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Episode 26: Will Arnett - Marshall Islands - Majuro, Ebeye, jambo to Lae
44 Plays14 days ago
Will Arnett served in the Marshall Islands side of the Marshall Islands / Kiribati Mission from 2023 - 2025. Will was part of the first big intake back in the Marshall Islands post covid, which meant he had 6 weeks of training from an older missionary and that was it. Will's mission did not only include preaching the good word of God, but also judging the swim competitions at the Micronesian Olympic Games.
#MarshallIslandsKiribatiMission #MarshallIslands #Majuro #Ebeye #Lae #TheIslandsPodcast #theislands #PacificIslands #PacificIslanders #Micronesia
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Transcript
Introduction and Connection with Will Arnett
00:00:00
Darin Tingey
All right, we're on with another episode of the Island's podcast. Today's a fun guest because we got Will Arnett, who I followed his mission the whole time because we have some mutual connections. i know his extended family super well.
00:00:19
Darin Tingey
And so I basically lived vicariously through you, got to like relive my mission through you by reading your emails, which was so fun and funny.
Will Arnett's Background and Mission Call
00:00:30
Darin Tingey
But we'll give just a little bit of background on you.
00:00:34
William Arnett
All right. Yeah, so I'm Will Arnett. I am right now i'm a freshman at BYU. Just got here. I just got off my mission ah this last summer. Served from 23 to 25 and grew up in Arizona in Gilbert.
00:00:51
William Arnett
And yeah, that's me.
00:00:54
Darin Tingey
Yeah. and and You served in the Marshall Islands side of the mission, right?
00:01:00
William Arnett
Oh, yeah.
00:01:01
Darin Tingey
when you What was it like when you got your mission call? You were a senior in high school, right?
00:01:07
William Arnett
Uh-huh.
00:01:08
Darin Tingey
And what was what was that like opening that mission call?
00:01:09
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:01:12
William Arnett
It was pretty crazy. Kind of like I bet most other people just like having like no idea like what it was. Like I didn't have like a lick on like what it was. And I even like pronounced it like super weird. I said like Marshallese.
00:01:25
William Arnett
I like couldn't even like read it properly. But, and then I remember like, then everyone started like Googling and stuff like, oh, you're wearing the skirts and like all this. And I was like tripping. I was like, no way. What the, that's crazy.
00:01:36
William Arnett
Didn't end up wearing the skirts, but yeah.
00:01:38
Darin Tingey
Yeah, they don't really matter with the Marshall Islands.
Connecting Through Family and Pre-Mission Insights
00:01:43
Darin Tingey
um And then I don't even remember how we got connected. I think your aunt, probably, Lil Wolf is the one who connected us or or Brad Arnett.
00:01:53
William Arnett
It was either Lynn or was it was Kim. i think might've been Kim.
00:01:57
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it might have Kim. Kim. Because Kim was in my home ward. Yeah, I'm sure you're like, people butre like oh, this person served in that mission. This person, you're like, i don't who that is.
00:02:04
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:02:07
Darin Tingey
Do you remember when we did a video call about?
00:02:10
William Arnett
Yeah. And so it's actually funny because I remember we did that that video call. You had made like that PowerPoint for me. And you're like showing me like all your pictures.
00:02:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:02:18
William Arnett
And there was like stuff you told me that like went over my head back then.
00:02:18
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:02:21
William Arnett
But then like as i was like out and stuff, like for example, when I was in like Ybai and like they were like saying the whole like Jatulu thing. I like had a full like call back to like a year and a half ago when you were teaching me what like Jatulu was on the call.
00:02:30
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:02:36
William Arnett
You're like, oh yeah, this island, there's like the people that don't shower. And this is like, oh, that's totally what he's talking about. But like just like randomly came back to me from... the like the zoom call like way before I started.
00:02:46
Darin Tingey
um i'm glad it I'm glad it did because I kind of knew that that's
Cultural Shocks and Missionary Challenges
00:02:52
Darin Tingey
exactly what's going to happen. like You're going to hear and about it from me and see all the pictures, but like you don't really know until you go experience it.
00:03:00
Darin Tingey
ah and like you I could i can tell you all day about the culture, but like you're like, oh, cool. you know That's my mission, whatever.
00:03:07
William Arnett
Yeah. It's just like funny that all like came back to me because it definitely went over my head in the moment. I was just like, well, this place is like scary. There's like nothing. They don't have water. Like, what am I going to do? But then i was there like living life, loving it And I was like looking back like, oh, he was totally telling me about like these are the people that he said like didn't shower and stuff.
00:03:26
Darin Tingey
That's good. So you entered the MTC in the summer of 2023. Is that right?
00:03:35
William Arnett
Uh-huh. Yeah.
00:03:36
Darin Tingey
And how big was how big was your intake?
00:03:38
William Arnett
Yeah. So my intake, it was pretty big. So there was 15 of us learning Marshallese and four of those were going to like Hawaii, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
00:03:50
William Arnett
But my like MTC group was the first like big group back in there, like back in the islands since like pre-COVID. Cause you talked like Elder Weaver. And so he showed up with the, like a handful, but once like my group got there like when I think when I first touched ground there was like 15 of us or like there's like I think 15 16 just missionaries on like in the
Missionary Work and Community in the Marshall Islands
00:04:12
William Arnett
Marshall Islands so it was definitely like the first big group they had to like kind of find teachers for us and stuff so it was definitely interesting but it was it was a lot of fun like
00:04:23
Darin Tingey
So you guys were like the real, really the first intake post COVID, really. Like the true intake.
00:04:29
William Arnett
yeah first like big intake because they just got like a little bit here and there and then they just got a bunch of just like fresh, fresh MTC people like running it.
00:04:39
Darin Tingey
Yeah, a big MTC group. but Did you find that fun and enjoyable to have a big group?
00:04:43
William Arnett
i really liked it because it was fun like spending the whole time with these guys, like knowing like this is like your like group, like these are your boys for like the next two years.
00:04:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:04:54
William Arnett
So I really enjoyed the whole like
00:04:55
Darin Tingey
and
00:04:56
William Arnett
15 man. It did make like class a little bit like disruptive. I feel like we could have like learned a little more, but it was tons of fun.
00:05:04
Darin Tingey
Who were your teachers in MTC?
00:05:06
William Arnett
ah Do you know, Dallin Norman or TJ Nichols? They served in Layton.
00:05:14
Darin Tingey
No, I don't know.
00:05:16
William Arnett
So yeah, they they served in Layton. They weren't called Marshallese, but when they got to Layton, their president assigned them to Marshallese.
00:05:23
Darin Tingey
Late in Utah?
00:05:25
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:05:26
Darin Tingey
Oh, no way. That's crazy.
00:05:29
William Arnett
ahha And I think, I believe they're still teaching there right now.
00:05:32
Darin Tingey
That's funny. Yeah, there's such a random pockets of Marshallese people in the States that I feel like a lot of missions randomly get Marshallese speaking missionaries or tell people start running Marshallese.
00:05:37
William Arnett
it's It's so funny.
00:05:44
Darin Tingey
So, okay, you have a unique you have a unique mission, right? Because you guys are reopening, rebuilding the mission. So if you had such a big intake coming in, like, did you guys even have trainers for you when you got to the Marshall Islands?
00:06:01
William Arnett
So, uh, they kind of, so that it is, they had 11 of us going, but they actually split it into like two groups. So I was part of the, like, I went straight away there. So I, I did have a trainer for one transfer and, but then, but my trainer had been there for, I think two transfers before me, just like two transfers he spent like on the islands. Cause he was on a reassignment for a while, but,
00:06:25
William Arnett
So they sent five of us and then the other six, they went for a reassignment for a transfer and then they came. And when they came, it was pretty much just like they were putting my MTC district with people from my MTC district as well. So like my second transfer, I was with my MTC companion and like we both didn't know like a Wicca Marshallese and it was just like a fun, just like figure it out.
00:06:47
William Arnett
couple transfers. Yeah.
00:06:50
Darin Tingey
Okay, so quickly, let's run through your areas and then we can start the beginning. what What was your, what were your areas?
00:06:56
William Arnett
Okay. And so I, it's a long list. Cause actually, I bounced around a lot. I served in every single ward in the Marshall Islands throughout my whole time, which is like kind of a crazy thing to think about that served in every single ward and that I met like most the members.
00:07:07
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that's nuts.
00:07:12
William Arnett
But so I started out, I did a transfer covering both Rita and Jenrick. That was when I was getting trained.
00:07:19
William Arnett
And then is the connection okay?
00:07:22
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:07:23
William Arnett
Okay, sweet. Yeah, yeah. And Rita Jenrick. And then they bounced me over to Long Island, which I spent, I think, two there. And then I went to Dellap for one.
00:07:36
William Arnett
And then from Dellap, I did Ajotagai for two. And then that's when I went to Ibai. I was in Thuyang for um three.
00:07:44
William Arnett
And then we had what's called, we did like, ah did you have like the, less active missionaries when you served. Was that a thing?
00:07:52
Darin Tingey
Towards the end, yeah.
00:07:52
William Arnett
Like an EBI?
00:07:53
Darin Tingey
Towards the end it it was, yeah.
00:07:55
William Arnett
Yeah. So we had implemented that. And so I got to do that for a transfer too. And so that one, that's where I covered all three, um like all three wards of EBI.
00:08:05
William Arnett
And then also covered the Kwajalein ward with like the military people.
00:08:10
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:08:11
William Arnett
And then came back Laura for two and then app for my final four. So
00:08:17
Darin Tingey
Dang, you really did hit every single one.
00:08:18
William Arnett
i went I went all over the place and then a trip to L.A. in there too.
00:08:24
Darin Tingey
Yeah, dang, wow. Hey, you got to see basically everything.
00:08:28
William Arnett
So, yeah, well, and so I've i've taken the sacrament every single like chapel, every single ward in the Marshall Islands.
00:08:30
Darin Tingey
ah
00:08:36
William Arnett
That's kind of my like little flex, I guess.
00:08:39
Darin Tingey
even the Even the quad branch, right?
00:08:43
William Arnett
Yeah, even quads because I went there for one Sunday.
00:08:44
Darin Tingey
Or the quad ward.
00:08:45
William Arnett
Yeah. yeah
00:08:47
Darin Tingey
That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. So you're going to have to help me then what go through it all because you probably have a million different stories and everything, but we'll talk about the the areas that were kind of most influential or the stories, whatever. So so you get transferred or so you get, you get a trained for one transfer and then second transfer it's, Hey, I'm with my MTC companion.
00:09:13
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:09:14
Darin Tingey
Like just, what was that like?
00:09:16
William Arnett
I was like, I was excited because I'm i'm really good friends with my MTC companion. And so i was like excited to be companions with them. But I was like super scared. I had my like interview with Prez.
00:09:29
William Arnett
And he was like, okay, you're going to be... with Elder Hansen was his name. And i was like, whoa, I like just was with him in the MTC. We do not know how to be missionaries. And he's like, oh, well, we're kind of stretched thin. So it's going to have to work. I was like, okay.
00:09:47
William Arnett
And so, and I was really scared at first, but I think that transfer and like the transfer after that were really huge for me because I think my first chance with my trainer, I kind of was in that like habit of like,
00:10:00
William Arnett
you know like greenies just sometimes are just like scared to like kind of open their mouths. They don't want to be wrong. They don't want to like, as well as they have a trainer that knows more than them. So it's like, don't like, why do I like say stuff? like I'm just going to practice my trainer until the point that I like kind of stand. So that, that was actually a huge blessing because again, us two knew nothing. So we just went out and we just failed and failed every day to the point that we kind of started to get getting a decent grasp on just like missionary work in general, but especially like the language.
Church Dynamics Post-COVID
00:10:30
Darin Tingey
yeah did was it was it hard to find anyone to teach because there was like such a language barrier or did you guys just start going to members houses first and like hopefully they kind helped you
00:10:40
William Arnett
See, and that's the problem is we weren't like the greatest at just like missionary work in general. Like we didn't know like what our good, like kind of,
00:10:51
William Arnett
methods were. So we just would go talk to just like random people. Like we were not very good at working with the members. And so like, as far as like stuff getting accomplished, we found like a few cool people.
00:11:02
William Arnett
There was a a girl that we found that eventually got baptized later other missionaries. So it wasn't like, a waste by means. It was definitely like still good stuff, but we just, we just literally just went and just talked to random people, talked to a ton of just boo-boos and just sat there and just chopped it up with them trying to learn the language. They had to sit there and laugh at us.
00:11:25
Darin Tingey
The boo-boos are the best, dude, because they're just so loving. They'll laugh at you.
00:11:29
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:11:30
Darin Tingey
They'll make fun of you, but they'll teach you at the same time. And usually feeds you, too.
00:11:35
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:11:36
Darin Tingey
Was, um, like, you still, like, i heard that post-COVID, right, like, the church was just, during COVID, the church kind of got wrecked, like, meaning that a lot of people stopped coming, and, um,
00:11:50
Darin Tingey
lot left to the States. So I heard that there just weren't a lot of people coming to church and that probably throughout your time, you probably saw a lot of reactivation. But when you first got there, were there lot of going to church or not really?
00:12:05
William Arnett
not like Would you say you had like each ward had a couple hundred going when you were there?
00:12:11
Darin Tingey
yeah Yeah, probably, depending on the word.
00:12:14
William Arnett
Yeah, because for us, I don't think any ward was going over a hundred when we first got there. like There's a few wards that were like better off. like They had callings filled and stuff, but I think when I got there, Jenrick...
00:12:29
William Arnett
just had a second counselor. They didn't have a bishop or a first.
00:12:34
Darin Tingey
No way. but Just a counselor doing right on the
00:12:35
William Arnett
Yeah. like
00:12:39
William Arnett
It was just a second counselor. And it was like that, like the whole transfer, I was there. And then like another two after, like, it was just the second counselor with like the entire workload of the ward on his shoulders.
00:12:51
William Arnett
So yeah, the wards were definitely pretty, pretty bad shape when we first got there and that was something really fun is because there was like a lot of work to be done like in that two-year span i got to see a lot of things kind of shift i got like got to see a lot of wards kind of just turn around and have more than a hundred people show up to have callings filled, to have elders quorums, to have like release of studies.
00:13:15
William Arnett
And so that that was something fun to see is just to see like that progress from it, just kind of like, just barely hanging on from COVID to kind of getting back to a little bit of what it used to be.
00:13:26
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah. Even when I came in August, like it felt, I just felt like there was a lot of fear of people in the Marshall Islands, like a lot of people left post COVID.
00:13:35
William Arnett
Yeah. Well, one of the comments that you made that just like blew my mind is when, cause you were, you were with me and Evi and we ran into your family and you're like this place is a ghost town. You said that? And i was like, no way. He just said Evi is a ghost town. Like, that's crazy. But like, you're probably right. Like that place it's, it's even Evi's lost so many people, but it's still just so many people there.
00:13:56
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it was it was actually wild how empty it felt. And i I mean, there's so many people still on eBuy, but like it felt crowded when I was there.
00:14:04
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:14:08
Darin Tingey
And
00:14:08
William Arnett
Oh, I bet. Because it's it's a pretty crowded place as it is now. And like the population was way more back in 2016, 17. Yeah.
00:14:16
Darin Tingey
yeah, i talked about this with Ellery Miller on her podcast.
00:14:24
Darin Tingey
about how like the biggest risk to the Marshall Islands is out-migration. People are just leaving all the time to come to the States.
00:14:30
William Arnett
yeah
00:14:32
Darin Tingey
And it's kind of, you know, I'm happy for them, but i'm also like sad, right? I'm just i' was just like thinking, like man, Nadro would have twice as many wards. Ebi would have two stakes.
00:14:43
Darin Tingey
like
00:14:44
William Arnett
who
00:14:45
Darin Tingey
it The church would be huge, but just because the population just keeps leaving, it's hard.
00:14:52
William Arnett
Well, yeah. and
00:14:52
Darin Tingey
Luckily, they have a ton of kids, so that's good.
00:14:56
William Arnett
Yeah. Because if you kind of compare it to, because Kitabas, from what I understand, Kitabas, like people, it's not as easy to migrate out of there. And so Kitabas, like the church is actually kind of growing as to where the Marshall Islands, it feels like we're more just like maintaining, like, obviously we're like, there's people being baptized and the church is like growing, but we're also just kind of filling the spots that are leaving, you know, because um a lot of people end up leaving and going the States.
00:15:05
Darin Tingey
yeah
00:15:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:15:26
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I think there's like seven branches or warts in the United States that are Marshallese official branches. So it's like, that's another state, you know, that's right.
00:15:35
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:15:37
Darin Tingey
There's another state. So anyway, but back to your mission, like, okay, what I never served in breed or gender, I didn't spend a lot of time there. Uh, haven't talked about it on the podcast too much, but like what, how would you describe those areas?
00:15:52
William Arnett
um I really loved Rita and Jenrick because it, mean, I didn't understand this when I was there, but like after going to E-buy and then going back to like Jenrick on exchanges, it's like your own little mini E-buy, like Jenrick.
00:16:04
William Arnett
That's what we always called it. It's just like, it's, it's like miniature E-buy. Cause you still, you have, yeah. Sorry, someone's knocking on my door. um It's just kind of this like mini E-buy, you have all your members close by. because that was the funnest part about E-buy is you had all your members like,
00:16:20
William Arnett
kind of compacted in like one spot.
00:16:21
Darin Tingey
yeah ah yeah i don't think i ever even went over there
00:16:22
William Arnett
And so you could take anyone you wanted to different lessons and stuff. So I really enjoyed that about it as well as just like my greeny self was like, so excited about like edge it, walking to edge it.
00:16:34
William Arnett
Like the fact that my, that my, like in my area, I could like walk like through the water. Like I was like typing up in my emails, like I get to walk across the water to get to a different section of my area.
00:16:45
William Arnett
So it was a it was a really fun like really fun first area, and it was a great like first area for just greening me to just like see a bunch of stuff. There's a bunch of cool members that fed different stuff and like just kind of like ate up the fact that I didn't know Marshallese.
00:17:01
William Arnett
And so it was it was a great first
00:17:02
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:17:04
Darin Tingey
Probably good too is like a density like more densely populated part of Maduro to like learn the language and like learn how to
Missionary Life and Companionships
00:17:11
Darin Tingey
be a missionary. Because if you were in Ashutagi, man, Ashutagi is like so spaced out.
00:17:16
Darin Tingey
You're not really talking to as many people as you are gender in
00:17:17
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:17:20
William Arnett
Oh, for sure.
00:17:23
Darin Tingey
what i What was typical like P-Day for you guys?
00:17:26
William Arnett
Typical P-Day. feel like it changed ah throughout because we had like different, like some, for the first bit, it was just like fine for everyone to like meet up. But there was a point where like they only wanted us to like meet as like districts. They didn't want us to like meet.
00:17:41
William Arnett
and like big groups. But there was like a point, it was like, ah was like a little before, like a year into my mission, we had like some intense games, ah Ultimate Frisbee, you know, like that field, right? Across from K and K.
00:17:54
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's the best field.
00:17:55
William Arnett
We would just get like both sides would come down and would just like run these big games of ultimate Frisbee. It was funny because we're just it's like right next to the street. You know, there's that road that just goes like right by it.
00:18:06
William Arnett
The Frisbee would like go in the street. We'd have to like traffic would stop. We'd like run out and grab it and like go back. But did a lot of that, lot of basketball with some of the like the Marshallese people, obviously volleyball.
00:18:18
Darin Tingey
Yeah, the basketball and volleyball, I feel like every evening in the Marshall Islands, it was the best because you'd work hard all day and then in the evening, everybody playing volleyball, basketball.
00:18:29
Darin Tingey
You just go play with them.
00:18:29
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:18:31
Darin Tingey
So fun.
00:18:32
William Arnett
yeah. It was always so fun. Just throwing like some cross ball. Like you finish your last lesson, just like play a game or two on the way home.
00:18:39
Darin Tingey
Yeah. And they probably, i mean, you were like a giant there. I mean, you're you're tall.
00:18:45
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:18:45
Darin Tingey
And you're probably just towering over these people.
00:18:49
William Arnett
It was so fun. I think it like hurt my like basketball game. Cause like, coming back, everyone's now the same height as me. And I i just played like a big man, but now like, I'm not that like that much taller than anyone, but it was a lot of fun just getting every rebound on everyone.
00:19:05
Darin Tingey
okay so from Genric, so how long were you with your your MTC Companion as Companions?
00:19:11
William Arnett
I was with him for then three transfers. So in my first like seven a half months, I was companions with him for six of them.
00:19:21
Darin Tingey
Dang, so you guys really like grew up in the mission together.
00:19:26
William Arnett
Oh yeah. He's like one of my best friends. Cause it's like, I spent so much time with that guy. So, cause what happened is, yeah.
00:19:31
Darin Tingey
And, go ahead, go ahead.
00:19:36
William Arnett
So we did the two, we did two in long Island together and then they moved us together Dell app, like to a different area.
00:19:43
Darin Tingey
Okay, so Jendrik Rida was with your trainer.
00:19:47
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:19:48
Darin Tingey
then transferred to Long Island as your second as your second transfer with Elder Hanson.
00:19:55
William Arnett
hu
00:19:56
Darin Tingey
And then you guys, so you guys work Long Island together and then Dellop. Okay, okay, gotcha.
00:20:01
William Arnett
Yeah, so we were we were in Long Island for three months. We were there for Christmas. We did like the dance and everything with Long Island Ward.
00:20:09
Darin Tingey
Hey, Elder Hanson has, he's got some moves. I saw those videos, he's got some moves.
00:20:13
William Arnett
I know, and and I do not. So yeah I got so much like,
00:20:17
Darin Tingey
ah
00:20:19
William Arnett
made fun of so much by the members. They would like joke with me saying I had like glue on my shoes and stuff. It was funny.
00:20:26
Darin Tingey
Did you guys do beat with Long Island Ward?
00:20:26
William Arnett
ah just, I'm not.
00:20:29
William Arnett
Yeah, we, we did like do the practices with them and went and danced with them.
00:20:33
Darin Tingey
Did you do beat with, did you guys to do a missionary beat?
00:20:38
William Arnett
So that year we did not, we did a beat my second Christmas though.
00:20:42
Darin Tingey
Okay. First year, you guys were all too new. You guys probably were just a little nervous, didn't know.
00:20:46
William Arnett
and well and And none of us had done a Christmas before. There was no one that had been there for Christmas. like i think I don't even think like our president was. I think he was in Kitabas. In reality, we didn't know what to expect. like All the members were like, do you have one coming? like Do you have a beat like prepared? Or we're like, oh, are are we supposed to? like no No one really knew.
00:21:08
Darin Tingey
Yeah, you and you're like, and don't know if you've even seen beat at this point in your mission, but if you had, it probably wasn't on the level of Christmas.
00:21:14
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:21:17
Darin Tingey
Like Christmas beat is next level.
00:21:18
William Arnett
Oh, no, I had not seen anything like that. Like there'd been a few like chem-ems that like, there was like a little dance prepare, but it wasn't, it was not on that level of Christmas by any means.
00:21:27
Darin Tingey
Yeah, so like talk me talk talk to me about beat like on Christmas. How was that for your first time experiencing it?
00:21:33
William Arnett
Oh, it was so fun. Like I remember like talking to parents, like this is like probably one funnest Christmases I've ever had. Like, I don't remember feeling very homesick on Christmas because it was just, it was a ton of fun. Just like one, you got to be with like all the different elders and sisters and then all the different like, because at that point ah knew Rita members, knew generic members and like Long Island. So I like knew different members. And so I got to see some of those people. And at that point I learned a little bit of Marshallese. So i was like, for me, I just had a ton of fun because I could go like kind of have a conversation then as to where like when I was in Rita generic, I couldn't really say much.
00:22:10
William Arnett
And so my my first Christmas, I had a ton of fun.
00:22:10
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:22:13
William Arnett
And then I just like was eating it up with the culture, just trying to dance, even though I was really bad at it.
Cultural Events and Traditions
00:22:19
Darin Tingey
It's like B is like this. It's so hard to describe to someone who has never seen it.
00:22:25
William Arnett
Oh, yeah, for sure.
00:22:25
Darin Tingey
And I'm like telling my family, like, it's the coolest thing, like the way they like move their feet, like it's so there's the rhythm is just so good.
00:22:36
Darin Tingey
and My family's like, well, do something for us. You try and replicate it and it just doesn't look cool. They're like, that kind looks lame.
00:22:42
William Arnett
No. Well, and there's a lot more that like goes into it.
00:22:44
Darin Tingey
Like you got to see in person.
00:22:46
William Arnett
There's a lot more that goes into it than you think. Like the footwork is, that they actually like, there actually is like a lot of footwork to it It's not just like, kind of like the hand motions and stuff.
00:22:55
Darin Tingey
Yeah. The footwork is like, you see the the guys up front are like the best, right? And they're so good.
00:23:01
William Arnett
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:23:02
Darin Tingey
They're so good at beat.
00:23:05
William Arnett
Did you see that?
00:23:05
Darin Tingey
But
00:23:06
William Arnett
the The video of my second Christmas where my companion was the Mantyabada?
00:23:10
Darin Tingey
I did, and it was awesome. I thought he had the moves, man
00:23:14
William Arnett
so So yeah, he he was like, he was, i was training him and he just like, we went to like practice and he just like picked it up. I was like, what the, and they were like, all the Marshallese people were like eating it up that he was like super good at it. They put him at the front. It was so funny.
00:23:32
Darin Tingey
Yeah, he was good. I remember seeing those videos. It was so fun. did as ah So for Christmas, did did you as missionaries do something different besides the beat? Did you guys have anything with your mission president or or a senior couple? or anything like that
00:23:46
William Arnett
No. So I think on Christmas, most like the mission the mission president and like senior couples were in Kitabas. not ah this There were some senior couples here, but ah President Kendall spent, I think, both Christmases when I was there in Kitabas.
00:24:04
William Arnett
So it was just, I know, because we yeah we just we just met up.
00:24:04
Darin Tingey
He missed out.
00:24:08
William Arnett
We had, like, picked everyone up, went to the chapel in the morning, and then we just spent all day there until we went home.
00:24:15
Darin Tingey
Yeah. I never was on Island for Christmas. I was on E-Buy and then Lai for my two Christmases.
00:24:22
William Arnett
Oh, really? You never spent a Christmas in Medellin?
00:24:24
Darin Tingey
No, never. So, mean, which I had fun on E-Buy. I had so much fun on E-Buy for Christmas and I had so much fun Lai, but like, It would have been fun to also have a Christmas on Madtra with all the missionaries and stuff.
00:24:37
William Arnett
Yeah. Well, I mean, everyone on Maduro was just like talking about how good E-Buy's was. So
00:24:43
Darin Tingey
E-Buy's was really fun. It was really fun.
00:24:46
William Arnett
heard, I heard, I've always, i always heard E-Buy's was the better Christmas.
00:24:51
Darin Tingey
it was It was awesome. It was impressive. And I feel Bede's one of those things that brings a lot of people
00:24:54
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:25:00
Darin Tingey
back to church. I mean, don't necessarily come to church, but they come to beat. And you're like, oh, that guy's a member?
00:25:05
William Arnett
Oh yeah.
00:25:06
Darin Tingey
Like, I didn't know that. You know, it's like all these, like, especially all these teenagers too that had been baptized but like aren't active and they all come to church to do beat.
00:25:11
William Arnett
<unk> Yeah.
00:25:15
Darin Tingey
And you're like, oh, did like we have like twice as many members that I knew about. And like here they all are all doing beat for Christmas. Like that's sick.
00:25:26
William Arnett
I always thought that was like so funny and like awesome. Like whenever you have like a big party or something, like all the people that were like kind of less active or never came just come for like all the festivities. Cause like,
00:25:37
William Arnett
you show up for like the beat practice and there's just like way more people that were like are there than like we're at sacramarine. These are all members? Who are these people? They meet all the youth that like just don't come.
00:25:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah, exactly.
00:25:49
Darin Tingey
It's so funny. It's just doubles the size. And you're like, Oh, well, that's how it was on eBuy. It was just like, I like saw so many kids that I'd seen around. I'm like, Oh, what? It's kind of members like the sweet.
00:25:59
William Arnett
Yeah. but
00:26:01
Darin Tingey
Let's go.
00:26:01
William Arnett
For real.
00:26:04
Darin Tingey
Okay, so you guys were companions in Long Island. Where did you live in Long Island?
00:26:08
William Arnett
um I don't know if it would have been built when you were there. Did you see where like a lot of the senior couples housing was when you came and visited? It's in Baragam.
00:26:19
Darin Tingey
ah Senior couples lived in Laging God when I was there, but
Leadership and Adaptation in Delap
00:26:23
William Arnett
Okay. So there was, we had some in Lajagar. That's where our president was.
00:26:24
Darin Tingey
so.
00:26:28
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:26:29
William Arnett
And I, a few of them, but there was like, I'm now forgetting the name of the place. It was next to, you know, that did you have like that that building when you were there with all the red balls on it? M-Ball?
00:26:39
Darin Tingey
ah is it like a chinese Is there a Chinese restaurant there?
00:26:42
William Arnett
Yeah, it's like that Chinese restaurant. There's like all those like ugly red balls on the on the side.
00:26:44
Darin Tingey
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, know what you're talking
00:26:47
William Arnett
So right across from that is actually some like pretty nice apartments. And that's where we stayed.
00:26:54
Darin Tingey
about. Okay, cool, cool, okay. And then did you guys have a car in that area or bikes or walk?
00:27:01
William Arnett
um So we actually, we had a car for like half the time actually, which was pretty crazy. And that's just cause the mission was like still smaller.
00:27:08
Darin Tingey
Heck yeah.
00:27:11
William Arnett
So they had more cars to like give out. Cause eventually no one in Long Island had cars. It was just like the but ends that had the vans, like bring people in.
00:27:19
Darin Tingey
Yeah, i
00:27:20
William Arnett
But yeah, at the time,
00:27:22
Darin Tingey
I had a car in Uluga for transfer. And it's just because I i borrowed a car from the mission office for P-Day, and I just didn't give it back for whole transfer.
00:27:32
William Arnett
yeah
00:27:35
Darin Tingey
It was great. it was great to have. ah It was funny. Okay, so then you go to Delap, right? You guys get transferred to Delap together. What was the What was the shift like? You know you go from Rita Jendrick more densely than Long Island, which is little more like suburban feel, and then back to city and Delaware.
00:27:55
William Arnett
um It was definitely because um like in my head, I just kind of picture like my time in like Long Island is like training grounds. Like it's just like kind of where i kind of figured out like what I was doing. Because then it was fun to go back to Dell up where it was like kind of city-ish and be able to go out. And ah like, I still was learning a ton because we were just kind of like self-taught, but go out and like kind of do some missionary work in the city where there's a lot of people where you're kind of surrounded by some good members.
00:28:24
William Arnett
That's when I met Bishop Betty.
00:28:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah, let's talk about Bishop Betty.
00:28:26
William Arnett
who
00:28:27
Darin Tingey
Give me some Betty stories.
00:28:30
William Arnett
Betty's stories. So did you were you ever very close with Betty? Did you talk to him much?
00:28:34
Darin Tingey
I unfortunately didn't get to know him that well. I mean, I didn't serve on Maduro too much, but he was in the stake presidency when I was there. And he, i just remember him giving such a freaking baller talk at stake conference.
00:28:47
Darin Tingey
I was like, this guy's the man.
00:28:48
William Arnett
Uh-huh.
00:28:50
Darin Tingey
Like his talk was legit.
00:28:50
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:28:52
William Arnett
Yeah. So Bishop Betty has to be like one of my favorite people I've met throughout my whole mission. Like he's just like an amazing example to me of just like one, a great leader, but he's just like a very Christlike person.
00:29:06
William Arnett
And he's, and just like the way he like led the Dell up like ward, he just got the members all on like this ministering thing. And that's what made, cause Dell up by the end was like way higher than like, like than any other war Like they had like full on ministering assignments going and like, it was like, ah it it looked like an American ward. It was like pretty crazy.
00:29:29
William Arnett
But, but he, would he was awesome.
00:29:29
Darin Tingey
Heck yeah.
00:29:31
William Arnett
ah He would, this, this comes up to like later. We didn't work with them like too much. My first transfer, I was there. But when, like when i got to my like last six months, he would like come proselyting with us.
00:29:44
William Arnett
It was, it was so much fun.
00:29:46
Darin Tingey
Did he ever get mad at any missionaries, like just go off on them?
00:29:51
William Arnett
Yeah, like he he didn't ah like he said it how it was. like if He didn't really approve of like certain missionaries. He would totally just sit there and like make jokes about them and like say, like this guy's lazy or this, this. And so he was so funny to sit there and talk to.
00:30:07
William Arnett
But like if you were on his good side, like it was so much fun.
00:30:11
Darin Tingey
he didn't He didn't mince words, that's for sure. There was a couple stories. It wasn't me, but some other missionaries just got just got railed by him. like he he like I don't remember what they were doing, but he just let them have it.
00:30:27
Darin Tingey
And it's just like, oh, like don't let Betty see you like being lazy. That guy is going to lay it into you.
00:30:33
William Arnett
Yeah. Uh-huh. But yeah, no, he's so awesome. I really, really enjoyed my last six months because we we just worked really closely with him. We were always like me and up telling him about like different investigators and stuff and and that the work really pumped those last six months in Dell with Bishop Betty.
00:30:53
Darin Tingey
and, and we can actually I'll ask this when we give back to you last six months, because we can we can talk about that.
00:30:58
William Arnett
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:01
Darin Tingey
But your first your first go down in Dell, you're there for just a transfer or two?
00:31:05
William Arnett
Yeah, just to just it was only five weeks because I was supposed to be – this is like such like a marshales like Marshall Islands thing to happen.
Logistics and Unexpected Transfers
00:31:14
William Arnett
So me and Elder Hanson were actually supposed to stay in Long Island for a third.
00:31:19
William Arnett
But randomly, a sister showed up to the airport that no one knew was coming. And so they had to – put them in and they wanted to keep like the sisters. i don't really understand why, but they had, they basically had to make another companionship sisters and they just put them in me and other Hanson's area and then just kind of bumped us down to Dell
00:31:39
Darin Tingey
Just kicked you out.
00:31:40
William Arnett
Yeah. So we we were like a week in to that transfer and then randomly we had like shown up to the office And i was in like a meeting or something with president and I looked up at the board and it just had like me and other Hanson and like the Dell Chapel house. was like, wait, is that right? What is that?
00:31:59
William Arnett
And then like afterwards he's like, oh yeah, it's like today you're moving down there because we accidentally got a sister that we didn't know was coming. So, okay.
00:32:06
Darin Tingey
Poor sister showed to the airport, and no one was there to get her.
00:32:09
William Arnett
Yeah. I think it was sister Narayan just happened to, did you know sister Narayan?
00:32:15
Darin Tingey
ah sounds super familiar. Yeah, sister around yeah, yeah, yeah, I know where she is, yeah.
00:32:17
William Arnett
She, She was like part Kitabas.
00:32:21
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah, she was, ah I worked closely with her did the kiddos branch, yeah.
00:32:24
William Arnett
Uh-huh. Yeah. so she just happened to like drive by the airport and be like, like sister, like, do you need something? She's like, Oh yeah. I'm like here, but no one came to get me. And so sister and Orion brought her back to the mission office.
00:32:36
William Arnett
Uh-huh.
00:32:38
Darin Tingey
or just I mean, that as that has happened while I was out there too. I'm sure it happened like a decent amount for you guys get rebuilding the mission. But I had a companion get transferred from Kitabasite over.
00:32:46
William Arnett
ah
00:32:49
Darin Tingey
Luckily, he was from the Marsh Islands. Laupepe, you probably know him. But he yeah he showed up and no one was there to get him No one knew was coming.
00:33:00
Darin Tingey
Like no one knew. Levin, he's from the area, so he's like, i'll just taxi to the mission office.
00:33:07
Darin Tingey
But...
00:33:07
William Arnett
Yeah, it's like such a Marshall Islands thing to like have happen.
00:33:12
Darin Tingey
Okay, and then from there, I can't remember when the Olympic Games happened. Were you on E-Buy at that point?
00:33:19
William Arnett
So that that that was when I went to Ibai. So that's like that was like halfway through my mission.
00:33:25
Darin Tingey
Okay, wait, so I don't want to skip ahead too much. I don't because I know you probably got stories for this.
00:33:28
William Arnett
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So after Dell Up, that is when I went to Ajatarei.
00:33:34
Darin Tingey
Okay, so you're like, okay, finally, i get to go a countryside. Were you like excited about it just that year or not really?
00:33:40
William Arnett
Um, I, it was kind of just mixed cause I was excited. Cause like, I hadn't like, I just like heard I was going to get to like drink a bunch of coconut and like, kind of like experience a little more.
00:33:52
William Arnett
and I think it was like one of your emails to me saying like, Oh, like now you kind of like experience a little bit of like kind of the outer Island life, a little bit of kind of more of that, that country lifestyle.
00:34:03
William Arnett
And so I was excited for that, but I also heard like it's slower and when like In my first like few months, because literally everyone was like brand new, Marshallese was like the only thing people talked about like because everyone was just like stressed about learning it.
00:34:18
William Arnett
And everyone was just like, I need to be in this area so I can learn like fast and get going. And so like I was like, ooh, do I want to go to Ajotavé? I heard like, you can't really like, it's hard to learn Marshallese there.
00:34:29
William Arnett
But ultimately got there and actually had... ah good time I actually really liked my stay in Ajitare. Ajitare was a really rough place to serve throughout my time. there's just There was always some more drama and just tons of stuff like nonsense kind of going down in Ajitare. But while I was there, was actually a very peaceful three-month window. We had two baptisms while was there. So it' was actually – really enjoyed my time.
00:34:57
Darin Tingey
Yeah, fruitful. I mean, for the listeners that have never been to Ashton Taki, it's just so skinny and long.
00:35:05
William Arnett
yeah
00:35:06
Darin Tingey
The ward boundary is like huge if you like lengthwise, right? It's just, they have van to pick people up for church. But the houses are so spaced out that just getting from house to house takes forever.
00:35:22
Darin Tingey
ah So mostly, I feel like Majority your day is spent like actually commuting to you different people that you're trying to visit.
00:35:31
William Arnett
Oh yeah. Totally. Like just back and forth. Like, especially if like it was one of those days where you didn't plan it out very well. And just like, just going back and forth, like not really talking to a whole lot of people throughout, throughout it.
00:35:45
William Arnett
But yeah. And it's like funny comparing like the size of Adjotaga area to like my Tuoyang area, which was like the size, like I did the math once.
00:35:45
Darin Tingey
But it's beautiful.
00:35:53
William Arnett
It's like the size of Perry high school. Like, It's like the size of Perry High School, like not even counting one of its parking
00:36:00
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's crazy the difference. I mean, as you talk to you is kind of what an outer island feels like in the sense of like, there's just a lot fewer people, you're doing a lot, you're talking a lot fewer people, but get that you get the island experience, everyone's a little more laid back, you know, they're hanging out outside.
00:36:22
Darin Tingey
You probably learned a little more like true Marshallese words and like...
00:36:26
William Arnett
ahha
00:36:28
Darin Tingey
Yeah, how did you feel like your language actually like suffered in Adesitaki? Like because you weren't talking as much?
00:36:32
William Arnett
No. i like I feel like there's definitely like areas that help, but as long as you're like on top of finding people to talk to, your language isn't going to like really suffer.
00:36:41
William Arnett
like Obviously, if I was in, say, eBay or Dell app and just like talking all day, it'd probably get like better than if I was in Adeptoged, but still get to sit down and talk to people
00:36:42
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:36:52
William Arnett
and like It's not like there's no people around the table.
00:36:55
Darin Tingey
Did you live at Bishop's house or you live the chapel house?
Community Dynamics and Personal Resilience
00:36:58
William Arnett
Yeah, so was that like other greenhouse built when you were there?
00:37:03
Darin Tingey
Next, Bishop's house, the green one.
00:37:04
William Arnett
Yeah, like right in front of Bishop's house?
00:37:07
Darin Tingey
ah ah term Bishop lived in like a trailer when we were there and then there's a house.
00:37:12
William Arnett
Oh, okay, never mind. So he it's it's different than now because Bishop has his own... like dark greenhouse and then like like it can park like it's right like his front door you walk like 15 feet and then there's our front door and then we have like a bright like greenhouse right in front of it and so that's it was actually like ah really really nice house because bishop's good at the whole like building
00:37:20
Darin Tingey
Okay.
00:37:31
Darin Tingey
ah Okay.
00:37:41
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's a nice house. I live in the chapel house. And then like, I think our, i don't know if the water went out or something, but like we had to go stay at the other elders house, which was David to bishops.
00:37:52
Darin Tingey
and was like, dang, this is a nice house. Like, this is sweet.
00:37:54
William Arnett
Yeah, no, it was a good place.
00:37:57
Darin Tingey
And war drama. I mean, I feel like that's always happening in the martial arts. I mean, that happens all over the world, right?
00:38:04
Darin Tingey
Everywhere. But did it have did it have to do with Bishop's family at all? I mean, that guy's Bishop for like, he's been Bishop for like 10 plus years.
00:38:04
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:38:11
William Arnett
Yeah, and i I don't know what you, like, Marshall's viewership is, so I don't want to, like, dox anyone, but... Yeah, just a lot of people kind of definitely had their struggles with Bishop. and and it ebbed and flowed.
00:38:24
William Arnett
Like I said, like when I was there, i actually caught it at a peaceful time. But i after I left, i heard that – I think there was one sacrament that there was like 10 to 15 people there. like it It got really bad.
00:38:40
William Arnett
There just was a ton of drama with Bishop. Yeah.
00:38:43
Darin Tingey
It's hard, like, because there's not a lot of people in Ashtaki that really can, I mean, I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't say that there's not a lot of people that serve leadership, but like, I mean, Bishop's been Bishop for 10 plus years, Bishop Bonnie.
00:38:52
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:38:58
Darin Tingey
And so,
00:38:58
William Arnett
Well, mean, he he was Bishop when you were there. And then when I was there and he's still Bishop like now, you know.
00:39:03
Darin Tingey
yeah, yeah, exactly. So like, it's been more than a decade. He was branch president before that. So it's been more than a decade. So there's obviously like, there's probably a little bit of territorial grounds, a little bit of, you know, who's, who's ward it is.
00:39:22
Darin Tingey
But when I was there, there wasn't a lot of, there was slim pickings as far as like priesthood holders to hold positions of leadership.
00:39:33
Darin Tingey
which is always like hard. Like, what do you do as a state president? You know, like, anyway.
00:39:37
William Arnett
Yeah, they definitely had their like work cut out for them when it came to like callings.
00:39:37
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:39:40
William Arnett
Because, i mean, yeah, you only have so many. they got to be Melchizedek Priesthood Holder, full tithe payer. And like you don't have a whole lot of like priesthood options for these leadership responsibilities.
00:39:55
Darin Tingey
Yeah. yeah And as you're talking, kind of I feel like it's just, in that professional state of not a lot of, not a lot of people. But
00:40:03
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:40:05
Darin Tingey
anyway, did you drink a lot of coconuts in Ajstaki as you thought you were going to?
00:40:10
William Arnett
Yes. and that That was like one of my favorite things is Bishop. Like every night we'd like get back and then he'd send like one of his kids over something. They bring us like four Nimolo.
00:40:21
William Arnett
Like just like some four cool coconuts and just like sit like sip on those. And at the end the night was was always nice. Cause I, that's like, I think the thing I'm craving the most, like being home is just like a nice fresh coconut. Like that stuff was so good.
00:40:35
Darin Tingey
So good. Yeah, I, I took advantage of as an agile talking to. And it looks like you guys did some like, you know, some service projects or some p days where you kind of did some more fun stuff. And I was just talking.
00:40:49
Darin Tingey
Well, what were some of those? I'm trying to remember from emails.
00:40:54
William Arnett
Oh, one of the funny things, like,
00:40:56
Darin Tingey
Like, did you guys? Go ahead.
00:40:57
William Arnett
Um, one of the fun things we did, me and my companion, ah so my companion played like basketball all the high school. And we're like, this would be a good idea. Like run like a basketball tournament.
00:41:10
William Arnett
So we, cause, and we had heard that like that happened like back in the day and I just thought like they would do, cause they have that, that court right on the, like next to the chapel.
00:41:17
Darin Tingey
Uh-huh.
00:41:19
William Arnett
And so I remember like one week we just like everyone we were like talking to like all the, like for the model, we would just like, be like, hey, like we're doing a basketball tournament. Come like Friday night and come play.
00:41:31
William Arnett
And so we announced it like in the ward and everything. We were trying to like get like a like the ward playing basketball with like all the different like dudes that we invited. And in classic Agile Thuggett fashion, not a single member showed up.
00:41:44
William Arnett
We had a ton of dudes that were there to play ball.
00:41:48
Darin Tingey
That's awesome.
00:41:49
William Arnett
And so we like hosted it yeah so we hosted like a little mini tournament.
00:41:49
Darin Tingey
So you guys actually had a tournament?
00:41:53
William Arnett
It was kind of funny. like just like a bunch of random guys that we just all invited. And like some like group of dudes pulled up from like Dell up, like it actually like attracted like a decent bit of people. And we bought them. Like, what do we buy them? We like went to this, like we bought, uh, know, like those like fudge bars that they have.
00:42:12
William Arnett
I got all the different Munwias.
00:42:14
Darin Tingey
yeah.
00:42:15
William Arnett
We like, we like bought like a pack of fudge bars and like gave it to the winner. So it was fun. We did, we did that. Um, P-Day, we'd always go like fish in those dynamite holes.
00:42:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:42:26
William Arnett
And then that's where I hurt my shoulder.
00:42:28
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:42:29
William Arnett
Okay, did I ever tell you this story?
00:42:29
Darin Tingey
How did you hurt your shoulder?
00:42:30
William Arnett
Okay, yeah.
00:42:31
Darin Tingey
I don't think you ever did. Yeah.
00:42:33
William Arnett
So there's like the, right by the, the that like, Yeroj's house, like that big house in Ajotare, there's like those dynamite holes.
00:42:43
William Arnett
And so we would just go fish there on P-Day. And ah we were out there and there's like some rocks that were like up out of the water. And so we set like all of our bait and like, ah like stuff on there while we were like throwing like lines in.
00:42:57
William Arnett
And then, you know sometimes the tide just like comes out of nowhere and just like starts just coming in.
00:43:02
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:43:02
William Arnett
And so the tide starts like coming in. It's like better, like knock over like our stuff on the rocks. So I'm like, Whoa, I like got to hurry. So i like finish up and I'm like, kind of like hurrying back, trying to grab our stuff. And like through this,
00:43:15
William Arnett
i fell and when I went to catch myself, I went to brace myself with like my right hand and it was a like kind of like slippery moss stuff. So when I landed, my arms slipped from beneath me and ah like threw my shoulder out.
00:43:29
Darin Tingey
was it like on i like um like coral or like a rock?
00:43:34
William Arnett
Yes, it was just like like the smooth rock where I was like where I was standing. And so
00:43:41
Darin Tingey
Dang.
00:43:42
William Arnett
I landed and then I like went to get up and I was like, Oh, my arm is not moving. And so like, I i like, was was just like laying in the water. I like looked like a dead fish. And then I like, it just like wiggling my arm around. And then I like felt it like pop back in I got up and my arm was just like sore as ever for two weeks.
00:43:59
Darin Tingey
So yeah you actually dislocated your shoulder.
00:44:02
William Arnett
So it, it's what's called a sublex. It wasn't like a full dislocation. So like, came out like halfway, but because it wasn't like fully, I didn't have to get it like adjusted. Like I could do it myself. I just like wiggled it back in.
00:44:16
William Arnett
And so, and what I did is I tore my labrum. So then from there, my, so my socket was just like loose for the rest of my mission.
00:44:22
Darin Tingey
Did it ever come out again?
00:44:24
William Arnett
Yeah. Like 15, like I think like 15 more times it like came out.
00:44:29
Darin Tingey
No way just like playing sports or something like that.
00:44:31
William Arnett
Yeah, we played basketball on P-Day.
00:44:31
Darin Tingey
And he just
00:44:33
William Arnett
I'd go up for like a layup or a rebound and I'd get hit and then it'd just pop out. And then I'd like be on the ground, have to like wiggle it back in, and then to be like sore for the next few days and then go back to feeling normal until it happened the next time.
00:44:49
Darin Tingey
Oh my gosh, did they ever like contemplate like sending you to get surgery in Hawaii or anything like that?
00:44:54
William Arnett
So that's what's funny is I was like, there's no way I'm going home, so I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm not risking it. Yeah.
00:45:00
Darin Tingey
Ha ha ha ha!
00:45:01
William Arnett
Cause it happened to be on P day. And so like afterwards i like called my family. I was like, Hey, I hurt my shoulder like pretty bad. And I was on the phone with like my mom and dad and we're just like, okay, we're going to give it a week.
00:45:16
William Arnett
And if it still is like killing you, then we'll say something, but we're going to give it a week before we tell another senior couples or something. And so, I went like two, three, four days and it it it hurt for a while. Like that first time it was so just like sore. Like I did not get much sleep.
00:45:31
William Arnett
But then after like four days, I started like, see, it started like not hurt as much. And I was like moving my arm around. i was like, okay, it's getting better. So then like two weeks go by and my arm felt like pretty normal again. so was like, okay, I'll just,
00:45:44
William Arnett
wait till I go home to figure this out. But my whole mission, I knew i knew something was messed up.
00:45:47
Darin Tingey
but
00:45:49
William Arnett
like I knew surgery was a must the second I got home.
00:45:53
Darin Tingey
That's the most Marshall Islands kiddos mission thing ever. Don't tell anyone you're sick or you're injured or anything like that.
00:45:56
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:46:00
Darin Tingey
You're staying out. That's
The Vibrancy of E-Buy
00:46:03
Darin Tingey
funny.
00:46:03
William Arnett
but like I didn't tell a senior couple to like the very end because there was one of the the senior senior missionaries, and it was Sister Sanchez. and like I actually didn't get very sick my whole mission. and like At the end, she's like, well, did you ever have something go wrong? and like The last week, i was like, okay, yeah. I definitely destroyed my shoulder and did not tell you.
00:46:24
William Arnett
the
00:46:24
Darin Tingey
ha
00:46:25
William Arnett
I had a good laugh out of it. but
00:46:28
Darin Tingey
a
00:46:28
William Arnett
yes i just is i didn't want to tell anyone.
00:46:31
Darin Tingey
That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay, so from Ashtaki, is this when you get chance to be by
00:46:37
William Arnett
Yeah, so that's when they shipped me to E-Buy. Yeah,
00:46:40
Darin Tingey
and, and like, were you stoked? Like what, what was the sentiment i around you?
00:46:45
William Arnett
and I'm sure it was the same for you. E-Buy is just the dream. It's where the best missionary work happens. It's where you get like Master Marshallese.
00:46:56
William Arnett
We had all the same hype, I'm assuming, that you did.
00:46:58
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:47:00
William Arnett
And so I was just like stoked because at that point, not – not A good amount of missionaries had been there, but not like a ton. Cause again, it was reopening.
00:47:12
William Arnett
And so most missionaries had just been on like Maduro most of the time. And so I was just like way stoked to head out to Ebi.
00:47:27
William Arnett
No.
00:47:27
Darin Tingey
are Okay.
00:47:28
William Arnett
So I actually, it was a group of four others. It was five of us that flew together.
00:47:34
Darin Tingey
And then what what was it like going to eBuy?
00:47:34
William Arnett
So, because they they kind of switched out, like, the the group. What was that
00:47:39
Darin Tingey
oh that's right. You did tell me about the switch of the group. what was it like What was it like when you like, just just getting to eBuy? What was that like for you?
00:47:49
William Arnett
that? it It was, like, kind of weird because I feel like I had kind of a good grasp on, like, Maduro. I'd been – I just – the only place I hadn't really been around a ton was Laura. So like I was like feeling like I kind of knew the place. And so then I got there and there was kids running around. like The second you get off, there's like kids coming up to you like saying stuff.
00:48:07
William Arnett
And I'm like, whoa, this this is like sensory overload. There's like so much stuff going on here.
00:48:13
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's probably kind of fun getting on the plane and then like the ferry too.
00:48:13
William Arnett
And then you're like...
00:48:17
Darin Tingey
Like this different, you know?
00:48:18
William Arnett
Oh, yeah. yeah it was such it like It was definitely a fun experience because then you... like are like like flying in and then like the person on the intercom is like no pictures, no videos.
00:48:28
William Arnett
And you're like scared, but like you're pulling up on like this like secret military base. When in like reality, it's not like that crazy.
00:48:36
Darin Tingey
yeah it's not a secret at all, right?
00:48:38
William Arnett
It's not secret at all. Like we, I took plenty of pictures, like the times I was on quads, but you show up and then there's like all the dogs, like sniffing down your stuff. like what, where am i What like, and there's Americans. You haven't seen Americans in like a second.
00:48:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:48:53
William Arnett
it's it's ah It's a trippy like experience.
00:48:55
Darin Tingey
It's like, i don't know if you've ever seen the show Lost, but you're like, what are all these people doing on this like tiny island?
00:49:02
Darin Tingey
You should watch the show Lost you haven't. But okay, so you get to Ebi. You kind of guys, you guys sound like you guys kind of whitewashed Ebi a little bit, right? So you can bring in a whole new group.
00:49:11
William Arnett
Yeah, i think I think most of – I think all the – I don't know. most of the areas were were whitewashed. And so, yeah, i I went out there with my companion. So I didn't, like, get someone that was already there. So my companion was a bit younger than me in the mission. And so I went out with him, and then we took over Thuyang.
00:49:32
Darin Tingey
kind of fun white what i mean whitewashing E-Buy. It's just like a whole new world to discover. And there's like, even though it's tiny, there's like so many different alleyways and like tight places.
00:49:39
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:49:44
William Arnett
Oh, it's so...
00:49:44
Darin Tingey
You're like, oh, someone lives right here,
00:49:46
William Arnett
It was definitely fun, like not having someone to um like guide the way because you would be like three weeks in and just find like a whole new pocket of houses that you've like never even been able like talk where did this come from? Like we've been here, like we've walked this road like how many times and there's a new pocket of houses that we haven't gotten to talk to.
00:50:05
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I still feel that whenever i go back.
00:50:06
William Arnett
As well as, yeah And it was also, it also just like a funny story is because I like whitewashed, I didn't know who like, your good members of EBI were. I didn't know who like President Jell-K was. i didn't know. Actually, i he actually flew over flew over with us. So I did meet him on the flight over, but I didn't know who Sister Jell-K was. And so like that first night of proselyting, we were walking back to the place and me and my companion totally just walked right like in front of her, which is like, no one walks right in front of like Sister Jell-K without like talking to her.
00:50:42
William Arnett
And she just was like, oh, like, Yakwe. And so we just, like, said Yakwe back. We were just heading back. for It was the end of the night. And she made so much fun of us because we didn't know who she was and, like, talked to her. Because we went over the next day to, like, meet her.
00:50:55
William Arnett
And she's like, it was you. You're the one that, like, didn't talk to me last night.
00:50:59
Darin Tingey
these These mean missionaries not saying hi to me, really, not stopping and talking.
00:51:04
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:51:06
William Arnett
Like, she just, like, assumed we, like, knew who she was.
00:51:06
Darin Tingey
That's funny.
00:51:09
William Arnett
Like, she knew that, like, missionaries all know who she was and like go to her but we just we had just gotten there we didn't know anyone
00:51:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah. Okay, give a little description of Ibi North or Yung.
00:51:24
William Arnett
um what has to be one my favorite areas i had so much fun there so many just like amazing people just one members but also Um, the different people that I got to teach, there's some really cool, really elect people that, uh, got to meet when I got there.
00:51:45
William Arnett
Fun living in like dump town. Like the fact that like, like just part of my area was just right next to this like massive stinky dump.
00:51:52
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it it is a massive stinky dump. It's so funny. It's like, oh, where do you live? Dump. You know, and just look right next to the dump.
00:52:00
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:52:01
Darin Tingey
That's how they just got dumped there.
00:52:03
William Arnett
Uh-huh. Oh, and, like, the funny, like, E-Buy names. There was, like, what, like, Viking, like, all these, like, random little, like, town names.
00:52:11
William Arnett
So it was a ton of fun. And just, like, whitewashing it, just going, I don't know if you knew, like, the Abijas too well.
00:52:17
William Arnett
Like, meeting the Abijas, them feeding us, like, awesome American food randomly. Like, we just, like, walk by, they, like, call us in and, like, give us a cheeseburger. Yeah.
00:52:27
Darin Tingey
it is kind of funny eBuy, like all the random like American food that you get or like someone will bring Subway from Quage and you're like, what the heck?
00:52:33
William Arnett
ahha
00:52:34
Darin Tingey
I mean, Subway, like what the heck is this?
00:52:37
William Arnett
Yeah. And Ibai's just like the most, like I literally think Ibai's the most unique place like on the planet. Cause in Ibai, you catch like every different thing.
00:52:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah, for sure.
00:52:49
William Arnett
Like you have ah Mike Kabua and his like insanely massive mansion. i don't know if you saw like the pictures I've like put of that.
00:52:57
Darin Tingey
Yeah, nuts.
00:52:58
William Arnett
Like just, insane huge house like on the like ocean like isolated out there you like that party was crazy so like we for like the whole like weeks prior like that's all everyone was like talking about
00:53:04
Darin Tingey
We talk about let's talk about that party. Talk about the party.
00:53:16
William Arnett
And then like day of, they had like all the buses of the island, like all the different like school buses and stuff. They just were doing like trips, just busing people down there. So like everyone just went besides like, like the only people that didn't really go were the ones that were like babysitting, like watching their kids.
00:53:32
William Arnett
And so went there. ah They had like, all sorts of different things. They had, but I can't remember like the Marshallese name for it but they had like that, like the stick dance thing that like they only perform every, yeah like it only, I think that's it.
00:53:47
Darin Tingey
yeahpu Yeah,
00:53:50
William Arnett
Like that they only perform like under the permission of like the, the main chief.
00:53:56
Darin Tingey
yeah so I guess contextual background here for for context. Mike Kabua, Iroes Labudap, like big chief in the Marshall Islands, and he built a massive mansion like north of Ibai.
00:54:10
Darin Tingey
ah Like if you're going on your way to Kuchigyu. And then this party was like the blessing of the house, right? and And everyone came, like even the, I think it was even like the army general from it's over Kwaj came to this party.
00:54:25
William Arnett
Uh-huh, yeah.
00:54:26
Darin Tingey
It was like a huge like dancing and and feast, right? Sorry, I just give a quick background. keep keep keep going.
00:54:32
William Arnett
Oh, yeah, know no problem. Yeah, they had tons of different, like, dances. i you Did you know Joel Jake? the
00:54:39
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah.
00:54:41
William Arnett
Yeah, so he was, like, the – he's so funny.
00:54:41
Darin Tingey
Papa Jake's the man.
00:54:44
William Arnett
So he was, like, the the man, like, heading the like, the dance. So he came out in, like, the whole, like, traditional, like, garb. like leading all like the the youth that were doing the the stick dance.
00:54:56
William Arnett
And so that was a lot of fun.
00:54:57
Darin Tingey
Yeah, because the Jappoa, I think, comes from Wujiai, which is where Joel Jake is from.
00:54:58
William Arnett
they like did all,
00:55:02
William Arnett
yeah, that's right.
00:55:03
Darin Tingey
i Jappoa dance, come the stick dance comes from Wujiai, and there's only a few people that know it and know the chanting, and he's like one of the guys that knows it. So he's always the one like leading
00:55:14
William Arnett
Yeah. And so then they they did like all this and then they let us go. we had like we like went, walked up like on the terrace and stuff. They had like just like gobs of food. We like got lobster, crab, just like anything you could think of was just out there to to take.
00:55:31
William Arnett
And then like went back, ate it for a while, got back on the bus. Can't exactly say we made a back it back at at nine thirty
00:55:40
Darin Tingey
Yeah, they probably like more like midnight.
00:55:43
William Arnett
Yeah. Did not get back on time.
00:55:44
Darin Tingey
No comment. It's all right. It's right. i got you.
00:55:46
William Arnett
Yeah. No comment on that
00:55:47
Darin Tingey
I got you.
00:55:48
William Arnett
the
00:55:51
Darin Tingey
But like, I mean, you even though your missionaries, like that's such a big cultural thing um that like you kind of have to go to that.
00:55:59
William Arnett
one.
00:56:00
Darin Tingey
Right. Like if if none of the missionaries showed up, it would kind of been a little slap in the face a little bit. I think.
00:56:06
William Arnett
Yeah. Well, it's like, you kind of have to represent like, cause they, they, they were like, at least in like my opinion, like they like respect the fact that we show up and like embrace the culture that we go and like support and just like be a part of the community. you know like i think it was good that we were there and a part of like the celebration.
00:56:20
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:56:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah. I mean, and did do you guys, did they like sit you guys down in like a nicer area of everybody or were you guys just kind of like touring everybody, touring the place?
00:56:33
William Arnett
actually we We sat in like a decent spot, but it wasn't like the like king treatment where they you get like the front row seat with like the birthday kid or whatever. but It wasn't that one.
00:56:45
Darin Tingey
Okay yeah Mike Mike's like yeah elders you can sit nice area, but not up front.
00:56:50
William Arnett
we We had a good enough seat to like watch the shows, but he wasn't we weren't up there sitting with Mike.
00:56:56
Darin Tingey
And what did they actually had the job well what else do they have.
00:56:59
William Arnett
ah Just a bunch of different beats. ah beats And then like the decorations are pretty cool. They had like a boat race the day prior. And then so they had like the winning ah boat, like up there on the stage, like next to where they were doing all the dances.
00:57:14
William Arnett
The decorations were insane. Tons of like different, like Marshallese things everywhere.
00:57:20
Darin Tingey
Yeah. So cool. You got to be there for that. I mean, that that's a compound. And what's funny is like, Mike's not married. He's never been married. He doesn't have any kids. So he built this massive compound for himself.
00:57:31
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:57:35
Darin Tingey
And he's like an old dude, like the guy's probably gonna die soon. I mean, not soon, but like, you know, in the next decade or so.
00:57:39
William Arnett
Yeah.
00:57:44
William Arnett
And yeah. And so like to finish what I'm saying, like why evis iss so unique, it's like you have this, you have this insane thing where we just, like feasted on like a ton of food, walking up on like this terrace out over the ocean. And then you drive down the street and then you have like these houses that are falling apart.
00:58:00
William Arnett
But the people living in the houses have PS5s. Like, it doesn't make any sense.
00:58:07
Darin Tingey
Yeah, you live in a shack, but you have a sick TV and a PS5. Let's go.
00:58:12
William Arnett
Like, cause you show up to E-Buy and you're like wow, like I feel like, really bad for these people. They're in like a really bad spot. And then you start going to these homes and you're like, huh, well, like, how do you have all this?
00:58:26
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I know. it's it's It's so interesting. The priorities are so weird. But I guess... I guess there's maybe just not a lot of housing options and they all want to come work on quads, which is where they can make a decent living.
00:58:39
William Arnett
Well, yeah, it's not like they, have like the facilities to expand like their house. They can't make it bigger. There's their neighbors are on all sides of them. So might as well just deck it out with a nice AC unit and
00:58:48
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
00:58:51
William Arnett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:52
Darin Tingey
And drink some cola. That's pretty good.
00:58:55
William Arnett
yeah
00:58:57
Darin Tingey
Okay, so I want to hear ah want to hear about the Micronesian games. like that The fact that you were there, what though the Marsh Islands hosted the games is so sick.
00:59:08
Darin Tingey
What was that like?
00:59:10
William Arnett
Yeah, that that was like like, if you ask a lot of the missionaries that served in my time, like that was definitely the highlight of their mission. like Obviously, you kind play some of those like converts and stuff, like higher in a sense of like rewarding.
00:59:23
William Arnett
But as far just like highlight of just like fun stuff, it was definitely the Micronesian game. So for me... I was in Kwajalein, so i wasn't with like the rest of the missionaries, but it was super cool because we still got to participate.
00:59:37
William Arnett
And we got to go to Kwaj for like a week straight and just like be in Kwaj. And so we would leave.
00:59:41
Darin Tingey
So cool.
00:59:44
William Arnett
We had like two different groups. So we had like six of us would go in the morning, and then there was a night shift. And so four of us would go at night. And so would just like wake up. we take like that first ferry over.
00:59:56
William Arnett
And some like guy that was part of the the Micronesian games would come. he'd spot yeah He was our sponsor. And he would like take us over to the pool. And then we'd just like sit there. We'd get, it was like, it was like a job almost. They'd like give us like a little training, like little training debrief on like the day and stuff. and we're just like a bunch of missionaries sitting there and like volunteer things with like our tags on.
01:00:18
William Arnett
And then they're like, okay, like, here's how you do the timing. It's like, so funny. It was literally like the like Olympics, but you just had 19 year old kids doing the timing, like on the events.
01:00:31
Darin Tingey
The stopwash.
01:00:31
William Arnett
And so like we sat there.
01:00:32
Darin Tingey
Yeah, she's doing the stopwatch.
01:00:32
William Arnett
Yeah. So we had like the stopwatches and we were like down there at the edge, like waiting for them to touch and like clicking the thing. And so it was a ton of fun just like doing like that, interacting with some like the members and like,
01:00:45
William Arnett
different people of Quaj, but we also got to spend like a little bit of more time on Quaj. Like we got to actually go to the subway and like we didn't go around too much, but just like, it was, it was, we just had a fun time like being there. it was just like a whole different like scene, you know?
01:01:01
Darin Tingey
Yeah. did How did they like recruit you for the games? Was it like a mission-wide thing that they recruited like the missionaries and they just
01:01:12
William Arnett
Yeah, so it was like always talked about. Because even like the beginning of our mission, like it was like, oh yeah, the Micronesian Games are going to happen like while we're here. And so we knew it was going to be this huge event.
01:01:24
William Arnett
And so just like with Mission President like the senior couples, it's like, okay, Everyone's going to be at the games and stuff all week. like Instead of trying to find ways to be effective proselyting, let's just get our image out there as like just volunteers. you know and so the There were some senior couples that really worked with just the people running it.
01:01:45
William Arnett
and It's so funny how fast they were like, yes, yes, give us all your missionaries. like Any other world, that's like you're not going to trust a bunch of 19, 20, whatever-year-old boys to do all your important jobs, but they like instantly just threw us in like the yeah important stuff. I think you talked to Elder Weaver, like people were doing like softball announcing, like they were announcing games. They were like up on the, they were up on like that big stand, like in the background, like changing the scorecards. There was like ping pong referees when like none of us know the rules to ping pong.
01:02:20
Darin Tingey
So fun. So was quads just the swimming part then? Just the swimming?
01:02:24
William Arnett
Yeah. So, i I wouldn't say I got gypped, but like I didn't get the full Micronesian experience, Micronesian game experience, because only like five of the ten like nations even showed up for swimming.
01:02:38
William Arnett
So there was no Kitabas came, no...
01:02:42
William Arnett
can't remember which ones specifically they didn't come. So it wasn't like the big scene that it was on Maduro, but... it was still a lot of fun. Meet like different people from like Palau and stuff.
01:02:54
William Arnett
Yeah. So we were just, we were just swimming.
01:02:56
Darin Tingey
were did the real question is those people that came from other micro-neasian countries were they like truly from palau or was it like from the states that they yeah so interesting it's like
01:03:07
William Arnett
Uh, I would say most were from the States. And even, even for like our Marshallese team, like, like our Marshallese basketball, volleyball team, it was mostly people from the States that like had kind of like citizenship here, you know?
01:03:23
Darin Tingey
Yeah, it's like all the marshes will have moved to the States. They like don't even speak marshes anymore. And they're good at basketball and they come playing the games. So it's like it's not even like true Micronesian games.
01:03:32
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:03:35
Darin Tingey
It's just like, and like a lot of it's just just the Americans that go over and play. I mean, they've got their heritage is whatever that country is, but it's kind of cheap.
01:03:42
William Arnett
Yeah. Because like, I've...
01:03:44
Darin Tingey
But weren't there weren there some white kids too from quads that represented the marsh islands in swimming?
01:03:49
William Arnett
See, so that's, that was, it was so funny about like the Marshallese swimming team is there wasn't a single real like Marshallese, like not not a single one of them knew Marshallese.
01:03:58
William Arnett
Because so in the past, they had a few like Marshallese athletes. There was this guy actually knew pretty well in Agil Tablet that used to swim for like the, like the, the games.
01:04:10
William Arnett
And so he was actually like Marshallese guy that like swam.
01:04:10
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:04:14
William Arnett
But the, like the swimming team for the year that like we did it, it was just the quads kids that like had done swim team, like the quads swim team. And like, they weren't like ah professional athletes by any means.
01:04:28
William Arnett
Like I remember I was, cause my brothers, they they both swim in high school. So I was like setting them like the time cards. They're like, this is the Olympics. Like they were like,
01:04:37
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:04:39
William Arnett
Like they're like poking fun.
01:04:41
Darin Tingey
Yeah, and would it would be really fun to see like true Micronesian Olympic Games, like true, like from the country, like you have to live there, you have to speak the language.
01:04:54
Darin Tingey
That would be fun to see.
01:04:55
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:04:56
Darin Tingey
it would be It would be kind of hilarious because like, dude, it's so fun.
01:04:59
William Arnett
It would definitely be heavy interesting. Yeah.
01:05:04
Darin Tingey
I'm such a lot get to do that. And you can just like see Quaj more, like spend time, like I think I went over there like once or twice when I was on eBay.
01:05:11
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:05:13
Darin Tingey
So
01:05:13
William Arnett
Yeah, i was in I got to go to Quaj a lot. like I got pretty lucky with how but how many times I got to go to Quaj.
01:05:21
Darin Tingey
yeah. OK, so you went to live before I got to eBay. Is that right? Before I came and visited?
01:05:29
William Arnett
No, I think it was it was after.
01:05:29
Darin Tingey
Was that after?
01:05:36
William Arnett
Yeah.
Family Visits and Island Adventures
01:05:37
Darin Tingey
OK, gotcha. So real quick, it was fun.
01:05:40
William Arnett
yeah
01:05:42
Darin Tingey
i I came with my wife and my parents to E-Buy while Will was there, which was a lot of fun because we took him, on a P-Day president,
01:05:54
Darin Tingey
a ah
01:05:58
Darin Tingey
on like a picnic him and yeah your companion with the... the Steven's family and a few other members.
01:06:10
Darin Tingey
Brother Longbaba. don't know Longbaba from Lai, who's my man. And then we went, I forget the island it's called, but like we had to get permission to go. It was like past Gucci Goo.
01:06:19
William Arnett
Nene. its It was Nene.
01:06:21
Darin Tingey
Okay, Mehmet.
01:06:23
William Arnett
Nene with N's. Nene.
01:06:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah, okay. So we went to Mehmet, which we had to get permission from, which Dejirina got permission from her friends, family, which was a lot fun. And we went and we did fishing. And you just had a fun picnic to cook food there.
01:06:39
Darin Tingey
little snorkeling. Don't worry, they didn't get in the water. Flew my drone around. and remember the crab hunting. Remember how like I was like showed you guys how, or Helen Wong showed us how I catch sand crabs?
01:06:52
Darin Tingey
That was so fun. Oh man, such a good trip.
01:06:56
William Arnett
That was a good time.
01:06:58
Darin Tingey
um'm glad I'm glad you guys came out and with us that day.
01:06:58
William Arnett
know I got so much.
01:07:01
Darin Tingey
That was a lot of fun.
01:07:02
William Arnett
and well and it like, because you had texted like the night before and you're like, oh, do you have, because it wasn't a P-Day. You're like, oh, do you have anything? and like, we actually happened to not have anything really set up till like five or six. i was like, oh, actually, yeah, we can see, we can go home.
01:07:17
Darin Tingey
And the APs were boys. The APs were boys about it. I appreciate them being cool about it.
01:07:21
William Arnett
Yeah. and They were poking fun, but they didn't like care. i Because I came back like all sunburned. How was P-Day? How was P-Day all day?
01:07:30
Darin Tingey
i mean, dude, you got to take the little fun times of the mission. And and that was was a fun one because we had been
01:07:35
William Arnett
Oh, yeah. but I don't regret it. That was like was a lot of fun.
01:07:38
Darin Tingey
good times. And that's just when you're in the middle of nowhere, like you got have fun while you're being a missionary.
01:07:46
William Arnett
Uh-huh.
01:07:47
Darin Tingey
But I want to hear, i want to hear like, ah we have emailed about it, but I want to hear your trip to lie and what that was like and how you been convince your president let you do that.
01:07:54
William Arnett
yeah so yeah that's what just better id like talk about so um ah throughout like our time in ebay i feel like there's a few different like texts that were like sent like reasons why we needed to go here like or like we were trying to get like the stake to go to like what j there's like different elders trying to ask to go there and none of it had really been allowed like yeah like no one had I think there was like one trip that someone had gotten to lie.
01:08:21
William Arnett
Cause this was right before they actually had elders, like, or or they they had just stationed elders. That's what it was like a transfer before they had just put elders out there. And so i knew was like, like pretty not likely that I was going to like, kind of get this request sent in.
01:08:40
William Arnett
But like, I mean, I got to try. I got to like, just like throw a Hail Mary out there, see if I can like kind of finesse a trip to lie in there. And so i write up this like, kind of like big like text to president on me and my companion need to go to lie.
01:08:56
William Arnett
And it was, and it kind of just worked out well because they had three baptisms going on that weekend. They, think we're like low on food or something. when we were,
01:09:08
William Arnett
It was obviously like that celebration. and then we had just had like some zone conference training or something that was like different. And so like these like different things, I was like, here, I'll go out there.
01:09:20
William Arnett
I'll do the baptismal interviews. I'll like run exchanges and I'll do, I'll like give them the training from the zone conference as well as like, we'll pack a big bag of like canned foods that they can just keep stashed in the house for whatever.
01:09:34
William Arnett
just like wrote it up and I was like, okay, send it. Just like, hopefully, he approves it and he actually like wrote back. He's like, yeah, just like, i need a few more details on like the trip, but sounds good. And like me and my companion were so happy. Like we did not think it was going to go through.
01:09:48
Darin Tingey
That's so crazy. It's like, just the Hail Mary that lands, you're like, we're going want to lie, baby.
01:09:54
William Arnett
Yeah. hey yeah so that, that was like super exciting afternoon when figured out ah we were going. And so what we did is we took just like one of our suitcases it and just like,
01:10:05
William Arnett
we got like some MSF from one of the senior missionaries and we just, just filled that thing full of ah like canned goods and whatnot. So they could just put it in the house. And so then, yeah. And then we, you never went by boat to lie, did you?
01:10:20
Darin Tingey
Now plane. So tell me about what it was like going on by boat.
01:10:24
William Arnett
Yeah. Boat. That was like an experience and a half. That was, it was so fun. So we meet up with the steak at like, he was like one in the morning. Like me and my companion just brought our bags down, like walking like through E-Buy in the middle of the night there's just like no one around.
01:10:42
William Arnett
And then pull up to the dock and we just like helped like load up and stuff. And then, yeah, we took that big, like, it was like, did you see like the pictures? It was like the, like, looked like the Normandy, like the boat that like they took to like land on Normandy in like World War II. Yeah.
01:10:59
Darin Tingey
Yeah, one of those boats that looks like it like it flaps down when it lands.
01:11:03
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:11:04
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah.
01:11:05
William Arnett
And so we like, we took off in the middle of night and ended up being like, I want to say like an 11 hour like ride.
01:11:16
William Arnett
Cause we didn't get there till i think about like 11 ish the next day, like in the afternoon.
01:11:22
Darin Tingey
So what what what was the state going for?
01:11:25
William Arnett
So this was when they dedicated the chapel
01:11:28
William Arnett
So they had been working on this brand new chapel, which it's, it's beautiful by the way. Like I was actually like so impressed with like the, the chapel that the the church had put out there because i mean, it's an outer Island with only give or take a hundred or 200 people, but it was this um like beautiful, beautiful chapel.
01:11:47
William Arnett
And so, yeah, we went out, it was with all the different like stake auxiliary. So we had, uh, President JLK, his wife, obviously Joel Jake, um just all like kind of those like top guys in the stake and just went set sail.
01:12:05
Darin Tingey
And did you get seasick at all?
01:12:08
William Arnett
Not on the way there. On the way there, and I actually, I was smart and I took some Benadryl with me and like took some of those before we went off. So I didn't get sick on the way there, but the, the,
01:12:21
William Arnett
the boat ride there was, was rough. Cause it was just so, we we brought so much like supplies. There's just like bags of flour, bags of rice, just like tons and tons and like cans of soda, just like everything you need for like, ah like done a ton of parties. And so there's like nowhere to like lay down or like even really sit. Like there was like a little section where all like the boo-boos were like hanging out.
01:12:46
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:12:47
William Arnett
But then, me and my companion, we were up where like all like the supplies were. And so I did not get like ah lick of sleep all night. And I just like kept, like you know that feeling when like you wanna go to sleep like so bad, but it's like so uncomfortable that you like can't?
01:13:01
William Arnett
It was like that like the whole time. Because got to 5.30 and I was just like going in and out of it, but I couldn't like fall asleep. And so I'd gone up, it was such a funny ride. like There was a bathroom on the back,
01:13:16
William Arnett
And the way to get to the bathroom, it was like a minefield of just boo-boos that I had to like tiptoe over on this like super shaky boat. and don't want to like step on any of them. So I'm like jumping over these boo-boos to get back to go to the bathroom. And on my way back, I find this like little like crevice in between like all the supplies where there's just like flat ground.
01:13:36
William Arnett
And so I just like instantly jumped down there. There's like a bag of diapers. And I grabbed that, like put it under my head. And I just like fell asleep like right away right there.
01:13:45
Darin Tingey
Finally get us sleep for a few hours and rest.
01:13:46
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:13:49
William Arnett
But the like sad thing is only for, it was only for like an hour because then it started raining and the rain like filled up on a tarp and then it like, you know, like the, like it comes off the tarp and it just like splashed on me and just like jolted awake. so it didn't really do much, but there was definitely an experience. It was so much fun.
01:14:07
Darin Tingey
I remember you having wifi, but I think it was maybe on the right back. using Starlink.
01:14:13
William Arnett
Well, I know I had wifi on the way there as well, actually.
01:14:16
Darin Tingey
Which is so crazy. You just like all those belts in the middle nowhere you have Starlink.
01:14:21
William Arnett
Yeah. And it's like saying that to like, probably like your generation of missionaries and like downward, like like scratching your heads. Like, how is that possible? But yeah, I i the like texted my parents I landed. I was like, Hey, like I'm safe.
01:14:32
William Arnett
Don't worry. Yeah.
01:14:33
Darin Tingey
So cool. So you're pulling into Lai, like like I mean, i'm obviously biased because love live, but it's just a beautiful island.
01:14:43
Darin Tingey
Just a beautiful island.
01:14:43
William Arnett
Oh, no, like definitely the most like beautiful thing I've experienced was just coming in because we went around the whole thing to come in the back end. And it was like perfect time of day. Like the sun was out and just coming in the back on that boat and just like going through because the lagoon in Lai so pretty because it's like that super turquoise blue and it's like kind of shallower.
01:15:08
William Arnett
And so just like coming in, that's definitely the beautiful like most beautiful thing I've seen in my life was that trip coming in.
01:15:14
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:15:15
Darin Tingey
I mean, live means like calm water. That's what it really means in my place, which is cool.
01:15:19
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:15:20
Darin Tingey
So it's like that. That's what the atoll is named for. liath oh So cool. And how long were you guys there for? I mean, it sounds like you had the party and you did everything you said you're going to be in.
01:15:30
William Arnett
um Yeah, so it ended up being, i think,
01:15:34
William Arnett
three or four days and I tried to do everything my president asked me to do, but there's a lot of parties going on. that
01:15:43
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:15:43
William Arnett
I might not have gotten to like exchanges because it there wasn't really like exchanges to do. Like we were just helping set up for parties. Like, you you know how Hawaii is. It's not like there's a bunch of pressing lessons to get to. Like the main event of the island was setting up for this party. So we just went where the people were.
01:16:00
Darin Tingey
Did the whole island come for the party?
01:16:02
William Arnett
Yeah, and so um from what I heard, it was like the first time all churches, all everybody had just gathered for one event in the longest time. Because you had what?
01:16:14
William Arnett
Protestant and like part two. Like they both came and they they came and they like had a like parts in the program too.
01:16:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:16:21
William Arnett
Like President JLK asked the like the one of the deacons to say like the opening prayer at the dedication. It was actually really cool. Like moment to see, i mean, granted, I wasn't I wasn't on live, so I didn't know the people all that much, but like to see all the, like all the groups come together and how kind of president jail cage gave them different parts and they came and they brought their own beats and like songs for the celebration.
01:16:45
Darin Tingey
Yeah, that's what's cool about Lai. mean, it's such a small, tight-knit community that, you know, people, like, even though there's three different churches, everyone kind of shows up.
01:16:54
Darin Tingey
And it's cool that they all came for the dedication of the of the chapel and, like, participated. Like you said, like, that's so cool. Like, good for president and delegate for doing that.
01:17:04
William Arnett
Uh-huh.
01:17:06
William Arnett
Yeah. it was It was a good time. i can't lie. I felt like i was on like like a scout trip almost. like Not that I was like up to anything. I just like did not feel like I was a missionary because I was just doing like service the whole time. And then we were up the whole night just like partying with the harshest people.
01:17:24
Darin Tingey
Yeah, I mean, you didn't like you never served on an outer island. But so this was like your outer island experience, which I'm so glad you got to go do like especially on Lye, man.
01:17:32
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:17:33
Darin Tingey
Lye is just a unique island. I'm sure you were able to scour the whole thing cause it's so tiny.
01:17:39
William Arnett
Yeah. No, because I remember like, got there and then i like we talked to like the two elders that were there. Like, okay, we're gonna go like, check the whole place out. Like, we'll be back. And were we were back in like, what, like 20 minutes? Like, they're already back.
01:17:53
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah, it's so small, but the people are so awesome and the chapel beautiful.
01:17:57
William Arnett
oh yeah. And it was like, I didn't get a serve on an outer island, but like, from what it sounded like, that was like, of those elders, like when they think back to their time on Y, they think back of that weekend. So I just kind of like got to drop in and just see, like have, see the, like the funnest weekend of Y and then go back to E-Buy.
01:18:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, and I don't, sorry, I just wanted to push this along here, but you go back to Ebi and then you get back, transferred back to Majuro, right?
01:18:18
William Arnett
So.
01:18:28
Darin Tingey
And you go to Laura.
01:18:32
William Arnett
Yeah, I spent two in Laura.
01:18:34
Darin Tingey
Two and Laura. So like vast, vastly different again, like epi crowded, jungle, concrete jungle to like countryside, more island feel Laura.
Transition to Laura and Dellup's Strong Community
01:18:46
Darin Tingey
ah Quickly, I guess, just touch on Laura for a second.
01:18:50
William Arnett
Yeah, Laura, it was a ton of fun. Laura, like, i love, like, the members and stuff, but I more remember it because that was, like, my only chance that i really trained. Cause that was when I got the, ah the greenie that was like really good at the beat.
01:19:01
William Arnett
And honestly, training was so fun. Like it was so, cause he was also just like a workhorse. Like he just wanted to learn everything so like bad. And so just like spending all day talking about Marshallese and just like getting to help someone out, like with what knowledge I had was a lot of fun.
01:19:17
William Arnett
And then we worked at Arak. So we had that just like long strip. So we weren't like the like the end. We were just like that like strip before the end.
01:19:26
William Arnett
And so just riding those bikes, like i I loved my bike rides through Arak.
01:19:26
Darin Tingey
yeah
01:19:32
William Arnett
They were so fun.
01:19:34
Darin Tingey
I mean, Ibai is like one of the greatest areas Marshall Islands, but I'm sure there's a little bit of breath of fresh air to go to Laura or Anak. Like, probably just, I don't know, maybe it wasn't, but I like to think like, oh, it's kind of nice, like a little more lax and spaced out a little bit more island feed.
01:19:53
William Arnett
Oh yeah, it was definitely nice. I only had like one coconut my whole time in Ebi, besides like my stint in Lai.
01:20:01
Darin Tingey
Yeah, yeah, you're like, okay, this is actually like island feel again.
01:20:02
William Arnett
So like, yeah, got back and just like, for me, it was like, even if we had like a strikeout of a day and just like nothing happened, I just got to ride my bike like next to the ocean with a beautiful sunset. Like I cannot be bugged at all.
01:20:19
Darin Tingey
Yeah, so gorgeous. Miss that.
01:20:23
Darin Tingey
And then you finished your last six months in Dub, right?
01:20:28
William Arnett
Yeah. And so i would actually say like those last six months in Dellup were probably like, even though like Evi was awesome, Lai was awesome. Those last six months in Dellup were probably my favorite months of my mission. Cause like, that was when like language was down.
01:20:45
William Arnett
I knew how to be a missionary. Like, you know, yeah I like found my purpose. I knew like what I was supposed to be doing out there. And so it just like kind of all flowed. I was with some really good companions that just also were just in a great mindset and like ready to get some stuff done. And so that those last six months were just like golden. We got to teach a ton of really cool people, some ah new converts in the Dell up ward that are already like super strong and like the top like members in the ward.
01:21:13
William Arnett
And so that was, it was just like, just like miracle after miracle. Like it was just so, so fun to just see like the hand of the Lord in that last six months. just as like, I just gave it all before I went home.
01:21:22
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:21:25
Darin Tingey
Yeah, you just like firing on all cylinders, just like crushing the work. the I mean, a little bit about like how much a good award makes a difference or leadership in a award.
01:21:38
William Arnett
Oh, I mean, yeah, because Dell Upward, you had different options. And so like, because like when you have a ah smaller ward, you only have like two people that you could realistically bring to a lesson and fellowship. But,
01:21:52
William Arnett
With Dellop, there was like a lot of different members that we could use to fellowship. And then there was people that got baptized, and then they we started using them to fellowship. So it just started like just kind of spreading like like wildfire in Dellop.
01:22:07
William Arnett
And then you have Bishop Betty, who just understands missionary work so well and just understands ministering so well that he then just like on the the member end is just like pumping it out. It's just so fun.
01:22:20
William Arnett
so fun
01:22:21
Darin Tingey
how did he, like, what did he do differently than other bishops that just worked so well?
01:22:28
William Arnett
um I would say just one, the people loved him. like There was like this meeting that we had that it was really random, but like Bishop Betty had like said that he's going to have to like step down or something. it was just some like random little drama that happened.
01:22:43
William Arnett
But the members literally like all started crying. like The members like stood behind Bishop Betty. like He was like their general or something. like Like they all stood by him and like, because they love Bishop Betty so much when he was, when he invited them to do ministering and stuff, they like all got on it. And so just that trust that he had with the members made it. So they like, they were always like ministering to other members, but then they were always like at the drop of a hat, they were there to help our friends too.
01:23:15
Darin Tingey
Yeah, and that makes all the difference in the world for doing missionary work.
01:23:19
Darin Tingey
When you have great members who are fellowshipping your friends, a bishop who people like trust and can count on and feel the love of.
01:23:19
William Arnett
Oh yeah.
01:23:30
Darin Tingey
And and also, he's like really knowledgeable in the gospel. like He can teach really well.
01:23:34
William Arnett
Oh, no, he's a smart guy. Like, he knows what he's doing.
01:23:38
Darin Tingey
And i I would say like he's... he's like several levels above most of other people as far as their gospel knowledge in the martial arts.
01:23:50
Darin Tingey
Martial arts is like very basic.
01:23:51
William Arnett
Uh-huh.
01:23:52
Darin Tingey
It's like, yeah, like faith, repentance. You know, i got baptized and I follow Christ. Like that's good. And I love that that it's such a simple faith. Like I love it.
01:24:04
Darin Tingey
I think it's great. I don't think you need necessarily all the complex things that we often get into here. But also having that like deeper knowledge can also build your testimony stronger and help other people understand.
01:24:19
Darin Tingey
And I feel like Betty just absolutely knows his stuff and is so good at teaching it to others.
01:24:22
William Arnett
you
01:24:26
William Arnett
Yeah, I agree. It was him and President Jelke that just like the whole time, you just you just knew that they like, they had it down. Like they they knew what they were doing. They had like a ton of knowledge of the gospel.
01:24:36
Darin Tingey
Yeah, absolutely.
01:24:40
Darin Tingey
Well, last few questions here.
01:24:42
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:24:43
Darin Tingey
I am going to add one because I usually ask people final three questions. I'm going to add one. I'll ask it first.
Spiritual Experiences and Cultural Reflections
01:24:50
Darin Tingey
ah what What was like one? like major spiritual lesson or spiritual experience that you have on your mission that like you really think about when you think about your mission?
01:25:03
William Arnett
Um,
01:25:04
William Arnett
just one of the times that I feel like I like really felt the spirit so strong is it was that I think second transfer in E-buy I'd like seen success, but like I hadn't seen like, and like an insane amount of success up until like this point. And there's this guy named Mac that, uh, I got to teach and Mac is just like, I said, another like great example to me.
01:25:30
William Arnett
And like he eventually got baptized and he was like, i think the second counselor in the ward, like two months after being baptized. So like, just like amazing dude. But I remember ah got the opportunity to teach him and he just like accepted everything and was he just was a super humble guy.
01:25:49
William Arnett
and it was like right before his baptism, we had just gone over and we were just kind of sitting there like going over baptism stuff with them. But were like helping him like learn to tie a tie. And it's it's kind of weird because it wasn't like in the middle of like some big lesson, like giving some huge testimony. But like right there, like I just remember feeling like the most like pure form of like peace, just like feeling like accomplished and like, okay, yeah, this this is the Lord's work. Like seeing this man who was nothing close to the man he is right now, just a few months ago, now like learning to tie his and to be baptized like that night. And so it was just like,
01:26:26
William Arnett
Experiences like that, just feeling like super peaceful, like, and like knowing like, yeah, this is, this is the Lord's work.
01:26:34
Darin Tingey
Yeah, just seeing the change in him and the man he he became as he as he came closer to Christ and accepted Christ.
01:26:36
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:26:43
Darin Tingey
very like So cool, so cool. I love those those true converts that you can really see a difference.
01:26:50
William Arnett
Oh yeah.
01:26:51
Darin Tingey
And then the other final three questions are, was your favorite food from your mission? What was your... favorite area and your favorite thing about the marsh islands or your mission or the
01:27:07
William Arnett
Uh-huh. right, so my favorite food was macuan. you know what Do you remember what that was? It's like the, it was part like the camem dish. It was the like the yellow thing made of pandanus that was like sweet.
01:27:21
William Arnett
you like You like bite the tip off and like you like squeeze it
01:27:24
Darin Tingey
I don't remember that. I don't know if i had that very much.
01:27:27
William Arnett
It was always in like the, because there was always like the buiro, like in like the little plastic bag where they like twist the top.
01:27:32
Darin Tingey
Oh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh.
01:27:34
William Arnett
There was Buiro and then there like the yellow one.
01:27:37
Darin Tingey
Okay, gotcha. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
01:27:39
William Arnett
And so I was actually a big fan of the yellow one, which is kind of different. i don't think many of the others really rocked with that one, but it was definitely my one. And then Aigiu, like coconut and like flour like soup thing, like cooked up.
01:28:01
William Arnett
there's There's like different versions.
01:28:02
Darin Tingey
Different versions.
01:28:02
William Arnett
Whenever people told me about it, they said like, they said, do
01:28:03
Darin Tingey
hey Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There is. There are different versions. Dude, that stuff is so good. I love it. I
01:28:11
William Arnett
that. That was like a nice, like fish was like about that was a good meal.
01:28:16
Darin Tingey
So good. It gives you little stomachache the first time you had it. But yeah.
01:28:21
William Arnett
yeah
01:28:23
Darin Tingey
A little heavy in there. OK, and what was your favorite
01:28:26
William Arnett
Favorite area was ah that, that Dell at back road. So it was from the K and K to the bridge. Cause there's just so many super like cool people.
01:28:36
Darin Tingey
Yeah.
01:28:40
William Arnett
There was like three or four families that we got to teach and baptize. Well, I was like that my last six months there. And then like the members got super close to them. Like that's definitely where i got the closest with,
01:28:51
William Arnett
members and people especially I was there for for six months so like when I think back like I still think of like that like little back road that like 0.3 mile stretch like that was like my home like and that was like my spot yeah
01:29:02
Darin Tingey
lot of people back there.
01:29:04
Darin Tingey
I mean, six months there, like, you gotta just have a huge love for that place and the people there.
01:29:09
William Arnett
oh yeah and I had like the neighborhood like by the like the back of my hand like I had it so like locked down I could tell you like and something about like every single household. Like like i think I knew like near a person, like about a person in every single house.
01:29:23
Darin Tingey
I love that. And they probably remember you, too. All the kids there, for sure remember you.
01:29:27
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:29:29
Darin Tingey
Okay, and then last the last thing was, what's your favorite? favorite thing about the Marshall Islands, Marshall's people, culture?
01:29:37
William Arnett
i It's gotta just be the boy. It's like, like not a ton of other mission ah like or missions. Do I feel like you can just, I mean, obviously you go and like sit and talk to people, but just like the Marshallese boy, but not that was so fun. Like you sit down with either like a boo-boo or like the youth and just sit down. And i just, I love their sense of humor. Like it's like so pure and like so simple, but it just was like those just sitting down and having conversations with the Marshallese people just was always like the highlight of my day. It was just,
01:30:08
William Arnett
Even if the day was kind of bust, you still got to sit down with some super cool people, crack some jokes, and just have a good time, you know?
01:30:16
Darin Tingey
Yeah, everyone's always outside too, so it makes it easier to just walk up to someone and and just sit down and have a conversation.
01:30:20
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:30:24
Darin Tingey
like That just doesn't happen in in America anymore.
01:30:27
William Arnett
Uh-huh.
01:30:30
Darin Tingey
I totally agree with that. That is ah great thing about the Marsh Islands and the island people in general, just always hanging out, telling stories, cracking jokes.
Conclusion and Gratitude
01:30:39
Darin Tingey
Well, Will, this was long overdue given that...
01:30:45
William Arnett
Yeah.
01:30:46
Darin Tingey
You know, we had emailed back and forth a lot of your mission and I ah had lived through you. I'm sure there's a million other things we could have talked about, all the different details of your mission, but it was, seems like it was awesome mission. And this was another great episode of Adelan's podcast.
01:31:06
William Arnett
yeah