.
01:27:58
Pearce
Yeah. And so we were given a van and for two weeks, basically, we went around and trained everyone on how to be a good missionary. And like they didn't know what the area book was.
01:28:06
Darin Tingey
That's awesome.
01:28:09
Pearce
We're like, hey, everyone bring your planners and those blue binders in your house. they're like, what blue binders? right that the The area book, like the blue binder.
01:28:17
Darin Tingey
The area book, yeah.
01:28:19
Pearce
And they're like oh oh, yeah, we know what that is. And so they bring them and there's nothing. No one had been doing anything.
01:28:25
Darin Tingey
Oh, gosh.
01:28:25
Pearce
no one knew how to use it. And they're like, we just thought it was like there. and it's like, oh, my. I guess that's fair.
01:28:30
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:28:31
Pearce
You're native and you would have had no idea otherwise. But we just like we're just trying to train them on as much as we could. going all over the whole island, trying to train them and visit as many people as we could that we knew before. Reeve had a lot of connections there. I had some a good amount of connections there. Richen's had some.
01:28:50
Pearce
So we're trying to visit all of our friends and train all these elders and sisters for two weeks. So we were just busy, but we we it was fun.
01:28:57
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:28:58
Pearce
like We had a good time um together. i mean, we were all comfortable with each other. it was great.
01:29:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah, you've been together with for like a year together at that point, which is crazy.
01:29:04
Pearce
it was it was great Yeah. So it was, it was a long time, but.
01:29:08
Darin Tingey
ah And then, and then so so you're two weeks in Tarawa, and then did they somehow get a plane? they somehow got a plane
01:29:15
Pearce
Yep. So they finally got a plane and this is beginning of December.
01:29:17
Darin Tingey
This was what, December at this point?
01:29:20
Pearce
Yeah. So Caden, Steven was on Christmas before I transferred before me. So like maybe mid November, late November. And then, like I said, Riven, Riven Richens were a transfer after me.
01:29:28
Darin Tingey
Gosh.
01:29:33
Pearce
So we were all Caden was there for almost a year or maybe just a year. I was there for 11 months. not quite 11 months, ah just over 10 months.
01:29:41
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:29:43
Pearce
And then the other guys were like eight and a half, nine, whatever, stuck on Christmas. And so then we get to Tarawa, we're there for a couple of They finally get the charter plane.
01:29:48
Darin Tingey
That's crazy.
01:29:53
Pearce
Like he gets approved to come to Tarawa, comes from Hawaii, I believe, takes us back to Hawaii. We had like some people give us some cool, buying kitty vest. We like wore stuff. Like we said, buy to some people that came to the airport.
01:30:04
Pearce
um
01:30:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:30:06
Pearce
And as we're like, we see the plane land and I kind of joke, Lee was like, this plane better be like plated in gold. And... We go to get on and the whole inside like trimmed with gold.
01:30:15
Pearce
And i was like, dang, this is nice.
01:30:16
Darin Tingey
is bougie.
01:30:17
Pearce
Yeah, it was a crazy nice plane.
01:30:18
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:30:20
Pearce
And there's a big bowl of like American candy and American fruit. Like there's just good like quality food.
01:30:27
Darin Tingey
Oh, that's so cool.
01:30:29
Pearce
And we didn't know we were allowed to eat it. Like we had no, like we're just like sitting dang, this is nice. And the flight attend, if there's two pilots and one of them was married to the flight attendant, I believe.
01:30:40
Pearce
And she was like super nice, but like also confused that we had no, idea like we didn't know anything. And I was like, can I eat one of those apples? And she's like, yeah, ah absolutely. Anything in here, you can eat it.
01:30:53
Pearce
And then the other guy's like, we just were all being put, like, that's what you You ask me like, can I eat one of those? and they're like, yeah, you guys can have whatever you want
01:30:58
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:30:59
Pearce
And then we're like, what about the candy? Can we eat some the candy? She's like, guys, you don't understand. I don't think you know how much your church paid for this, Glenn.
01:31:05
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:31:06
Pearce
You can eat whatever's on here. And like she told us later, they she gave us like these sandwiches. She told us later how much each sandwich cost to add on. And it was like 500 bucks a sandwich.
01:31:17
Darin Tingey
That's crazy.
01:31:17
Pearce
And she's like, I don't think you guys realize like she started listing off people. She's like, right, in the seat you're sitting in, like Post Malone sat there. Adam Levine from Maroon 5 sat there. Like professional football player sat there. NBA player sat here. Like she started listing off all these celebrities.
01:31:33
Pearce
And we were just like, oh, it's that kind of plane. That is, that's crazy.
01:31:37
Darin Tingey
That's sick. That's so sick.
01:31:39
Pearce
So, so yeah, we were on that super, super nice plane. And it took us back to Honolulu. ah Kate and Steven got reassigned.
01:31:51
Pearce
to stay there so he stayed there and we were like alright see ya bro good luck with the rest of your mission and then were commercial back to Phoenix and that was where i was from so my family was there and then Reven Steven or sorry Reven Richens went on and flew
01:31:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah, we're done. And then did you just catch commercial playing home?
01:32:11
Darin Tingey
That's crazy.
01:32:14
Pearce
Idaho and and Utah so at that point i was like see ya guys I'll see you guys in Provo I guess
01:32:15
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:32:20
Darin Tingey
So that's dude, that is the wildest story ever. And you made a home just in time for Christmas, which is pretty cool.
01:32:24
Pearce
Yeah. Just in time for Christmas. Yeah. So my mom was pretty excited.
01:32:29
Darin Tingey
So. Yeah.
01:32:30
Pearce
i mean, my dad was too. My dad is like one of the most patient people I've ever met. My mom's patient too, but my dad's probably more patient. Sorry, mom, if she ever listens to this. um He like, when I was stuck, he was starting to get mad.
01:32:44
Pearce
Like he was starting to get frustrated.
01:32:45
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:32:45
Pearce
He had people in our ward coming up to him and we like live in a nice area, but it's not like super bougie by any means, but he had people in our ward coming up to him be like, Hey, whatever it's going to cost to get him home, you let me know.
01:32:57
Pearce
And I will either pay for it or I'll pitch in as much as you need. Like we had just like couple of people just saying stuff like that.
01:33:01
Darin Tingey
That's crazy.
01:33:04
Pearce
And it was pretty cool. Like it was cool to see some of the support and love that they were receiving as well. But for my dad to start getting upset was was pretty –
01:33:14
Pearce
ah noticeable, I guess, and important to me because he doesn't.
01:33:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:33:19
Pearce
So that's when I like realized it was so serious. i was like, dang, this is crazy. My dad's getting mad, but it was, yeah, it was a long time, crazy story.
01:33:24
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:33:28
Pearce
And um you may have heard, there's people that were from the islands that dude that didn't get home for three or four years.
01:33:33
Darin Tingey
Yeah, years. I know. It's crazy. That's so crazy.
01:33:35
Pearce
So, but it's just, it's COVID such a weird time.
01:33:37
Darin Tingey
Well, dude, you have one of the craziest mission stories ever heard. Like our mission is already crazy in general, but then that on top of it is nuts.
01:33:46
Pearce
Yeah.
01:33:47
Darin Tingey
um So, so happy to have you on. at Last three questions.
01:33:51
Pearce
Yep.
01:33:51
Darin Tingey
Favorite food, favorite area, and favorite thing about Kitabas.
01:33:55
Pearce
Oh, dude, I don't know. I, so I, like I said, I didn't like fish before I got there, but I think the Banny May, Fred May got me through the first couple transfers, but I don't know if it was my favorite by the end. I think by the end, there was a guy on Christmas in our area. His name was Seam.
01:34:11
Pearce
And use like a he and his wife were like a mom and dad to a lot of elders and sisters out there. And we got really close with his family. But he would he was like a tuna fisherman, deep sea fisherman.
01:34:23
Darin Tingey
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:34:23
Pearce
He would bring back fresh tuna every single day. So I think fresh tuna... It doesn't matter how it's cooked. probably halfooked half cooked.
01:34:30
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:34:30
Pearce
Half cooked might have been my favorite, favorite food. um Favorite area. I, I gotta go I just gotta to say Christmas. Like all four.
01:34:40
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:34:40
Pearce
I served in all four kahas that were open. And just all of it, just at that point, your language is is good.
01:34:49
Pearce
Your teaching ability is good.
01:34:50
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:34:51
Pearce
You're finding ability, like everything. You're just, you know what you're doing. And so the experiences we had there, I got to go with just Christmas as a whole.
01:35:00
Darin Tingey
Yeah, makes sense.
01:35:01
Pearce
um
01:35:02
Pearce
Favorite thing about Kitty Bess is that what said?
01:35:03
Darin Tingey
Favorite thing about Kirby's. Yeah. Yeah.
01:35:06
Pearce
um I, you gotta say if, I don't know anyone's been on here and hasn't said the people, there might be something wrong with them because the people are what makes it so great.
01:35:13
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:35:17
Pearce
They're so humble and they have nothing. Um, and they're just so happy. They're so kind and so happy and they will give you the shirt off their back if you ask for it.
01:35:27
Pearce
And they're the best, like they're what makes Kitty Bess Kitty Bess. They're the best part about it, hands down.
01:35:33
Darin Tingey
Yeah, no, absolutely. Dude, and you got to spend a lot of time with them. So
01:35:38
Pearce
i I did. Yeah, more than more than the average. and I was grateful for that.
01:35:41
Darin Tingey
yeah.
01:35:43
Pearce
Still grateful for it.
01:35:43
Darin Tingey
what well you seriously you had like the coolest mission uh crazy experience i'm your parents are probably never gonna let you go back i don't know if you have but i never let you go back um but no seriously such a cool story i'm so happy we had you on i remember seeing this the this news article i was like i gotta have that guy on the podcast so uh
01:35:55
Pearce
Got it. Yep.
01:36:06
Pearce
Yeah, that was actually Elder Reeves parents were the ones that like tipped off KSL to do that article.
01:36:11
Darin Tingey
Get our guys home.
01:36:12
Pearce
Yeah, pretty much that's, that's what it was.
01:36:12
Darin Tingey
That's awesome.
01:36:14
Pearce
I'm pretty sure.
01:36:15
Darin Tingey
Well, dude, thanks again. And this was another great episode of the Islands Podcast.